PedalFaster

At least in the Seattle area, track outings need to be planned well in advance since events occur on fixed dates and often have waiting lists.

s2kpdx01

^ yeah, and down here in portland they are all on weekdays now....which totally sucks.

Mr.E.G.

Ok, now you're just rubbing it in my face.

budgy

if I had to live with it everyday and buy something new then an NC Miata would be just fine for me, but would definitely want to go F/I with it.

If you also need your DD to actually carry something like I do then a MS3 even with Fail-Wheel-Drive is actually pretty good at doing everything I need it to do and its pretty fast around a track.

on the far extreme, if you really don't need to carry anything with you there are companies now building street legal Caterham 7's for like 65k CDN brand new. Even with just the Hayabusa engine they are 0-60 in low 3 seconds.

UKXotics

I think just about any car can be made track-competent if you're willing to compromise it's daily livability - I think the trick (if you want a dual purpose car) is to find a good balance of performance, practicality and cost.

Personally, I think that the NC Miata, when truly optimized for track, loses too much in the practicality department. Now don't get me wrong - I think the NC is a stellar car (and I'm fairly proficient in it - it's my choice for a full-time track car), but IMHO it *needs* a) a pretty serious wheel/tire setup and b) honest-to-God racing seats, to make an exemplary track car, which renders it less than practical on the street. That said, I find the price/performance ratio hard to beat.

A Corvette desperately needs better seats as well - but if you're willing to blow 10K on a set of Carravaggio racing buckets, I'm not sure you can do much better for a combination of track-ready performance, streetability and budget (relatively speaking).

BMWs - all of them - are crap track cars out of the gate. Mainly because BMW refuses to put decent braking systems on the car. Even the ZCP package on the (lighter than the M3) Z4 M Coupe isn't up tp a full 20 minute HPDE session in my experience...

S2k? Sorry, but out of the box they're gutless. I know that have a great punch in the last 2000 revs, but sadly tracks have a way of not letting you run in the rev range you want to all the time Fantastic feel for a street car though.

Maybe an Evo, maybe a GTR - I'm not familiar enough with those cars to really comment on their true suitability for tracking in stock form.

Lotus? I'm a big fan but I feel that the weight distribution combined with the tiny front tires makes for some less-than-ideal characteristics on track, and they strat out horribly compromised for street use anyway.

For me, ultimately, if I had to choose one car to do everything, a Cayman would be hard to beat. Braking, handling and power are all acceptable out of the box, the coupe structure is good for safety, and you can get Porsche's sport buckets (true one-piece, non adjustable seats with waist and shoulder support) as a factory option - something no other manufacturer offers in the USA, AFAIK. (And IMHO supportive seats are one of the most critical, though overlooked necessities for any track car).

reedkr2

996/7 C2 with GT3 suspension bits, 964 RS, 993 C2S, Z4M, Boxster S, AP2 with eaton blower, MX-5, there are so many.