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Attended my first SCCA Autocross yesterday, my last time was 3 seconds faster than my first, and I achieved my main goal of feeling out the Boxster's lift-off and trail-braking rotation. Super controllable and FUN! It rotates predictably on corner entry every time with just a touch of brakes.
My Dunlop Direzzas held up really well, too. 225 front, 255 rear, 36psi all around had my front and rear wear patterns looking very nice and even on stock alignment and suspension, handling was neutral and could understeer/oversteer on demand with just weight transfer.
At the end I swapped cars with an Acura RSX driver and he was 2 seconds faster than me in my own car. It was awesome to see the Boxster driven properly, I still have a lot of learning ahead of me. His advice was "steer deeper into the corners, you can trust your front tires a lot more than you've been doing". It's clear that the car is faster than I am.
Safe to say, I love my Boxster more than ever. Hopefully, I can do a few more sessions before Winter.
I went out to learn, and was very happy to listen to the advice of faster drivers, especially in slower cars. I had better drivers ride along with me for critique, and asked to ride along with them to observe. I rode as a passenger in a Honda Fit and could feel how much smoother his inputs were, his consistency and speed were awesome. The level of skill all around me was really inspiring, I can't wait to keep growing and improving.
I will say, I'm pretty proud of my car control. I never touched any cones, never spun out, and consistently rotated and/or slid through an off-camber sweeper where I watched lots of cars spin out, including some Caymans.
I only went off my intended line once, when I pulled a big slide on one of the non-timed fun runs at the end of the day, I wanted to see how sideways I could get on corner entry. Turns out, quite sideways, and I needed a lot of power understeer and a good fist-full of opposite lock to pull it straight. Really shows how forgiving this chassis is.
Everyone should experience their Boxster like this, whether autocross, HPDE or track. It's a whole other animal at the limit, and incredibly fun to throw around where there aren't trees to crash into.
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