[ddeflyer]

Originally Posted by Mr.Ferret

Hi all I'm going to my first come and try day at our local autocross track (i don't think its regular autocross tho) this weekend, they are having instructors and everything available, fantastic timing I've had the car a month.

My only concern is, from what I've heard its a hard compacted sand track, so not necessarily like full on dirt but yeah, I'm still stock and I'm worried the thing might rattle apart, i think there are a few s2000's and possibly another 86 out there but don't know, any tips? I might just go and watch depending on the track surface.

I am not a lawyer, blah blah blah. Your car your warranty, so on and so forth.

That all said:
I've been "offroading" at 75 Mph over hard pan dirt in my BRZ and it was fine (T-Hill turn 15). It was also fine after spinning out at 100 Mph (Buttonwillow exiting the esses), most of which was over dirt and it was fine. I've even run over curbing at 70Mph and bent a rim without any sign of damage to the car itself (actually the bent rim was more because the curb hit the rim directly). When I do a track day I repeatedly subject my car to 1.2 lateral G's on a bunch of corners which, thanks to weight transfer, is basically like hanging the car by two of its wheels hundreds of times a day. I wouldn't recommend doing any of that, but I don't know of any damage that occurred to my car when I did them.

These cars aren't rock crawlers, but they are modern vehicles built to last for hundreds of thousands of miles (well, we all hope they are). If driving over some compacted sand would damage the car in any meaningful way then you wouldn't have much of a car left after going between LA and the bay area on I5 in the right hand lane (you might also have a liquified spine at that point but that is another issue).

To re-iterate though, you always need to weigh the risk and rewards of any motor sport and and the conditions that that event happens in.