I want to start Autox. I have a slight grind in my first gear. I drive a wrx and was wandering how mush you use 1st gear in an event. I was thinking of going to the brooksville meet in may. Thanks

 

Well,if you are like me, you will shift once through the entire thing and stay in second the rest of the way. I have very short gearing..I'm not sure how WRX's are geared.

 

I hope I can stay in second. I have to keep the turbo spooled or the wrx is notthat great

 

if youve never autocrossed, just leave it in 2nd. autocrossing locally for fun is NOT worth replacing trannies.

 

yeah, no need to downshift to 1st in our cars 95% of the time.

 

Most of the guys I've talked to did just fine in 2nd gear.

I wouldn't worry too much about keeping your turbo spooled. I don't think it will matter very much.

 

Depends how tight the course is. If it's a course like Sunriders always have, you'll use mostly first gear, but if you go out to something like Brooksville, you'll use 2nd quite a bit also. WRXs are geared very tall, so you'll use a lot of 1st gear, and especially in tight turns, since you'll just lag the the hell out of it trying to stay in 2nd.

 

it matters a whole lot when you've slowed way the hell down for a turn, then want to get moving again, and meanwhile your turbo decided to take a nap since you didn't keep the revs up enough.

 

That's true. But you know as well as I do that power does not really matter a whole lot (depending on what sort of course you run, sometiems it would matter more than others).

Plus, the time it takes for the average person to downshift (properly) negates the bonus of being in a lower gear.

To the original guy, I would say go ahead and run the car. Eventually you will get a feel for what gear you need to be in.

 

My 2 cents says that 90% of Subaru drivers could just drive faster around the rest of the course instead of going to 1st gear and net faster times all around.