Hey everyone,
I guess this is a post in response to slipangle's consideration about how the Mazda3 does in the auto-x.
Anyhow, I attended an auto-x hosted by the UBCSCC (Vancouver, Canada) today, despite the car is still literally brand new and just barely broken in. The car is bone stock, with the OEM Eagle RS-A tires at 40psi all around. And the weather was "okay" because the ground was damp in the morning and then it dried up by the afternoon (Temperature was probably less than 10 degrees celsius).
So we had 6 runs in total, 3 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon. I was quite amazed by the minimal amount of understeering experienced at the auto-x. However, one thing i noticed is that during slaloms it required lots more steering effort as the car was quite sluggish to do some quick transitions. But then this can be cured with more pre-turn and just keep the speed constant thru the slalom. Oh... and with some aggressive transitions the tail of the 3 actually broke loose quite easily and can be recovered quickly as well. Some spectators mentioned that there was quite a bit of body roll but I personally didn't find it to be a significant setback. And the brakes worked perfectly so I can't complain.
Let's see... I have driven some heavier cars at the auto-x before and the street tires sometimes lost grip as too much heat built up. But I didn't experience that with the Mazda3 today. Maybe it was due to the cool February temperature in Vancouver. But nonetheless the Eagle RS-A tires provided sufficient grip for the entire day.
So in terms of G-stock the car did pretty well. Though a properly set-up Toyota Celica (w/o R-comps) with an experienced (professional!)autocrosser managed to get ahead of me by 1.3 seconds!!! I think I definitely need to learn more FWD techniques but I suspect the much higher weight of my car was also a major disadvantage.
Okay, here are the results. The first link shows the indexed times of all drivers in the event. And the second link shows the individual results of competitors in each class.
http://www.ubcscc.com/events/2004/SS6/I.TXT
http://www.ubcscc.com/events/2004/SS6/R.TXT
My name is NICK by the way.
Anyhow, I hope there will be more Mazda3's out there at the auto-x!
Cheers!
I guess this is a post in response to slipangle's consideration about how the Mazda3 does in the auto-x.
Anyhow, I attended an auto-x hosted by the UBCSCC (Vancouver, Canada) today, despite the car is still literally brand new and just barely broken in. The car is bone stock, with the OEM Eagle RS-A tires at 40psi all around. And the weather was "okay" because the ground was damp in the morning and then it dried up by the afternoon (Temperature was probably less than 10 degrees celsius).
So we had 6 runs in total, 3 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon. I was quite amazed by the minimal amount of understeering experienced at the auto-x. However, one thing i noticed is that during slaloms it required lots more steering effort as the car was quite sluggish to do some quick transitions. But then this can be cured with more pre-turn and just keep the speed constant thru the slalom. Oh... and with some aggressive transitions the tail of the 3 actually broke loose quite easily and can be recovered quickly as well. Some spectators mentioned that there was quite a bit of body roll but I personally didn't find it to be a significant setback. And the brakes worked perfectly so I can't complain.
Let's see... I have driven some heavier cars at the auto-x before and the street tires sometimes lost grip as too much heat built up. But I didn't experience that with the Mazda3 today. Maybe it was due to the cool February temperature in Vancouver. But nonetheless the Eagle RS-A tires provided sufficient grip for the entire day.
So in terms of G-stock the car did pretty well. Though a properly set-up Toyota Celica (w/o R-comps) with an experienced (professional!)autocrosser managed to get ahead of me by 1.3 seconds!!! I think I definitely need to learn more FWD techniques but I suspect the much higher weight of my car was also a major disadvantage.
Okay, here are the results. The first link shows the indexed times of all drivers in the event. And the second link shows the individual results of competitors in each class.
http://www.ubcscc.com/events/2004/SS6/I.TXT
http://www.ubcscc.com/events/2004/SS6/R.TXT
My name is NICK by the way.
Anyhow, I hope there will be more Mazda3's out there at the auto-x!
Cheers!
