Took the S2000 to the strip.

[WRXtranceformed]

So you don't have the desire to drive a high horsepower car on the track simply because you could crash it? You could crash any car, at any relatively high speed.

By your reasoning, you might as well not even own a car like that, because you can't get the most of out it unless you track it and if you track it you have the potential to crash and die. I've met plenty of people that track high horsepower cars and have yet to injure themselves or their cars. Like I said before, it depends on how hard you push your car and what your skill level is.

Correct, you can crash any car at a racetrack.

And also correct, it depends on how hard you're pushing your car and what your skill level is. The problem is, a lot of people who crash overestimated their skill level.

I'd say you can start out tracking a relatively powerful car but you've got to be very diligent of keeping your attitude in the right place and be very methodical about how you approach the track (and your progression as a driver).

This tends to be more difficult than it sounds because it can be a big hit to your ego when you're slowly coming up to speed in your fast car and you get rolled by a 100 hp shitbox (E30, CRX, Miata, etc.). It takes a mature attitude to not care about that.

Even if your ego is not a problem, a small mistake is going to be magnified with a faster car. A lapse of attention or a bad habit could seriously ruin your day. In a slower car you'd have more time to gather it up and if you should exit the racing surface you're not going to be going as fast into that tire wall.

All that said it can be done, and plenty of people do it. Its just that having the benefit of hindsight most people would agree that its easier to start with a slower ride then move up. Either way step 1 is to get a good deal of autocrossing seat time before you head out to track.

Sure, that's the risk of driving a powerful car. If I can find the time to make it to the track, I'll definitely be driving my car and not starting out in my brother's Lancer OZ Rally thing. I would push myself to what I felt comfortable, and if I got rolled by other cars (no matter how powerful) I wouldn't feel too discouraged because I'm a beginner on a road track. You have to start somewhere, and you have to lose when you start... that's part of learning.

Gradually as I improved, I'd want something that I could grow into, not grow out of. That's the direction I approach it at. I'd never push my car to its limits until I improved technically.

The only thing I can compare it to is when I bought my first snowboard in like 7th grade. I didn't buy a shitpiece from Walmart, I bought a decent, midrange fast short board. This helped me as a person learn faster because it didn't suck, and several years later I was ripping so hard that I preferred riding with skiier friends instead of other boarders because they were too slow And sure, I ate it plenty of times, but I would have eaten it on a shitty board too. Either way if I broke it, I'd fix it or buy a new one. You've gotta pay to play~