My IS500 at an AutoCross
 

It's been ten years since I did an autox, so I decided to shake off the dust with my completely stock IS500. I made all runs in Sport+ with the nannies turned off and on the first run quickly realized that these stock tires are like driving on hard plastic tricycle tires.

Overall, the car did fairly well considering it was not designed to do this. I did boost the tire pressure by 5PSI to prevent sidewall rolling over in hard corners, so that likely contributed to the tendency of the rear to feel a bit greasy. I used some chalk on the sidewalls to see how far they were rolling and since there was a little roll on the front and none on the back, thenext time I won't increase the rear. Suspension was decent. I did not feel many of the transitions between concrete and asphalt surfaces, but at about 10-12 seconds you can see the beam from the headlights bouncing on the jersey wall.

This is the best run of the night. I ended up in the middle of the pack as far as time and about 4 seconds behind the FTD.

Good stuff. These are the OE tires, the Bridgestones?

When I did the Lexus Performance Driving School, they only aired up the front tires as well. So, they may have come to the same conclusion.

That's a tight course for a car with this combination of power, weight, and tire. You drove well to keep it mid-pack.

Yep, stock Bridgestones. I can't completely blame the tires, though. A portion of it is me sometimes relying too much on power rather than being smooth.

Funny thing is that I was always middle of the pack, even ten years ago when I was aurocrossing twice a month.. I guess I can take that as meaning I did not lose whatever small amount of skill I had. My old ass is fine with being medicore. I have just as much fun.

Autocross is so heavily focused on class and course. Depending on where and which organization you run with you can have varying results.

Last year I had the fastest time of the day at every single event in which I took my 200tw tires to and won every event. With the other group I was driving my ass off just to be top 10 in adjusted times some days in the same car.

Keeping a stock car on non-autocross specific tires mid-pack takes some decent driving. I've seen plenty of well prepped cars struggle to end up mid-pack in the hands of poor drivers.

Nice run and that course looks so fun. Back in my Miata days the courses were so small and tight; I was only using 1st-2nd gear the whole run.

What car did best and worst? I realize it's the driver, not the car but just curious.

Fastest was a 2010 Porsche Boxster S (STU)
Slowest non novice was a 2010 Mustang (CAMC)

Coolest car, IMO, a 2024 Mustang Darkhorse with the Whipple supercharger.

The guy in the boxster has been doing autox for 15+ years. I think the mustang driver was just out of Novice

CAMC is a great class, but you can end up with wildly different cars in that class as a specific modification that someone may make to their street car could easily push them into that class. Perfect example is that the Dark Horse and that 2010 Mustang were probably in the same class. Not that the Dark Horse needed 300 extra horsepower on an autocross course, but that's SCCA classing for you.

This was our last event in August. Note that 2 of the top 10 positions were some crazy little formula car with a 600cc sport bike motor. Still the damn Miatas are just tough to beat out there being a fraction of the size and weight of the rest of us.
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Yeah, something like simple CAI will bump the car out of stock class. Though the SCCA does not list the IS500 in their latest rulebook, I classed it as FS since it is where most stock heavy V8 pony cars go, and the original ISF listed in FS as well.

Yea, depending on where we end up at the end of the season I may run mine in the last event just for fun as I'll probably have 2nd in class locked up for the season and FS was where I was thinking to class it.

That looks like tons of fun!

I am a cheap ass and won't spend the money on tires and brakes or I would loge to do that as a hobby.

It's just autocross and you can take it as serious as youd like. Brakes arent needed really and tires are only needed if you want to be competitive. I run 2 sets of wheels and even with massive 305's at all 4 corners my tire budget is only about 2,500 every 18 months or so. If I run more events that time frame drops, but our cars would be pretty cheap with the narrow tire sizes. Problem is the combo of weight snd tire size would probably keep them from being super competitive.

Yeah just to have fun all you spend is the entry fee and whatever incidentals for the day like snacks or whatever. It's also a safe way to learn the limits of your skill and the car.

The drawback is that autoX is a gateway drug to HPDE. Not counting consumables like brakes, tires and fluids, I could probably do 15-20 autoX per HPDE but spending a few days at a track like VIR becomes addictive.

As an owner of a IS500 this makes me very happy to see! :)

Do you have a list of mods done to the car if any? What PSI were you running at?

Thanks in advance! :D

I've made no modifications to the car. It is all stock.

All I did was bump all of the tire pressures by 5psi (40 total) to help with rolling onto the sidewall. Marking the tires with some chalk showed me that I did not have to do that on the rear, but still had some roll on the front. Next time I'll leave the rear alone and maybe bump the front another 3. But honestly, with as heavy as these cars are I doubt that will make a difference. A bigger difference might be made with negative front camber and/or me being a bit smoother in tight turns.

I have no plans to do make any changes to the car, so getting smoother is the goal. Same with when I take my vette to the track. I am hell on front tires.