I grew up driving dirt back roads and farmer's fields in total **** boxes, NA Mazda 323, and several ford escorts. Those plowing front drivers made you learn to drive in dirt. They taught you about maintaining speed and braking and all sorts of stuff. Now that I have the evo I am much better able to control the car thanks to that time spent destroying those others. The evo is a crutch but if you don't want the crutch get an inferior car and beat on that until you feel you've learned more. I put that time in already and now enjoy not bogging down going up a hill LOL.

 

I agree, the AWD is a bigger crutch for developing bad habits than the power is. Put that same power on a RWD and you'll have your hands full trying to put it to the ground. Being able to stomp on it out of corners reducing modulation skills and have the AWD pull you out of sideways situations when you do get them is certainly something you should remember when going to RWD.

 

the awd, brakes and suspension gives you confidence.... But at the same time, you can get overly confident and thats when you see threads like

" i took a turn going 90, crashed and rolled 17 times"


As far as power, any car can be fast, its just putting it all together. Thats why 300hp evos are keeping up with 500hp vipers on the track in vids....

Cheers!

 

After only three events in five days so far this season, I can honestly say that the Evo is quite a significant crutch. While not necessarily the easiest car for everyone to drive, I have a very strong hunch that if I were to trade cars with my friend in his s2000 who consistently finishes ahead of me, he could broaden our gap significantly. Instead for now, I am slightly closing the gap.

 

I autocrossed an GTO and now the EVO X. Before I had the GTO I had an 8 MR but i never tracked that car. But to my point, I for one absolutely do not feel that the EVO is a crutch. not tring to start an argument here with anyone but it seems that the only people who say that the evo is a crutch came from **** boxes. I feel that if you start with the EVO and plan to stick with that car and learn HOW to drive an EVO. it is absolutely not a crutch......however once you go back to a RWD or FWD car that would be a diffrent story altogether

 

Sometimes the very characteristics that make an Evo easy to drive pretty fast make it difficult to drive really fast, whereas a more traditional RWD set-up is a little more flexible by its nature (in both good and bad ways).

 

IF you want to be the best driver on a race track you can be....don't start with an Evo. I was considered fairly fast in TTA in my Evo, but getting up to speed in my TTA prepped CRX is humbling. The evo made me lazy through the corners because you have fat loads of torque on demand. The CRX has a lot of power (220 to the wheels at 2000 pounds), but no torque, and I have to hustle the car. My poor driving habits have me leaving a LOT on the table with this car. AS I get up to speed with it I'll be faster than I was in the evo though. IF I had to do it all over again I would have never toched an Evo. Would have started out with a honda challenge 4 car, then moved up to a D-mod E-36 M3. The Evo is the easiest car out there to drive on a race track, which makes poor drivers feel like gods...which is dangerous as hell. In 2005-2007 more Evos went upside down or into walls at california tracks than almost any other mark....

 

I call that the "Fast and Furious" effect.

 

+1000000. Well said.

 

I kinda feel you on the not starting out with the Evo and it does make bad drivers look good. I'm trying to counter balance that by running very low boost.

My last trackday a few weeks ago I only ran 13lbs of boost and the instructor actually gave me kudos for doing it .