Is there a track near western NY? haha.. or even in the toronto area?

 

Dude, Watkins Glen!


You see it all the time at the track. The inexperienced guys are inevitably driving a souped up car, only to have the track ace piloting a Honda Civic catch them in the twisties.

 

HAHAHA! I see the bug has bitten you hard too. Since my first track experience I can't stop thinking about my next time out. Going to the track severely rearranges your modification priorities. I went into my first event lusting after a Buschur Stage 5 install (I'm at stage 3). Now I want better brakes, R compound tires, coilovers. Oh yeah, winning the lottery wouldn't be bad so I could become a full time track *****...

 

Yes, the bug has bit me and I think I have an allergic reaction LOL.

 

A stock Evo isn't really that fast.... 98-102 is average for a sports car... Now when you star modding the fun begins and it is a totally different ballgame...

 

This is the typical American drag racer's response lol. This car is not too much to handle in a flat straight line on a 1/4 mile with a nice shutdown area and 10 mph on the return road. That said, it's _WAY_ too much car in most other situations for most people IMHO. If you think you can cruise the freeway chatting on the celly with the radio up, hit a rut & not fly across 3 lanes & go into a ditch, you are wrong. If you think you can lose the tail at speed in a turn and recover easily, you are wrong. This car is not forgiving at all during normal driving on freeways at speed or on rural bumpy roads at medium or higher speeds. It is also not forgiving if you ever get it crossed up anything faster than 1st gear. Don't drive this car 10/10 unless you have some driving schools, track days, and auto-x's under your belt. I thought I knew how to drive before I took the ::edited:: ...ignorance was bliss...now I know...

 

I laugh when people take their Evo's to a drag strip, click off an 11 or 12 second pass and call it a "sport". Granted, there is some skill involved, but nowhere near what it takes to keep the concentration going for even a little half hour hot lapping session. All you have to worry about when you're drag racing is blowing your car up and/or hitting the wall. When you're at a real track, you have to worry about blowing your car up, hitting the wall, ending up in the grass, is this guy in the Vette behind me going to pass me on the outside or the inside?, should I try to trailbrake on this one?, how late should I brake for this turn?, Oh, that's what brake fade is...OH, ****!

Hell, even when I'm on the track, I don't go 10/10ths.
My favorite part of a track event is driving home.

 

I agree with most of the points you made but I feel that for a skilled driver, the car is VERY easy to recover from a tail happy slide. Then again that may be 20 years of driving experience talking. In my experience the Evo, in stock form, is very predictable when asked to step outside the limits.

But to your point, the Evo requires much more focus and attention to driving than other cars. Also, I think because the car is so easy to drive at 7/10s, it makes noobs feel comfortable pushing the envelope. The problem is that they don't have the skills to be operating above 7/10s and get into trouble.

 

The Evo is very friendly beyond its limits, not like a z06 which can be a monster if you goof. Setting the tire pressures high in the rears will allow you to explore the tail happiness of the Evo. It shocked me how easily i could hold a slide in it.

 

wow, then you gotta be a expert at drag racing then
i think it takes skill for both events.. some enjoy drag racing, some enjoy track racing, some enjoy drifting, and rallying... different strokes for different folks...

you could say drifting are failed autox'ers , and autox'ers are poor because they can't afford to track race, and the majority of track racers are just rich pocketmodders that can't tune their cars if their lives depended on it and that draggers cant do anything but drive straight... that's not a good way to look at things... might as well say nascar doesnt take skill because you only turn one way

 

I must've come off the wrong way. I really admire the amount of prep and tuning that goes into running an 11 or 10 second pass, I'm just not too crazy about waiting around all day to just get less than a minute of track time.

About your other analogies, most of them don't make sense. Drifting requires intense concentration, Auto-X calls for great car control (considering the car is constantly changing direction) and track racing is...well, expensive compared to auto-x and drag racing, but it's what I like. You can't really drive fast on the street after you've been to a track day. There isn't really much of a point, if you ask me. (But no one did)

 

The guys who bag on drag racing are correct that it is mindlessly easy to simply go down the dragstrip. However, they are wrong when talking about competitive (money) drag racing. Because in a class where horsepower wins races, science and perfection play HUGE roles. In a class where horsepower is not necessarily what wins races (bracket racing) driver skill, strategy, and EXTREME repeatability come into play. And that race is much less forgiving than a 30 minute road race that gives plenty of time to correct for errors. 10 or 11 seconds (average) is not much time to be less than perfect. I love road racing but I depend on drag racing (NHRA/IHRA) for almost a third of my yearly income. While I have fun going around corners, I take the straight line seriously.

 

my analogies are based on sterotypes people categorize racing(a bit of sarcasm also )
drifting = using the slowest technique possible in taking a turn (on tarmac)
autox = racing around orange cones around a k-mart parking lot
track = all you see are vettes, porches, ect. owned by rich bastards
drag = only goes straight by stepping on the gas and shifting right?

 

I don't drag race, but have autocrossed for more than a few years. Anyone who thinks is it just dodging cones (Drag and track racers) can come out to play anytime. We can always use the higher body count.

In all fairness, each modality of racing takes a skill set all its own. Do some cross over to other, of course. AutoXers generally can make the move to road racing and do well after a short period to adjust for the slower pace of things (Not race pace, but that the maneuvers are not so tightly linked.
There is a skill in going fast on a road course, and a lot of the AutoX tools can be used there. The converse is not necessarily true. A great road racer does not always make a great AutoXer. a lot of the higher level skills used in road racing can not be directly applied to an autox track where you rarely get out of 2nd gear. The pace is more frenetic, and any small mistake will cost you it all. In track racing unless that mistake is in the last couple of laps, you have time to try to make it up.
Drifting is a whole other planet from either of those, and drag racing, while it does not involve any turns, has a specific set of skills as well.

I think of all of these, the EVO is easily the most suited to the first 2. The EVO was never envisioned as a drag car, so to say that the 13.x et 10x.xmph capabilities of a stock EVO are average does not mean near as much as saying in equally skilled hands it will lap willow springs at the same pace as most Corvettes, Porsches, and Vipers (Stock for stock). Plus it can actually carry 4 people.

To each his own I say, but do not disparage me because I have yet to do a power mod on the car, but have spent plenty on suspension that a lot of people say is pretty much right there out of the box. Sure, my car still only runs 13.x on the drag strip. To all you drag guys who think that sucks, Lets go for one drag race, and one average autocross run, and add together the time. Chances are I will beat you silly 9 times out of 10.

Back to the initial question now.

Is the EVO more car than most people can handle, I do not think so. I think that most of the average owners will never push the EVO to a fraction of what they are capable of. So I would agree that the average driver may get himself into trouble, but I am not thinking it is due to the car being too much. Generally those situations are a matter of the driver being too little.

 

^^all very true. i autox'ed a type R for one year and an S2000 for two. if you've never tried it, you'd be AMAZED at how much skill is required to compete with the best drivers in any region, let alone at nationals.

question though: it doesn't seem that the evo would be competitive especially in A-stock. no low end torque, hard to launch without blowing the tranny, etc. also, how do you negotiate the hairpins with such a large turning radius?