04-04-2024, 03:27 PM
I think the hardest part about going fast is controlling the car rotation and understanding how to do it well under braking is very hard. Being able to learn the important skills like heel toe, left foot braking, and trail braking should also be a priority. With all that in mind I'd argue the best car has the following features:
1. Roughly 150-200 whp - Less power, less cost. Bigger engines just eat consumables like fuel and oil. High strung turbo mods eat up track time with reliability.
2. Under 3000 lbs - It needs to be light enough to transfer weight quickly and not to heavy to need any monster power or tires to compensate. Heavy cars kill tires and brakes which take away from budgets.
3. Some grippy DOT tires - Tires are going to be subjective, but you need enough grip up front to allow the car to rotate. This can prolly be achieved with some sticky 100TW tires or 200TW (if you really know how to use brakes).
All this in mind I would recommend the following cars:
1. Miata
2. BRZ (like the Miata, but worse marginally in every way from an ownership perspective... I have a BRZ)
3. Used BMWs
4. S2000s (if you're lucky enough to own one)
If you want some higher longevity and want to push the budget:
1. Supra
2. 400Z
3. Newer BMWs
The latter list is much faster, which is fun, but as a learning platform you'll have to be going much harder and faster to really learn and master the same things you could be doing in the slightly cheaper and lighter cars from the first list.
1. Roughly 150-200 whp - Less power, less cost. Bigger engines just eat consumables like fuel and oil. High strung turbo mods eat up track time with reliability.
2. Under 3000 lbs - It needs to be light enough to transfer weight quickly and not to heavy to need any monster power or tires to compensate. Heavy cars kill tires and brakes which take away from budgets.
3. Some grippy DOT tires - Tires are going to be subjective, but you need enough grip up front to allow the car to rotate. This can prolly be achieved with some sticky 100TW tires or 200TW (if you really know how to use brakes).
All this in mind I would recommend the following cars:
1. Miata
2. BRZ (like the Miata, but worse marginally in every way from an ownership perspective... I have a BRZ)
3. Used BMWs
4. S2000s (if you're lucky enough to own one)
If you want some higher longevity and want to push the budget:
1. Supra
2. 400Z
3. Newer BMWs
The latter list is much faster, which is fun, but as a learning platform you'll have to be going much harder and faster to really learn and master the same things you could be doing in the slightly cheaper and lighter cars from the first list.