[Mean Green Z28]

So f'n douche bag at work got a '07 Subaru Impreza WRX Wagon, and now thinks he's the holy grail of motoring. He says AWD cars (like his WRX, which ofcourse is what god designed himself and put on the dirt road) isn't supposed to be driven on anything else but rallies (just like Ferrari's as supposed to be on the track and not on the road) and cannot be setup for the track and people need to stay off the gas to drive it around an asphalt track and that RWD is where it's at for anything performance oriented 'cos you can bring the ass end around at will. I'm not disagreeing with the RWD part (although I've noticed our f-body's like to understeer) but of course I've never driven an AWD car around a track but from what I've read, heard and seen, AWD's push a lot and have quite a bit of understeer and need more of a nose down attitude to get the handling right and then can be pretty competitive on the track. What say you? If I'm wrong, I'm gonna shut up and cry in a corner (ofcourse, having learned something ... but I ain't telling him, I'll just say I got sand in my eyes .. lol)

so ... does a properly setup AWD like a WRX match, supersede a prepped RWD or will they forever be lagging behind 'cos they belong on the dirt road?

This post has been edited by Mean Green Z28: Dec 27 2007, 05:10 PM

[KeithO]

I was fortunate enough to get to race in a class this year (NASA's PTC) that consisted of me (Firebird), an Audi A4 and a Mustang. The three of us became friendly during the course of the weekend. We compared notes and both the Audi and I were prepared very close to the limit of the rules for the class. The Mustang was lessor prepared. The made the comparison between my Firebird and the A4 interesting. Here are the lap-by-lap results:

http://www.mylaps.com/results/showevent.jsp?id=210503

(Edit: I was car #30 and the Audi was car #11)

In the May 19th race, the Audi out-qualified me and I thought I was toast after the practice and qualifying. However, if you look at the lap times in the race, I was about a second a lap faster. Admittedly, this is MY track but I think the cars can be prepared to be competitive with each other and it will come down to driver and experience.

He was faster in the corners and I just KILLED him on the straights with a stock LT1. It was actually alot of fun.

Just a data point.

This post has been edited by KeithO: Dec 28 2007, 03:06 PM