More fuel for the RWD vs AWD debate

Marty Howard · **Posted:** Tue Nov 24, 2009 8:00 pm

Just ran a report looking at the registrations for our events for the last few years.

The RWD vs AWD ratio was just sad.

RWD = 93.4%
FWD = 6.2%
AWD = .4%

Maybe part of it was the prices of the cars, but 350Z's and S2000's outnumbered the WRX's and Evo's by about 15X. For the actual competitions the ratios were even worse.

hmmm...

Aaron Buckley · **Posted:** Tue Nov 24, 2009 8:05 pm

Marty Howard wrote:

Just ran a report looking at the registrations for our events for the last few years.

The RWD vs AWD ratio was just sad.

RWD = 93.4%
FWD = 6.2%
AWD = .4%

Maybe part of it was the prices of the cars, but 350Z's and S2000's outnumbered the WRX's and Evo's by about 15X. For the actual competitions the ratios were even worse.

hmmm...

I'll be hitting the AWD crack pipe for next year... along with the C6. - AB

Marty Howard · **Posted:** Tue Nov 24, 2009 8:09 pm

bring it out and get the AWD numbers up!!

Ryan Holton · **Posted:** Tue Nov 24, 2009 8:37 pm

Lots of EVO and WRX guys are hardparkers.

RobLupella · **Posted:** Tue Nov 24, 2009 9:30 pm

The way it should be RWD is the only kind of drive for real sports cars

Marty Howard · **Posted:** Tue Nov 24, 2009 9:56 pm

Ryan Holton wrote:

Lots of EVO and WRX guys are hardparkers.

lol...

I hard parked the Miata when I had it. I am hella Flush!!

Graham Jagger · **Joined:** Fri Aug 29, 2003 12:53 am **Posts:** 1718

maybe AWD people like to do Rally or Rallycross. Since the WRX was built for and excels at that.

Now I'm kinda surprised not seeing the STi and Evo on track. They are hotrod AWD cars that do well on track. The few STi's I've seen out there were moving along pretty good.

Karl Shultz · **Posted:** Wed Nov 25, 2009 12:33 am

Marty, just an FYI, if you're counting S2000s by driver rather than by car, that's going to shift your data. By my count, six different people have codriven my S2000 at various events since I got it nearly 3 years ago, including me.

Marty Howard · **Posted:** Wed Nov 25, 2009 12:42 am

Karl Shultz wrote:

Marty, just an FYI, if you're counting S2000s by driver rather than by car, that's going to shift your data. By my count, six different people have codriven my S2000 at various events since I got it nearly 3 years ago, including me.

lol. just like you to skew the numbers!!

Karl Shultz · **Posted:** Wed Nov 25, 2009 1:25 am

Marty Howard wrote:

lol. just like you to skew the numbers!!

Well, it's your fault you never come to any autocrosses.

I'm not sure how far back in terms of years your data collection goes, but my car by itself probably raises the S2000 numbers artificially all by itself. There are a few other people who share cars in AS, too.

Marty Howard · **Posted:** Wed Nov 25, 2009 10:28 am

Karl Shultz wrote:

Marty Howard wrote:

lol. just like you to skew the numbers!!

Well, it's your fault you never come to any autocrosses. :

I am going yo work on that.

Steven Carter · **Posted:** Wed Nov 25, 2009 1:17 pm

Seems to me that annual sales of AWD sporty cars is far exceeded by monthly Miata sales alone, so there's an inherent data skew just based on the prevalence of each car in the general population.

while there are certainly fewer AWD vs RWD cars registering at events, the other question to ask is where do they finish in their respective class when normalized for driver experience?

(edit: on a rough tally 21 of the 400 top-50 finishers (PAX results) at the 8 events were AWD cars, or roughly 5%. So AWD has a 12.5-fold increased presence in the top 50 vs their overall registration proportion. Not sure how much to draw from that, but it's interesting)

JasonWatts · **Posted:** Wed Nov 25, 2009 5:46 pm

i think if there were more affordable awd sports cars you would see alot more. right now the big options are audi TT, audi r8 Nisan GTR. The EVO and WRX though very sport geared are sadan's and based off of family/dd style car's.

I know when I bought my car, I wanted a sports car... and thus went with something that said sports car, not soccar mom wagon.

make me an awd miata or s2k... and I will be all over it, providing they can keep the weight down.

Graham Jagger · **Joined:** Fri Aug 29, 2003 12:53 am **Posts:** 1718

I thought you were talking about track events Marty. Since you're a track guy.

I haven't done as much AX the past couple of years. When I had my C4 running AS we actually had a few STi show up fairly regularly. But they were mixed up in all the classes they can run.

Marty Howard · **Posted:** Wed Nov 25, 2009 6:03 pm

Graham Jagger wrote:

I thought you were talking about track events Marty. Since you're a track guy.

I haven't done as much AX the past couple of years. When I had my C4 running AS we actually had a few STi show up fairly regularly. But they were mixed up in all the classes they can run.

I was talking about track events since thats the registrations I can see.

But to be fair, Karl and others threw in the AutoX stuff and it is a part of the whole "driving scene".

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