2006 National AX results
 

Interesting thread/results for those AX'ers out there...

http://boxcar-racing.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID=436ffeb277c2edcb4bb985182d9687 dd&topic=234.0

I didn't do a whole lot of sifting through the results but regardless, the top cars in AS were Vette's and S2000's... :(

Somebody please tell me what's wrong with these results???

damn, the best boxster placed 205th!!!! tis a sad day.

Some of those guys were my EVO instructors. That's not surprising that there aren't many Boxsters. When I autocross with the Porsche Club there are tons of Boxsters and 911's. And my friend who refers to this set as the "wine and cheese crowd" have lap times all over the place. For instance the fastest time of the day and the average time of the day for each class is sometimes a difference of *several* seconds.
Now on the other hand when I autocross with the "blue collar" (if you will) clubs like SCCA, there arent nearly as many Boxsters or 911's. Way more S2000 and STI's and the fastest lap of the day and the average time of the day in a class is often under half a second. One particular day the most competitve class (the S2000 class) from 1st to like 8th or something the difference was less than .4's, a blink of an eye. And that was just a regular Sunday.

The Boxster is excellent for autocross but people are scared of whipping this car because of the high cost of ownership and maintenace/repair. Particularly when the S2000 is as quick as a base Boxster at a much lower cost. When it comes to seeing the Boxster underepresented at Nationals its got more to do with the drivers and the cars. I think you will find the guys who can usually afford these cars are not really the guys who are the best at driving them and the guys who can drive them don't have the dough.

Don't read too much into the PAX results, and the best Boxster finishing 205th or whatever. PAX means very little when looking at results from nationals, because many classes competed in less than optimal conditions.

I think most people are content to run something that they know how to set up and that they're confident will win. The S2000 and the C4 'Vette are proven winners, and the setup has been known for years. The Boxster is still kind of an unknown quantity. It's also an unknown quantity that costs around $30k to buy, plus another $2,000 in wheels, plus the cost of buying M030 if the car doesn't have it (what I'm currently going through). An AP1 S2k can be had for under $20k. A competitive C4 Corvette is closer to $12k. An S2000 is as quick or quicker around the cones than a Boxster S... the base Boxsters are outclassed bigtime.

That's not to say there aren't people having success with the car. I finished second to Jonathan Roberts' STi at the '06 DC Pro in my very underprepared car, in my first time out in it. Roberts destroyed A Stock at the ProSolo finale. James Rogerson won the Houston Nat'l Tour in his 986S, and a 986S finished 1-2 at the Packwood tour. The cars can win, but not a lot of people compete in them.

I think the car can win at Nationals. I guess we'll find out next year!

John V