I participated in an autocross event yesterday; my first time. "use traffic cones to make a mini-roadcourse in a parking lot or airport and see who can get the lowest time without hitting any cones or going off course." In my area the autocross courses use deserted ski-area parking lots. The course has hairpins, chicanes, slaloms and sometimes a straight. Because of the layout the top speed is usually less than 60 mph. Lots of safety buffer; nobody runs off course; at most, people spin.
Autocross has loads of car classes - the base class 'street' is limited to 100% stock cars; no modifications allowed other than tires. The classes run from 'AS' to 'HS' (roughly) with AS being the highest performance and HS being the lowest. The 2026 Honda Prelude is classified as GS. (The Civic Si is also GS; the Civic Hybrid is HS; the 2025 Civic Type R is BS; Toyota GR 86 is DS; Mazda MX-5 Miata is CS.). Think of the 'street' class as your daily drivers. There are other classes defined by increasing levels of modifications - suspension, brakes, exhaust, etc. (Here is a 'self classification' tool - it doesn't have 'Prelude Hybrid' yet (https://www.scca-classifier.com/a/index.html))
I was in 'GS' running the stock all-season 'Goodyear Eagle Touring' (threadware 500). The only other car in GS was a 2025 VW Golf GTI using autocross-specific tires - BRIDGESTONE POTENZA RE-71RS (threadware 200). That guy was fast! I was slow. My first run was very slow 71 seconds; my 2nd run I missed a gate (no time); my 5th run I got down to ~65s; then I treaded-water, until my 10th run which was ~64s. Other than that missed gate I didn't hit any cones but I sure was close sometimes. The Golf GTI started under 60s and finished w/ a best of about 55s. I'm 20% off; but it was my very first event and I improved.
Surely it is not the fastest way around the course but I was sliding and squealing around nearly all the bigger corners. Great fun! Slamming on the brakes at the end of straight, turn in, squeal, hit the gas and push and squeal on the exit. Fair to say the power/speed of the car outweighs the stock tires. I'll post a link to the results here once they are available. For all the fun, I may have come in dead last (
) on absolute best time but we'll see when the times are scaled for the class.
(I started the day with 9 bars of battery. At the end of the day, I'd run out to 2 bars - not enough regeneration to keep the level up over the 10 runs. I used Sport and S+ but didn't manually 'shift'.)
The leader of the field was an 2015 Alpha Romeo 4C which posted ~54s.
It is a full day event running from 7:30 am to 4pm. Participants are split into two group, A and B. The A group races first while the B group monitors cones and gates for penalties and waves red flags (rarely); the B races while A monitors. Each person gets about 10 runs. About 40 entrants. Highly recommended!
Here are some photos:
GS is my class; 15 is the number I chose (nobody else had it) and N is for 'novice' (for the 1st year of participation).
Here is the Alpha:
This pink 2007 Nissan 350Z was driven by a 18 year old girl; being taught by her dad!
Autocross has loads of car classes - the base class 'street' is limited to 100% stock cars; no modifications allowed other than tires. The classes run from 'AS' to 'HS' (roughly) with AS being the highest performance and HS being the lowest. The 2026 Honda Prelude is classified as GS. (The Civic Si is also GS; the Civic Hybrid is HS; the 2025 Civic Type R is BS; Toyota GR 86 is DS; Mazda MX-5 Miata is CS.). Think of the 'street' class as your daily drivers. There are other classes defined by increasing levels of modifications - suspension, brakes, exhaust, etc. (Here is a 'self classification' tool - it doesn't have 'Prelude Hybrid' yet (https://www.scca-classifier.com/a/index.html))
I was in 'GS' running the stock all-season 'Goodyear Eagle Touring' (threadware 500). The only other car in GS was a 2025 VW Golf GTI using autocross-specific tires - BRIDGESTONE POTENZA RE-71RS (threadware 200). That guy was fast! I was slow. My first run was very slow 71 seconds; my 2nd run I missed a gate (no time); my 5th run I got down to ~65s; then I treaded-water, until my 10th run which was ~64s. Other than that missed gate I didn't hit any cones but I sure was close sometimes. The Golf GTI started under 60s and finished w/ a best of about 55s. I'm 20% off; but it was my very first event and I improved.
Surely it is not the fastest way around the course but I was sliding and squealing around nearly all the bigger corners. Great fun! Slamming on the brakes at the end of straight, turn in, squeal, hit the gas and push and squeal on the exit. Fair to say the power/speed of the car outweighs the stock tires. I'll post a link to the results here once they are available. For all the fun, I may have come in dead last (
) on absolute best time but we'll see when the times are scaled for the class.(I started the day with 9 bars of battery. At the end of the day, I'd run out to 2 bars - not enough regeneration to keep the level up over the 10 runs. I used Sport and S+ but didn't manually 'shift'.)
The leader of the field was an 2015 Alpha Romeo 4C which posted ~54s.
It is a full day event running from 7:30 am to 4pm. Participants are split into two group, A and B. The A group races first while the B group monitors cones and gates for penalties and waves red flags (rarely); the B races while A monitors. Each person gets about 10 runs. About 40 entrants. Highly recommended!
Here are some photos:
GS is my class; 15 is the number I chose (nobody else had it) and N is for 'novice' (for the 1st year of participation).
Here is the Alpha:
This pink 2007 Nissan 350Z was driven by a 18 year old girl; being taught by her dad!
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