Yesterday I went out to photograph a local Auto-X event. Somehow I got talked into entering my stock 2006 X3 Sport. Anyhow, it turned out to be a fun day. The fastest time of the day, on this track, was a 1.13.XX, which I believe belonged to a Z06 Corvette. The course consisted of 2 laps. The average times were all around 1.25, + or - a few seconds, in this event, with a few in the 1.30's. I managed to pull of a 1.28.06 in the X3. I finished 3rd in my class with an "SUV," as they called it, which surprised a lot of people. I felt I could have pushed the vehicle harder, but it started to rain before my 3rd run. Here's a video, form a camera mounted to the passenger seat (it seems like the quality disappeared when I uploaded it to youtube): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKJwADVu0xU
I had lots of fun at my first and only autocross so far. I'm glad you didn't let the automatic get in the way of you enjoying your runs.
I put it in sport mode and just had some fun playing with the gears. It was still a great driving experience to push the X3.
Went to similar auto event with my 2004 X3 sport Dear C J Rando, I saw your youtube and enjoyed see you steering so good. Back in May 2008 I entered my stock 2004 X3 into an event at Tsukuba race track near Tokyo. It was an unsual event with all sort of different stock cars participated, including Porche GT3, Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VII, Impreza STI, and BMW 320i. Of the seventeen cars running the track, the best time was achieved by Porche GT3(1:07.387) while my X3's best lap time was 1:18.591. You can see the my article on this car event in August 2008 Roundel page 10. Masaaki Takeda Tokyo, Japan
