Well, after an 11 year layoff from autocrossing and racing, I decided to take the Coupe out for a regional autocross yesterday with some friends. All I can say is - wow, what a car. Even though I've only had my coupe for 8 months, I have found an even greater level of respect for the chassis and motor in this machine.

Power:
Watching the first group run yesterday into a couple of tight hairpins, I was coming to the conclusion that I would need to downshift into 1st to power out of those particular turns. Well, I was really pleasantly surprised. When you drive it every day to work at suburban road speeds, you sometimes forget what the VQ can really do. Well, after the start and the shift into 2nd, I never had to touch the shifter again. The car was only too willing to slam the power down out of tight turns in 2nd, to the point of giving me a couple of nice power slides out of the same turn on the first two runs. What a blast. With VDC off it really does let you play with the tail quite a bit.

Handling:
This car loves to turn in, even with the stock suspension and the factory understeer. Grip levels are quite impressive for stock tires and it's funny - I notice more body lean on my commute then I did on the autocross course. I was surprised at how easily this big(ish) car can be hustled around a tight, technical course. It really loves to play.

All this translated into a 2nd place finish for me (OK, out of 3 cars ), but I was quite happy, because I got within 1 second of the class leader, who is a regular participant running Kumho Victoracer tires on his Porsche 944 Turbo (gotta be much lighter than the G, right? )

Anyway, I know it's been said here before, but if you haven't yet done this, I would highly recommend attending an autocross event with your G. Even though you may not be as fast as some of the smaller BS cars out there, it's a lot of fun and a great way to learn about the handling limits of the G

Some pics:

 

This weekend, I actually found myself quicker when I left it in 2nd. The weight transfer was too abrupt when I was trying to balance the car with the throttle in first.

 

Is first even tall enough to get around a course? I would think you'd run out of revs, no?

 

Yeah, the G is way to heavy to dream of winning at an auto-X event. On most of the auto-x courses I've run, I usually have to go into second well before the first "braking" turn or I'll bounce off the rev limiter.