No offence but it's guys with slow cars (like yours) that tend to think this way. Once you start making bigger numbers and auto can be hard to drive. Is an an auto easier to drive? Of course it is, but it still takes skill. I bet there are very few people here who could just jump in my car and make a good pass, they would most lilkey fry the tires off.

 

i think that excuse is abused a little to much. Although in this case maybe he was rolling and it was to high for him to downshift and he went to a different gear and thats why. And +1 to jd's post any car that is making decent power is going to be tough to launch either manual or auto power is power and it only gets put down one way

 

for instance...tommy made a comment about how he just pushes the pedal and goes, but thats not true...if you have traction problems (which you used to...i dont know if you do now), you cant just hit the pedal and go.

with any stick shift car, you have the ability to feather the clutch, and slip it out. if i get into my 15 second auto DD, yes, i hit the gas and it goes..very slowly. in my white car, if i just got in, did my burnout, staged, and hit the gas when the light turned green, if im not at a point that the car "likes", its going to roast the tires, even with DRs...

i bracket raced alot before breaking my car earlier this year...so for me comparing a built auto to the archaic manual trans that would have mated up to my engine, it was a no brainer. the auto is more smooth, more consistant, etc...banging through gears is fun, but you know whats even more fun? winning...

however, in my DSM, i wouldnt have considered buying it if it had been an auto...i wish that my DD was a stick, but i blew out my knee in college, and i bought the car right after school, and i didnt have full use of my knee.

yes, the stick is more difficult to launch, but i dont feel that an auto is as easy as just getting in and hitting the gas.

 

general point being made,

auto takes skill, maybe not as much as manual, but it still isnt the cake walk that people tend to assume.

 

Most autos (mine is like most) are actually the cake walk that people tend to assume. As long as you're not going to blow the tires off with too much power/too little traction (a problem I do not have) then Helen Keller could drive my car with ease. And if you are one of those with traction problems, it will be even harder to deal with if you have a stick shift.
Now of course when you start changing a bunch of stuff around then, like with anything else in life, the situation is different.

 

I think tommys nittos made the difference. LOL on factory rubber my old LT1 auto was a PITA to get moving *the 2.73 geared car liked to spin too much as well*

Of course LS1s have strange low end power because I remember being able to launch hard but then the tires would start spinning about halfway through 1st.

 

Manual transmission will almost always be the faster car for equal cars. There's less drivetrain loss in manual transmission so they put more hp/tq to the ground. That being said, consistency is key to winning the most races. So while the manual may be faster, it takes greater skill to drive so the Auto will typically end up winning because the driver in the manual is not consistent.

 

Take afactory stock auto and afactory stock manual then yes, the manual will be faster. However, drop a torque converter with a high stall speed into the auto (something that cannot be done with a manual) and the auto will usually be faster, even if the driver with the stick shift knows what he's doing. So in that example the auto is not just more consistent, but flat-out faster.

 

Its already been stated. Both have their strong points. Im a manual fan mainly because i find it to be alot more fun to play around with, but i also enjoyed racing from a dig in my buddies lt1 auto. Much easier to launch.

 

what the hell is a"manually shifted auto" ??????
I just dont get it, is it a automatic or is it a stick?
Does it have a clutch or not?