THE FASTEST CAR IN THE WORLD

"Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)" (rduncan5678) 10/02/2017 at 08:04 • Filed to: None

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Miata still in the shop having the cancer removed. Neon is in another shop having the fuel pump and tank straps replaced. Autocross on Saturday was still a priority even though I was also moving out of my apartment that day. So off to [UNNAMED] rental agency and what a nice vehicle I was given! It’s even got leather and heated seats and a transmission that doesnt suck. Plus a useful SPORT mode and a full traction/stability control defeat button. The 2017 Mazda 3 is definitely not a bad car.

On course it actually wasn’t terrible. Of course there was nearly incurable understeer but with some trail braking it definitely had the capability to oversteer! I was codriving with a friend so we actually had to use the tire sprayer to keep things drivable all day. This car performed 14 runs with minimal down time to swap drivers, release tire pressure, and wet the tires down. We ran it 32 front and 34 rear. Stock tires arent terrible on this thing, something like 340 treadware all seasons. They were SCREAMING for mercy throughout the whole course since both of us are Miata drivers and punished that thing around the sweepers.

We reset the fuel economy thing right when we started the runs and didnt turn the car off until we finished. This was mostly so that we wouldnt have to keep hitting the sport mode and traction control button. But also because there was like less than 5 minutes of downtime in between each run anyways. At the end of the day, we managed to deplete a half tank of gas (it said ZERO miles to empty the whole way to the gas station) and achieved a wonderful record of 7 MPG! Yay single digits.

Best part is I even won a trophy for best in class! There were only 3 drivers in G class so it was just me, my codriver, and another Mazda 3 (also a current gen, but his a manual ‘15). The other Mazda 3 did beat my codriver but I bested that guy by like 8 tenths. Overall a very fun day!

I actually liked the car so much that I extended my rental for a few more days so that I could drive it some more for daily commuting and around town. I also need to make a trip to the airport for picking up my girlfriend on Thursday morning so it made sense to have something reliable with cargo space to use for that.

Hoping to get my Neon back Wednesday so that I can then replace my intake gasket, clear the check engine light finally, and then take it on a road trip up to Connecticut for some leaf peeping like all the other tourists this weekend. I think its gonna be reliable enough, theres not really much else to break on this thing.

pip bip - choose Corrour > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) 10/02/2017 at 08:09

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one bad manoeuvre and it could’ve all ended in tears

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > pip bip - choose Corrour 10/02/2017 at 08:14

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But it didn’t and we got a happy blog post...wins all round!

pip bip - choose Corrour > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media 10/02/2017 at 08:16

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true, but if it did end up on its lid, he could write a truly long post.

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > pip bip - choose Corrour 10/02/2017 at 08:18

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A long and whiney read? No thanks.

pip bip - choose Corrour > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media 10/02/2017 at 08:20

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actually, no you are correct.

it would be very brief.

pic of overturned car captioned with “whoops! LOL”

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > pip bip - choose Corrour 10/02/2017 at 08:21

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Its pretty hard to screw up like that in autocross. I mean sure I have seen it done, but those are generally all driver erorr. I have been doing this long enough to at least know my limits and keep things safe. It would be just as much of a concern in my own vehicle anyways.

pip bip - choose Corrour > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) 10/02/2017 at 08:23

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how fast did you get upto?

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > pip bip - choose Corrour 10/02/2017 at 08:23

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“ORLOVED”

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > pip bip - choose Corrour 10/02/2017 at 08:24

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No idea, didnt hit the limiter in second gear so, slower than highway speeds.

AestheticsInMotion > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) 10/02/2017 at 10:57

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Overturned sedan on 340 tw tires? I would imagine that would be pretty difficult, right?

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > AestheticsInMotion 10/02/2017 at 11:09

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Yeah definitely haha. And considering these things arent particularly tall (like a Versa or Spark or something) I had pretty good confidence in the car staying shiny side up. The only cars I have ever thought were gonna roll over are either ND Miatas with the crazy body roll or some FWD stuff with the tripodding (mini coopers, fiesta sts, civics). But I know thats just normal for the way those cars are set up. Rollover risk is nearly nonexistant in autocross, unless you end up off course in grass or a drainage ditch of some sort. But that would be poor course design to allow for that.

AestheticsInMotion > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) 10/02/2017 at 12:07

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Is the ND really that bad? I thought stock NA’s had a lot of body roll

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > AestheticsInMotion 10/02/2017 at 13:00

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Oh yes ND body roll is definitely worse. Its way faster and handles way better, like stock ND miatas getting near FTD. But it looks insane on course.

Chariotoflove > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) 10/03/2017 at 15:49

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You took a rental car to autocross?

Of course you did.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > Chariotoflove 10/03/2017 at 15:59

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I kind of almost wish I had some shitty Nissan versa or HYOOONDAI because the Mazda 3 is actually kind of good at this. It was not particularly fast or well balanced but for dealing with 340 TW all seasons and two drivers, it was not too shabby. I could imagine a nice rear sway bar, sticky tires and maybe some coilovers would do this thing real justice.