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Prius beats WRX, Impressa at Ice Autocross

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Main Forum' started by narf, Jan 21, 2008.

  1. narf

    narf Active Member

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    Prius beats WRX, Imprezza at Ice Autocross

    January 6th I decided to take the Prius to a local ice-autocross. I've been doing these things for years, but never in car with this level of VSC and traction control. So, with my 3 year old Blizzaks bolted on I headed up to RainbowFalls lake near Pikes Peak. Had a great time, and did way better than expected. Most of the day the surface was wet glare ice. By the second run the course and especially the start area became slick enough that it was hard to walk on, let alone drive. By the time the day was over I had convinced everyone there that the Prius is an impressive snow and ice car.
    The event had a mix of daily drivers, mostly front wheel drive and 4x4. Of the 33 cars there total, only 8 had better lap times that I had in the Prius. Of the 23 cars there on studless tires, only three went faster than I did in the Prius. In addition, I beat 8 of the 11 4x4 cars on studless tires including 3 WRXs.

    Now, in all modesty I'm a pretty good ice driver and I have years of experience at ice-autocrosses. I'd also say that it was hard to get used to the traction control not letting me spin the tires at all. However, I never had any trouble getting started on wet glare ice, and the VSC did a good job of keeping the car sliding in the right direction.
    [​IMG]

    Below is a video I took of my co-driver's last run in the car. Not her best run at all (she overdrove several turns), but you can see the car handles pretty well on ice as long as you have some decent tires on it. You'll also notice that the start is standing water on smooth ice. The water and slush looks brown because of the dirt tracked into it from the shore of the lake.[FONT=&quot]

    [ame="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8277231537666705367"]Ice Autocross Jan 6 2008 Rainbow Falls Lake Colorado[/ame]
    [/FONT]
     
    #1 narf, Jan 21, 2008
  2. efusco

    efusco Moderator Emeritus
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    never seen one of those before (drove by some on the way down I70 from Dillon this weekend though), but dang that's a lot slower than I would have expected.
    Still very cool report.
     
    #2 efusco, Jan 21, 2008
  3. narf

    narf Active Member

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    In order to go much faster than that on ice you need serious spikes on your tires. Our club only allows street legal tires. A few years back we had a demo run at the end of the day by a guy in a Porsche 911 with 2" bolts in the tires. It handled like a slotcar, way faster than if he was on pavement.
     
    #3 narf, Jan 21, 2008
  4. drees

    drees Senior Member

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    Hah, that'll show all those people who believe the Prius sucks in the snow. :)

    Good to know the Prius will be as fast as my WRX with good tires in the snow. :)

    Anything done to the Prius to prep it for autocross besides the tires (alignment, tire pressures, etc?) To get the best acceleration off the line with the traction control kicking in, did you simply just floor it?
     
    #4 drees, Jan 21, 2008
  5. patsparks

    patsparks An Aussie perspective

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    It looked like she was lost.

    Impressive!
     
    #5 patsparks, Jan 21, 2008
  6. Tideland Prius

    Tideland Prius Moderator of the North
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    Impressive! You can hear the TRAC working near the end of the video in the last left turn towards the finish line.
     
    #6 Tideland Prius, Jan 21, 2008
  7. usbseawolf2000

    usbseawolf2000 HSD PhD

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    Looks good. BTW, what kind of tires do you have?
     
    #7 usbseawolf2000, Jan 21, 2008
  8. narf

    narf Active Member

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    In answer to questions.

    No, she wasn't lost. The course doubles back on itself, so all the 180 turns were part of the course.

    Nothing was done to prep the car. I didn't even change tire pressures.

    I'm using 3 year old Bridgestone Blizzak WS50s size 186/65/15 on 15" steel wheels from Tirerack.com (the car is a touring edition, but 15s fit fine and on ice the skinnier tire the better.
     
    #8 narf, Jan 21, 2008
  9. qbee42

    qbee42 My other car is a boat

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    Looks a lot like the main roads around here. Thanks for the fun post.

    Tom
     
    #9 qbee42, Jan 22, 2008
  10. Qlara

    Qlara New Member

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    A solid case to show that Snow Tires do help a lot in snow driving Prius, even in moderate high speed.

    A lot of posts in PC claimed Prius' TRAC will make the car drop-dead or stop moving on snow trails....which is just doing its job to avoid drivetrain damage when the stock tires don't have enough grapping power on this type of surface.
     
    #10 Qlara, Jan 22, 2008
  11. patsparks

    patsparks An Aussie perspective

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    I knew she wasn't lost.
     
    #11 patsparks, Jan 22, 2008
  12. Classic_pri

    Classic_pri Former 2001 Prius 0wner

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    I like to ice autocross too. I was thinking of trying our '01 Prius on the local course but I was wondering how the brakes would react to left-foot application. I use that driving technique a lot on the ice, as it helps an FWD car rotate in tight turns and cancels out understeer when you balance the braking with a little throttle.

    So narf, if you're still monitoring this thread, could you describe how the regenerative braking system reacts to low-traction conditions? Also, have you experimented with left-foot braking on ice?

    Thanks for the insight (oops, I said a Honda word).
     
    #12 Classic_pri, Mar 1, 2008
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