Has the CVT won in AX?

[gomarlins3]

To be honest, the MINI will be a better autoX car. There is a reason that HS is dominated by the MINI at the national level.

Having said that, we aren't talking about the national level here are we? I won HS here (CVT) this past year over a Mazda3. Of the 10 events that we went head to head, I won 7 times. We were both on r-comps. Overall Points

I took 13th over-all in PAX for the season: Pax Championship Points

Now what I learned is this- the CR-Z (CVT) is extremely boring on most courses. It is very difficult to pick up any real time throughout the day as you can not really use the gas to steer (wanted oversteer) or accelerate any earlier (causes understeer). Many courses for me were full throttle, full brakes, full throttle, full brakes, etc. No real challenge there especially after running a SCed S2000 for many years. Thought it might be nice to run a slow car fast.... it wasn't.

Enough about me. The other thing I learned was that it comes down to the drivers in the Mazda3 and CR-Z debate. As I said, I beat the other guy often, however his son usually drives a kart, but his kart broke at one event so he used his dad's Mazda3 for his final kart run (kind of like a fun run) and the son put 1.5 seconds on us with one run. Better driver= better times.

The CR-Z could be fun to autoX I guess if you don't mind finishing at the bottom of the RAW time list at each event. The HS PAX s nice, but falling back on PAX gets old after awhile (at least for me). Going back to the S2K or the Boxster next year.

[bluesight]

Agreed! (with all...)

The Insight has been nice because it's possible to place locally when most (well some) folks tend to laugh and ask why I even brought it to the race at all. And, in general, it is a fun conversation piece. Driving it is pretty much like you describe for the CRZ...foot to the floor - brake (but not much) - foot to the floor. And I'm not likely to FTD any time soon.

My previous car was a Fiero and it did great in a non-competitive club (3 years of firsts) and lousy in real competition (at least for me) even with all the fun of a semi-real racing vehicle. And I'm not up for putting the $$ and time in for nationals with a REAL racer (an S2K CR would be nice indeed). MINI happens to not be an option for me. But Mazda3 or CRZ might be. Mazda3 stick is not too acceptable for spouse, so that leaves CVT CRZ as an option for maybe taking my class, but still sitting 1/3 down in local PAX. And spouse might consider it to be actually fun too.

Your response (and the others) gives me some hope that the CRZ can get me at least a shot at winning my class compared to the Insight. Otherwise I probably would need to look elsewhere. Once the good, fast, cheap sequential manuals come out, there might be another set of workable options (Fiesta maybe?).

B

Originally Posted by gomarlins3

To be honest, the MINI will be a better autoX car. There is a reason that HS is dominated by the MINI at the national level.

Having said that, we aren't talking about the national level here are we? I won HS here (CVT) this past year over a Mazda3. Of the 10 events that we went head to head, I won 7 times. We were both on r-comps. Overall Points

I took 13th over-all in PAX for the season: Pax Championship Points

Now what I learned is this- the CR-Z (CVT) is extremely boring on most courses. It is very difficult to pick up any real time throughout the day as you can not really use the gas to steer (wanted oversteer) or accelerate any earlier (causes understeer). Many courses for me were full throttle, full brakes, full throttle, full brakes, etc. No real challenge there especially after running a SCed S2000 for many years. Thought it might be nice to run a slow car fast.... it wasn't.

Enough about me. The other thing I learned was that it comes down to the drivers in the Mazda3 and CR-Z debate. As I said, I beat the other guy often, however his son usually drives a kart, but his kart broke at one event so he used his dad's Mazda3 for his final kart run (kind of like a fun run) and the son put 1.5 seconds on us with one run. Better driver= better times.

The CR-Z could be fun to autoX I guess if you don't mind finishing at the bottom of the RAW time list at each event. The HS PAX s nice, but falling back on PAX gets old after awhile (at least for me). Going back to the S2K or the Boxster next year.

[gomarlins3]

I would run my original Insight (CVT) when it rained back in 2007 and 2008 because I didn't want to run the S, but it was just to earn points for my class, not to win.

One of the problems I encountered with the CR-Z CVT was that it wouldn't hold the 'gear' I was in. I would start hitting the 'down' paddle as soon as I went into a corner to get the RPM's back up for exit. No matter what I would do, the car would have inevitably 'shifted' into the higher gear between corners.

[Hutchead]

Originally Posted by gomarlins3

One of the problems I encountered with the CR-Z CVT was that it wouldn't hold the 'gear' I was in. I would start hitting the 'down' paddle as soon as I went into a corner to get the RPM's back up for exit. No matter what I would do, the car would have inevitably 'shifted' into the higher gear between corners.

Hitting the flippy paddle seems to override the CVT for about 5 seconds, after that the CVT seems to take over with it's original programming. I wish there was a setting somewhere that would make this interval longer.

[gomarlins3]

^It should be that way when in 'Sport' mode, but........