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Well, a bit of RTF in the Owners Manual led me to the answer: there's big honking Integrated Dynamics System control knob smack in the middle of the dash. Turn until you are in the right mode. Nice design.
Given that you only have a few minutes in the drivers seat before you take off on track, I figured I'd read up a bit on procedures and settings.
Wow! What an experience it was to drive this thing at speed on a challenging and fun track. Atlanta Motorsports park is a lovely track located just 5 miles from where I live, so after short jaunt over in my Acura RL, I signed up for as many extra laps as were available in my time-slot, so I had a total of 9 laps in the NSX, all back-to-back with a pit drive-thru every 3 laps.
The comfort of the cabin is incredible, it is seriously well designed and put together. Visibility is great, and you need it at AMP, as you have to look out the side windows on several of the corners to keep you eyes on the next apex. That and the changing elevations means good sightlines over the hood and fenders is likewise critical, in the NSX I had no problem keeping sight of the track over the blind crest at turn 12.
Now, I've driven this track before, first in a Nissan GT-R and then a full day performance driving course using my own highly modified WRX. So good AWD experience on a track where it can be a decided advantage, such as coming out of turn 6 (a tight, cresting right hander).
My first few laps were not that fast, as I was behind some slower cars and was getting re-aquainted with the track and familiarizing myself with the NSX. But it was easy to feel the Super Handling torque vectoring both in deceleration and acceleration. Such as in turn 4 (wide radius sweeper with two apexes) one lifts slightly to tuck in the nose to head for the second apex, and the regen torque vectoring makes it super-easy. Coming off of turn 6, one can get on the power early and thanks to both AWD and SH, it just rotates and charges ahead. One can see that in the G-Meter from the Vbox recording where I was pulling about equal forces for lateral and acceleration G's.
By the fourth lap, I was fully ready to start to push it a bit more, and passed a Hurracán and a Ferrari to get on the tail of the pace car. Lap 6 was a good one, as I was feeling the tires hitting their limits in a few of the tighter corners. Blasting up onto the straightaway at over 100Mph and goosing it down the straightaway to over 130Mph was exhilarating. This thing has power at any speed, and brakes are astounding. I was seriously impressed with the pedal feel, which is entirely synthetic, but just felt right no matter what. The car does make funny noises under heavy braking, as there is a combination of regen from the TMU and the computer-controlled friction brakes. But I was entirely comfortable with them and it was easy to trust them going into turn one where you need to slow down to 40Mph (from 130).
The final three laps were a blast, as I was just behind the pace car and was able to push hard enough to get the tires to squirm on 6 and 11 and was actually held up by the pace car on the straights.
I could do this all day long. But those laps were quite memorable. The NSX is a dream machine of mine, and this chance was wonderful.
Now I'm more eager than ever to get my 4-door NSX, the Acura RLX Sports-Hybrid as my daily driver.
One bit of concerning news was that it was so easy to get all those laps, I was the only person to sign up for the NSX in my time slot, so nobody waiting for the car, thus I got to do back-to-back stints.
The person at the check-in said they will likley drop the NSX from their line-up as it is not generating enough revenue. This is crazy, as the pricing decent (less than Ferraris and Lambo's), the car is gorgeous and oh so easy to drive smoothly and fast. Novices can probably go faster and have more fun in the NSX than the Ferrari. But I guess people want to brag about and post pics of themselves in some Italian exotic.
Even the line for the Audi R10 was short. But boy, the lambo's are popular, they had three Hurracáns to meet demand.
Even in the next time slot, the line for the NSX only had one person standing in it.
It's sad when the best engineered car at the track is ignored like that.
Anyway, if you have an opportunity to sign up for one of these events, do. they are a blast and maybe we can keep the NSX in the line-up.
Jon! Thanks soo much for sharing your experience. I really wanted to come this weekend and sign up, but got a week long family vacation to Cancun we leave for on Monday and just had to stay focused on getting a ton of stuff wrapped at work and at home so I could fully disconnect off the grid next week
Love the pic, and sounds like you had a helluva drive with that thing. Taking it on a track like this has to be the only way to really appreciate that car. Sucks to hear they're thinking of axing it. Hopefully they'll keep it and I'll get to join in on the next round.
Really cool to hear feedback from the track, thanks so much for sharing! My impressions from driving one on snow tires (on both snow course and asphault) were similar regarding torque vectoring and brake feel.. but when I tried to extrapolate these feelings to the racetrack I wasn't sure if my Honda fan-boy imagination wasn't getting too carried away. Glad to hear I wasn't completely off the mark
