I have had my 2012 Boss 302 for a few weeks now, and yesterday I had the chance to get the car onto an autocross track. I did a few autocross events back on 1999-2000 in an old 87 LX 5.0 Mustang, but that was the last time I ran any autocross events and the last time I drove a Mustang of any sort in a competition environment until yesterday.

I’ve certainly hit the back roads at speeds more than the law would appreciate on more than one occasion, but not on the track where you can run it until you spin if that’s what you want to do. I ran the Boss 302 as hard as a novice on street tires like myself felt comfortable running Sunday, and the car did very well. The thing I recall about my 10 Mustang GT that I traded on the Boss, (plus the 87 LX) is that coming off WOT and getting on the brakes upset them. I spun the 87 more than a few times at events from doing that and sometimes it would spin just from coming off wide open throttle too quickly.

The Boss 302 didn’t care at all what I did. The car remained planted and was surprisingly smooth. You can check out the videos below to see how my day progressed. My first lap at the track I missed one of the turns and I knew that would happen, as anyone who has autocrossed knows that the sea of cones can be very confusing when you are new to the sport. I backed up, got going in the right direction and let the Boss scream again. That lap ended up being a 71 second time and the fastest laps of the day were in the 55-second range. Given that some D-stock cars were turning 69-70 I thought a 71 with a missed turn, which meant having to back up and take off again wasn’t that bad.

The second run I got too aggressive at the end. You can see that videos below and the resulting spin (naturally my loop was the one with three different video angles). I ran the car as hard as I could push it on that lap on that day. I went too wide at the end, got into some loose gravel coupled with too much speed and then too much brake while turning and around she came. I don’t think I hit any cones with the spin though and even managed to keep the car from stalling. The third run was my only clean, officially timed, run of the day. It was fast enough to land me the second place trophy in the novice class. Those three runs ended the first heat.

During the runs, especially the first one where I missed the turn I had some significant brake fade. I was surprised that the Boss’ big Brembos had that kind of fade. In the video of that first lap where I missed the turn, I had the pedal to the floor a good 40 feet before the turn and the car just didn’t stop. It was slowing, but not like it normally does. I was a little bummed about the braking performance, until I realized I forgot to turn off traction control. I can’t imagine with all the sliding and turns I was making how hard TCS was working the brakes to keep up.

The standard traction control setting on the Boss 302 will shut me down in a second simply trying to pass on flat and level ground on the highway. I am frankly surprised the car went at all. By time the second heat for my class came around the temperatures at the track were much higher, hovering at about 92 and very humid. I only got two runs in the second heat, and they were unofficial after a failure of the timing system. We still ran as fun runs with unofficial timing with a stopwatch. I remembered this time around to turn off traction control for the first run of the second heat, I put the TCS system on the Boss into sport mode and off I went. I drove the car harder than the first couple of runs. The temperatures were higher, and I had zero brake fade. That is what I expected out of the Boss Brembo binders. The last run of the day I turned off TCS and stability control altogether and ran.

I couldn’t tell a difference between sport mode and everything off in the laps I made. The thing that I bring away as a novice with the Boss 302 is that the car makes you very confident. It goes where I point it, stays on the path I point it on, and just sticks. When you do reach the limits of adhesion on the surface, you hear it and feel it before things get ugly. The car starts to push, the tires start to squeal, and you can back off a bit and avert a potential disaster. I would much rather have that pushing feeling than have the rear end step out at the limit.

The dampers on the car are very easy to adjust with a small screwdriver. For my first three runs of the day, I had the dampers at five, which is the stiffest setting, on all four corners for all three runs. I had some pushing in the front end and for heat two on a recommendation from another racer, I backed the front off to setting three and left the rears on setting five. The car turned in much easier and pushed much less even considering the higher temperatures in the second heat. I am sure with more seat time and more tweaking knowledge that the Boss 302 is a winner in the hands of someone knowing what they are doing on an autocross track.