I wanted to provide a quick recap and review of the cars I had the opportunity to test drive at the last BIR event on the 2.5 mile competition road course. It was the first time I've ever seen this many MNSubaru member's come out to BIR at one time. I had the honor of meeting and working with such great people on my last track day at BIR for the season, which really made it a fun filled day. I'd also like to praise them for having the courage to step forward and take on one of the best opportunities to learn more about their cars. Kudo's to you all. These are in random order and does not specify any ranking among the group, but I will point out which one was my favorite out of the five. I'll also be leaving out the names of the owners allowing them the opportunity to chime in and provide some feedback of their own if they choose to. I may have some of the car's descriptions wrong but I'll do my best to come close. 05 Blue STI - What I remembered the most while sitting in the passenger seat was how much fun it was to watch you drive around BIR in a Rally style manner. You showed a lot of confidence and was pretty much ready for almost anything. What I liked about your car was the stock feel, that's right, the car didn't require much from the driver to get around the 2.5 mile track. The ultimate challenge for majority of these cars of course is the carousel. She did struggle there but that's to be expected. So what's so special about your car, I think your driving style makes her come alive, especially when we're talking about fun. I had no issues with the brakes as they were consistent for me the whole time. 07 Marron WRX Sedan - This car struggled in the carousel but I was able to manipulate it by jabbing at the brakes with my left foot, this helped rotate the car around. Everywhere else the car performed as expected. The only thing I'd change is help get the car to breath better as the engine struggled at mid and on top of the rev's. Other than that I really enjoyed driving it. 08 Black WRX Wagon - Sway bars, NF Tune and Hawk HP+, I really like the way the power was delivered on this car. Nuke had called the night before and had provided me an update prior to the event and had informed me he had trimmed down the power and leveled out the power curve. This was really noticeable considering the car was on stock suspension but with stiffer sway bars and rolling on soft All Season tires. The under steer in the carousel was not as easy to manage but I think once the rear sway bars are adjusted she should rotate better. I also really liked how the short shifter felt, nice and tight and crisp shifts. Currently the brake pads are a bit more aggressive for the setup but it does really help with managing the under steer. 04 Black STI - Lots of high usable power, BC Racing Coil overs (factory setting), Project U pads and small tires. The car was for the most part fairly easy to drive fast once we dropped some tire pressures from the rear the overseer was very controllable and you no longer needed to come off the power. The power can very easily overwhelm these 225 tires. I decided it was best to not mess with the suspension as stiffening them would only cause more heat into the tires causing them to overheat. There's still a lot left in this car and with the right setup combination you should be able to find a place under the 1:50 mark easily. 08 Silver WRX Sedan - Plain Jane I'd like to call her. Bone stock from what I could remember. From my memory this is probably the only Stock WRX Subaru I've driven around BIR that I was impressed with. The suspension was just right, the stock tires maintained grip even after many laps. But I especially enjoyed taking this car around the carousel. The term "Throttle lift oversteer" comes into play. All you do is come in hot, set up the front tires, come off the power and the back end comes around. Then what you do next is slowly squeeze the power back to make a beautiful rotation. This is my pick of the five as the car was very easy to drive fast and was very predictable. I didn't exhibit any tires or brakes exhaustion. I just wanted to make a few more notes here. I hope this opportunity has help opened a few eyes and hope your car has earned your respect. You can answer this question to yourself after this experience, "is there more you need to do to the car other then learning how to drive it?" Also these cars all came with different variations of brake compounds, all of which I've heard the owners expressing concerns of over heating or getting soft. Although I didn't experience them myself I would like to emphasis technique and compound. Often people buy into what they've read, which in most cases is great, but not always true to the T. But something you won't find in these reviews is the way they feel. For example some pads feel like a brick under heavy braking and there's very little or no threshold feedback when applying pressure. Then there's those that allow precision braking technique, the driver can dial in exactly how much pressure to slow the car down to the precise friction point and apply more quicker or slow to comp the engaging turn-in point just before locking up. Having this advantage not only allows for better performance but will also help you stay consistent as your equipment fades. Again Many Thanks to those who came out to play, I look forward to seeing you guys again and many more next season. -Cheech
Not in for the 26th? My codriver and I will be up there in the RS...finally. Should be fun with the new setup!
Chong it was great to learn some new stuff from you. It was even better watching you push the car more than I was able to. I agree more seat time on the track will be a very good thing for me to do next year. I doubt this matters but I was running stock tires for my car a 2009 wagon... Dunlop SP Sports, they are a summer tire. Short shifter was a stock SPT SS setup.
Oh boy, I wish I could but I have too much going on in Sept and Oct already. I would really enjoy spending a track day with other seasoned drivers as there's still much I could learn from these opportunities. Also it would've been awesome to have both our Black RS with yours at the track. We just finished out our shaved Toyo RA1's, they worked great and lasted three season. I got some used heat cycled Hoosiers for our Big event at Barber Motorsports in Oct for last min testing and I wasn't pleased. They do not hook up as nicely and you do not want to dive too deep into the corners as I've found out from my recent testing. What size are you running by the way? It would be interesting to hear what you think of those NT01's. We did a side by side comparison of the two last season at Road America. Enjoy and let me know how the event goes. Maybe next year with a coordinated efforts we can be at an event together. Thanks, -Cheech
Derek - Thanks for taking the time to provide a personal feedback of your first track experience. You're off to a great start, like I said because of your experience level - novice, you haven't learned any or few bad habits when it comes to driving fast. There is a thing I call the "AWD syndrome." Which you haven't shown any signs of yet. I think what you just pointed out says wonders about your car, running on stock tires was a lot of fun and was plenty fast. Great job!
I just wanted to add another foot note regarding the Power delivery of the NF tuned STI pushing close to 500whp. Something that may often not be noticed by most drivers. What you'll find is not only is the power very useful and useable, it also helps level the balance of the car. Imagine riding on an air plane, from the run way you feel the lift as it climbs into the sky and soon the plane levels out and the nose is in line with the rest of the plane. Same principle here. Upon which point you start to apply power as you dial it in the front of the car start to lift as expected, but once you're WOT the car levels out and this helps maintain forward grip on all four and put the power down. The reason why this works is simply because the power band is long, linear and isn't constantly trying to throw you back into your seat. Now that's just the second most important part, the most important part is how having a stable car will help set you upf ro the next corner. Having the right tune to suite your playground will give you a great advantage over your completion. Being able to dial in the power to the exact N'th power thru your foot while having a limited amount of grip is an amazing feeling.
Thanks again, Chong, for providing some valuable lessons (and nearly making me hurl my lunch on turn 12 in your RS ). Mine was the red WRX. I've never gotten so much seat time in on one day, and for a very good price. Definitely want to make it out a couple times at least next year and learn more pavement skills. It was very different from racing around in the dirt. As for gaining more breathability, I've been procrastinating too much and just need to finally get a turbo-back installed. I'm also planning on upgrading the suspension next year, along with sways and endlinks. She's completely stock parts-wise, besides a K&N drop-in and STi axleback. It was impressive seeing how much smoother you handled her around the track. I tend to try to muscle it around the corners, but using less steering and more throttle and braking input should help smooth it out like you said. With rallycross, we want to turn in sooner and cut the corners sharper, to get the car to whip around. I look forward to having another session with you in the future!
Anytime Brian, the honor was mine. I often feel out of place at most of the event's I'm involved with, but you guys help made me feel right at home. Sorry about the lunch thingy, I'm very conscious of how fast I should allow myself to drive when I have passengers. The new tires aren't as fun as the shaved Toyo RA1's on the WI Black RS, I think you'd probably would've hated that ride even more. Back in July after we had just exchanged suspension with Fuji's car and he had came up to help me get them dialed in. He refused to ride with me for the rest of the day after the first session in the morning (9am). He was not looking nor feeling good for the rest of the day; I felt really bad. But he was still willing to be my umbrella girl! Oh and by the way that was with 165hp at the fly. Not to compare sizes here but you're definitely a lot bigger guy than I, and if you happen to notice I was driving with an open hand or more like with my fingers. Try that next time you're at one of your dirt rally events it might help. I'm up there quite a bit so just let me know in advance, it would be a treat to get another group of cool kat's back up there. Next time I'll follow you guys around the track with my car so I can give you a different perspective. Often driver's will change their driving behavior when there's no instructor riding shot gun with them. LOL
SORRY for the late reply. First off, big thanks to Chong (Musashi) for being a great guy and helping these fellows out. Even though I wasn't there to watch and experience the fun these guys had, it was pretty sweet to hear the feedbacks personally them. It was surprising to hear from Chong himself that the 08 was his favorite. Matt's car has been my favorite for a long time (except the new honda sound he's rocking now lol). I've only tuned it and haven't been in his car around the course. And no batteries in the go pro makes me sad Hopefully next time (if there is one), I get to roll out with these guys and have some fun.
awesome thread, and great feeback. I'm plan on making a few changes to my setup and getting much needed new tires...and I WILL be out at the track next spring!
Finally found some time to sign on to the boards. I had the Blue STI ('05 actually) I wanted to thank Chong, as well as the rest of the folks up at BIR. This was an awesome experience! My first for road-track, pavement driving is a little different then dirt, and I was able to learn a lot. I think some of this will even carry over to RallyX and help me improve my driving on all surfaces. Towards the end there I found that 2-3 hot laps then a quick cool down really helped keep the brake fluid from over heating and getting the mushy peddle. (note to anyone thinking about running this in the future dont go with OEM up grade your brake fluid). I had a blast riding with you! I also would like to apologize to the other instructor Tom, I think i might have broken rule #1 "dont scare the driver!" when I put the car into a bit of a slide on turn 11. I would really like to get more trips up there and focus more on the precision and getting my skills. This being my first time i kind of got sucked into just having fun then really focusing on improving oh and videos should hopefully be up this weekend!
I choose the 08 Sedan for multiple reasons. Functionality, reliability, practicality and most importantly how difficult was it for the average Joe or an intermediate driver to engage the vehicle if they were doing 3 track events per year, drove to work, had a family and used it in the MN winter. I'm not talking about what I think Joe would like but what I would've liked if I had a third of the skills I have today. The owner was relaxed while driving on the track, in a smooth manner allowing his vehicle to engage each transition at it's paces. The only thing I did differently was I introduced weight transfer into the equation making the car rotation even quicker not upsetting the car's ability to maintain traction on the racing surface. Clearly on paper between the 08 WRX and 04 STI; the STI would dominate on the track and on every category at a performance level. But an event that transpired on Monday would set most of you back in your seats. Not to offend anyone here, but the 08 made a pass on the STI. Yes, the STI had to move over to allow the stock WRX to pass. How is this possible? There's many types of drivers I've met, but the two most common when it comes to AWD is A: very aggressive. B: Cautious yet assertive. Type A: Over driving the tires with the abundance of power on board, drag racing style shifting technique, has developed some bad traits behind the wheel due to the AWD system, not patient with the car and expecting too much from the car. **All the speed gained from the power was lost coming into the turn, from braking too early, too long, turning in too quick, putting too much power down too early causing the tires to break loose, ect. Type B: Chooses to drives at an novice level, slowing putting the pieces together, confident behind the wheel of their car, open to learning and is tentative to the info presented. The conclusion: 08 WRX driver figured it out very quickly after my morning drive, I am always very careful about how much I show my students in the morning, I like to just give them a level or two above they're comfort level and allow them to show me they are ready for more. Hope you guys are not offended but this was a perfect example of what takes place all to often at these events which is carried thru from the Internet world.
Oh you got the wrong instructor for that. LOL I would've totally enjoyed it. It was nice to get another opportunity to work with you and drive your nice car again.
I know it really opened my eyes when the stock 08 WRX with the smallest turbo and softest suspension of the group was passing some of us (mostly me).... on All Season Tires. A good driver > more power. I guess I need to work on the driver part, maybe I will see less of the 08 Sedan in my rear view mirror.
We went with 255s to go with the 9" wheels... Excited to see how they work, too bad I will not get another chance to drive this year. Hopefully, I will get a half dozen events in next year.
Ok, I finally have a laptop that I can edit video with. Here is the footage that I shot from BIR last fall. It is a bit long (18 minutes) but I did cut down a days worth of video (3 memory cards). The cool thing was that we were bumped to the advanced group right away. This was good for two reason. 1. It allowed us to be on the track with less people. 2. It makes for a better video when everyone is passing me. Then you can see all of the cool cars.... LOL. Honestly, I was doing my best to just work on my lines and improve on my driving. I did my best to care less about the people out driving the crap out of me. I tired to just let them pass and continue to work on myself. It is pretty easy to see the benefit of seat time at the track. HP doesn't mean anything if you can't drive. * I used a friends Hero1 for this video. I just picked up a Hero2 and shot some video this weekend. It is crazy how much better the Hero2 is. Color and sound is 10 fold better. I'll post up that video once it is edited down.
Perfect timing mr. D aka "Likes", the premier we've been all waiting for "The F5", I know this will hold us until the Avenger's debut on the big screen on May 5th. I shall get some popcorn, candy and perhaps a drink while I enjoy this movie. Many thanks!
I'm sooo mad I lost all my video files when my hard drive dumped on me. I had some good tire squealing and tank slapping. We need to get the group back up there this year!!
Big J little tree wants another go at you guys, so who wants some? Hey he even down graded to give y'all a chance. This time only one pass lol
I feel left out. There was only 1 other Subaru there when I went. I was stuck with the noobies 90% of the day.
I'm sure you're just as curious as I am about to how the F5 Team was able to jump into the Advance group so quickly and utilize their whole day on the track. Either they're special...or someone's was out of their mind
Don't get me wrong now, I just didn't feel it was wise to exploit my Jet Li skills with F5 vs 1 little guy. Especially w/Jacky Chan not being there and all. But on a serious note if there's enough interest, with some pre-planning and commitment I'm sure we can pull off another one and hopefully with a lot more drivers this time. I'm up there already anyway, so if someone would like to take the lead on it it would be awesome.
When I was up there I ended up doing my first two runs without an instructor, and then my instructor didn't come back after lunch!
You don't need an instructor I don't think you'd enjoy having someone with the remote to the shock collar within ear shot tell you what to do now would ya? But if you insist there's always next time lol Very sorry to hear you weren't looked after sir, must of been very discouraging.
MAY 21st...marked down on my calender already for the track! WOOT! Okay so I'm a little excited! I still would love to go up and be in a nice Subaru group!
hmm I'll have to put some serious heavy thought into that. I'm not sure if your "A" means the same thing as mine
Can't fathom tracking anything remotely stock. It just seems so poorly suited for the task. You destroy the outside edges of the tires, cook the brakes, and can't feel a thing in the car near the limit. It just seems so...dangerous.
I ran my stock 08. all season P6 and a stage one tune and a cbe if you consider that upgrades then I guess I wasn't stock. The brakes held up fine brake fade was noticable, tires got kinda slick after 5 or 6 laps, tmic got heat soak quickly. At the end of the day drove home and had a smile from ear to ear.
Lmao too funny, reality must really suck. Aggressive egotistic drivers will cause their equipment to wear prematurely factory or not.
I'm not talking about wear specifically. I'm just saying how poorly suited the product is in stock form for that kind of activity. It's very far from optimized and you will just create problems driving the car in that environment. It's even dangerous to drive at that level in a stock trim car because the brakes fade so very easy and the soft bushings cut out almost all information to the driver. This isn't about being able to drive the car fast. You can take any car to the track and drive it. I'm just saying Subarus are terribly suited for the purpose in stock form. Now you could certainly drive the car very lightly at the track and create a good margin of safety and keep heat down and wear down and simply have fun, but you really can't push the car up to the limit and stay there without things failing on you or your having trouble being precise or all that safe with the car. These cars aren't all that good just driving straight down the highway. I know that sounds silly, but they are kind of pretty bad versus other products. There's just too much mush, and the car will wander aimlessly because of it. You have no feeling of anything, so it will do it without you realizing it until you feel the entire car shift around or you see the car wandering off center. Then all the inputs are vague, so you're applying a lot of steering input and correction to make small changes rather than the tiny inputs to the tiny changes that are actually happening hidden under all the squish and isolation. Driver skill and experience will make up for shortcomings, and yes, you can dial back your driving to suit any constraints of any particular car. I'm just not talking about simply being able to drive car X on the track. I'm talking about being able to go fast, keep going fast, and doing so without fail and with excellent precision and control. You just can't do that well in a car that will obliterate the stock or all-season tires, the stock or near stock organic or mild ceramic pads. You can't be precise with a car with so many mushy rubber parts in between everything. Everything is so vague, disconnected, and delayed that it really isn't all that safe once you're up around the limit. You can only drive well with your eyes because all the feeling isn't there. There's minimal sensation through the seat of the pants, minimal sensation through the steering wheel. What you do feel is heavily damped and delayed. Your inputs for corrections will be late, and you have to over apply the inputs and over correct just to counter these soft, squishy parts. It's not good, not good at all. Lol at the driver skill bashing. I'll be the first to admit that I can improve. I can always improve. I've also driven cars way too fast ever since I got my license over 15 years ago. I taught myself to drift for fun using very crappy, unsuited vehicles. I had an old 89 Lesabre and an old 88 Ford Ranger, rwd with a tiny 2.0L Toyota motor that maybe put 50hp to the ground that I learned to drift with. This was just me being a kid messing around with what I had. I enjoy gravel, snow, and freezing rain and will drive in these environments on purpose, slide around and have fun. I've done auto-x and rally-x for the last 5 years. I'm not stating that I'm good or bad. I've certainly learned a skill set along the way. I can apply that skill set to the best of my ability and attempt to push a car to what it can seemingly do within my scope of understanding. Where I end up relative to others depends. Everyone has different knowledge sets, preferences, and will apply them different. I've learned a good deal about the science of cars, suspension tuning, and good a reasonable feel about what I can mod and how I can tune to get the car to behave certain ways. I've spent time modding my old, blue Forester into something I didn't have to fight driving. I modded it so I don't have to be near full lock in just to neutral out a slide. I wanted something neutral, stable, and competent. I wanted precision and immediacy in handling. I wanted something that would be happy at the limit. I evolved it into something that is ridiculously easy to drive, almost mindlessly easy, something that just did what you asked it to do and gave you no guff afterwards. The car is never done because there's always more things to improve upon. Now I have a FXT that I will be starting to race, first rally-x next weekend in fact. Comparatively it's a terrible handling car. It's much less stable, much less precise, is much slower in corners, and does stupid stuff. There's very little information transmitted and it will understeer or oversteer depending on inputs. Alignment is not set up well for cornering. The brakes are an upgrade with Brembos, yay for much less knockback, but boo for oem kind of bite and modulation. The pad for whatever reason absolutely hates water too. I'll let it do what it can do for the environment, but it's not a good setup at all. It's not a car I feel is competent in auto-x or rally-x other than having some hp that will let it get up to speed quickly after it corners slowly. It's not a car I would enjoy tracking as much as I could because it is not set up for the task. You think this is a lack of driver skill, an ego, or whatever. I know you guys are just being humorous. I am simply stating that for an environment, a car should be set up well for that environment to let the driver actually perform better and more safely. Stock is a terrible format. I've done stock. I raced stock. It's not good. Poorly modded is just as bad. Track driving is quite dangerous because if you mess up, you're doing so at high speed. If things go wrong, they go wrong in a bad way. I haven't been to BIR. Some tracks are quite safe and offer a ton of run off so you don't get hurt or damage the car. Backing off slightly can introduce a high level of safety. You do have to back off though and stay backed off in order to not damage the car or introduce too much risk. Is this fun? Sure. It can still be fun. I just don't think it could be as fun as it could be. I think you're giving up some of what the hobby offers if you are constraining your experience for the sake of the car. I'd much rather have a car built for the task because it allows me as a driver to manipulate it under a wider breadth and really push the car up to the limits of the car and the course. I think it's more fun when you can really play with a car rather than feeling constrained and fighting the car every step of the way or feeling unsafe because you aren't really sure what they car will do nor how you should correct it if it does step out of line. There is certainly challenge there and skills to be learned. I'd much rather teach someone with a less than ideal car because one learns a lot when they have to work at it to get the car to go fast. I'd rather throw someone in a car that understeers and then tell them to make it not through whatever input means they can think of. Test, trial and error, manipulate the car and compensate. Get it to do what you want it to do. Repeat, improve, get precise. Then I'd throw them in a car that snap oversteers and tell them to make it not oversteer. Step through a wide array of driver inputs, trial and error, and get the car under control. Repeat, improve, get precise. Once the skills are learned, improve the car. Develop a car that you don't have to fight and will just do what you ask without fuss. I'd repeat everything through a wide range of cars and traits: under powered, over powered, weak brakes, strong brakes, linear versus non-linear suspension/brakes/power, tons of body roll, no body roll, soft, stiff, springy, heavily damped, low grip, high grip, different grip transitions, etc... Build a diverse skill set and a breadth of experience. At the end of the day though I'd rather have a car that won't fail on my and a car that will actually tell me things. Minimally, I'd prefer to have good summer tires that will not chunk/melt and disintegrate rapidly, pads that won't fade and become useless after just a few hard brakes, and have upgraded bushings/mounts in order to transmit a wealth of information to the driver. This transmission of information is a huge deal because it promotes rapid learning, exponentially faster, as well as higher safety through immediate communication.
Nice novel I know you have a lot to share, I know you've done this and that, but some may take offense to how you have described the limitations of their beloved Subaru. +85% of the cars that participate at these hpde events are stock with no changes from the factory. In competition there's a stock class. We have a retired couple that comes to our BIR events annually, she loves tearing up the track in her stock WRX. Although she's not breaking any records she is having a blast and is in the intermediate run group and have yet to roll it over. At the end of a three day track event she's able to drive it back home safely to WI on the same tires and brakes. I think the most people I've loaded into our BIR suv's is seven. I will usually tell them we're doing 6/10th but in actuality its more like 8/10th. The brakes don't fade and the tires get changed every two years. I'm not going to encourage anyone to do anything stupid with their cars here especially when I'm riding shot gun. But I will tell you almost any car can be safely driven at its limit if you drive with your head. I'd rather drive a mini van blistering fast around the track then a poorly setup so called track car. You have six senses learn to utilize them all.
Stock classes in racing shouldn't exist. They are too...dangerous. Great right up Chong. Glad that everyone had a great time! And that was one fast Ginger in that video.
seat time is seat time..thats the way I look at things. I only drive what I know I can and my car can handel, not all people drive that way hence why some have more car problems than others. driving smart is key.
There is no compensation for driving experience. You can put a bad driver in a good car, and he will drive it poorly. You can put a good driver in a terrible car, and he can drive the doors off the thing up to the limits of physics itself. I have little interest in discussing driver skill. My point was never about that, although everyone wants to naturally get into that as a byproduct of the driver vs. hardware thing. Good hardware doesn't make a good driver. It never has. However, it's also silly to ignore hardware as some sort of metal of honor for driver skill. A good driver will be faster in a better car. A good driver will also have a higher margin of safety in a car that is well suited for the physical demands and well sorted for handling and performance. These are all good things. I mean why do you buy winter tires in winter? Does it make you less hard core because you're not trying to run summers on ice? It's not a "haha, you modded your car, so you must be a bad driver" thing. I think it's more stupid not to mod the car to make it safer and better suited for the task. You're just asking for trouble if you don't. This isn't tossing $10k at a car to make it track monster. It's about tossing a few hundred dollars at a car to address a few, key areas that are weak spots for that car in this environment and that can sacrifice your safety. My focus is on the car and what it can physically do stock versus what it can physically do with very few, key mods. There are significant shortcomings with the car. The stock organic pads will fade easily. They just do. It's just their physical ability. You can drive lightly and keep them below that point, and if you chose to do that, fine. You won't barrel into a corner and have no brakes. That's just smart driving and working within the limits of the car. Do you want the car to limit you? The stock alignment is not good for the tires in a sport environment. The outsides will wear vastly quicker. You'll still have a pile of tread left on the inside and see cords on the outside. Yay for tossing away half your tire. The soft bushings and mounts hide everything from the driver and heavily disconnect them from the actual driving experience. You don't feel the tires biting, squirming, and losing traction. You see the world rotate out the front window, and at that point the car's already been sliding for a short while. Then you have to correct, but your inputs will be delayed and under applied due to all the mushy rubber. You provide harder inputs both at a much higher pace and amplitude than you actually need to. Then you have to wait and see if the inputs were correct. You don't feel them immediately because you feel almost nothing. You have to wait and see. Once you read how the correction affected the car, you can apply more corrections as needed. It's slow and arduous. It's also a massive amount of trial and error which creates massively slow learning when you're trying to work out the limits and behavior of a car. These things in my eyes are very dangerous once you put speed into the equation. These are the kinds of things that will bite you in the rear if you're not careful. I'll give a small example. My old Forester has had most of its bushings and mounts swapped out. There's a significant amount more of vibration in the car, feel, information, communication. Through this I could much more quickly learn the car's behavior and limits. It's very interesting translating this back to cars still running the softer bits. A friend of mine was driving my brother's FXT. He was dinking around, changing lanes, having fun but also being a bit of a bone head. He swerved back into the right lane after passing slow car on the left. He didn't provide the proper steering input required to correct the car after quickly moving back into the right lane. He was going to run up onto the curb. I reached over and turned the steering wheel slightly to correct the car. I did this because I knew better. I couldn't feel or see the error, but I've already experienced a much more pure and communicative car. I know what the car is actually doing underneath even though I can not sense it. To the actual driver of the car, it was all oblivious because the information wasn't there and when he would actually see that he wasn't where he thought he should be after his incorrect input, he may or may not have had the time to keep the car off the curb. Even now with my FXT, I find myself doing the same things. It needs upgraded bushings and is very vague and indirect. I'll sit there and provide inputs into the car to correct things I know are happening but I can't feel or see, and I know anyone else driving the car would not know these things nor react to anything happening till after the delay and eventual visual change before realizing a correction needs to be made. You think I'm just whining about the cars for no reason. I whine because I know better. I whine because I don't want people to crash, mess up their cars, and hurt themselves wondering why things magically happened. Unfortunately it only takes one little mistake to have a pretty bad day when you're playing around at highway speeds. Even if we're not taking about safety or precision, just plain fun factor is limited moderately when you don't feel like you're directly interacting with the car. You're really not directly linked to the car in stock form. You feel so very little of what's going on and everything you do is delayed. This isn't to say that you can not have fun with a stock car. Stock cars can be a lot of fun. I enjoy almost everything I drive regardless of setup. But, it could be a lot better. Would you rather drive a car and feel directly connected to what's going on and feel like every tiny input you do is immediately important or feel like you're just along for the ride in your rolling couch and watching the world go by in front of you?
