Well, I took the Dart to it's first autocross event. The course was nothing complex and had a lot of sweeping turns and large straight aways. The average runs were in the low 50 second range. There were good and bads to today.
Good: -The commute to the autocross event (26 miles) and back was very trouble free. The car loved to cruise at 2000 rpm. -The car is a blast to drive and there's so much potential in the car (or should I say myself). -I had fun racing and hanging out with old friends. -My number for the year is 408.
Bad: -The exhaust drone is absolutely, stupidly unbearable. The 30 min drive back home was not pleasant what so ever. -The car is cold-blooded. It never really likes to start going until the water temps are about 150F. If I try driving the car before that, odds are it will probably stall. -Out of 2 of my 4 runs, the car stalled on the first corner under light throttle causing me to roll off course and DNF. Very weird. It would take quite a bit of cranking to start it up again. I would exit the corner and bam, the car shut off. Water temps was 180F during my runs. -I got last because the car stalled twice. -The car got 6.7 mpg after my first fill up. I need to verify my odometer is accurate. Granted that was about 95% street driving.
Overall, I got in last place. My goal for the day was just to get a feel for the car and get a sub-60 second run which I accomplished. I wish the car hadn't stalled on me the other two runs, otherwise I think I could have got it down to 56 seconds with my skillset. It definitely felt like it could take more speeds in the corners; however, since I'm tire and experience limited, I decided not to push it.