After 20 years of tuning, suspension and chassis updates, and knowledge sharing among owners and racers (an often overlooked enormous benefit of both the forums and the openness of the guys running the challenge series), and you get where we are today with the cars even better than a lot of people who have driven the older ones have experienced.

For many years the 3-link was the go to for track suspension and it still has some great benefits and is simple to set up. The previous generation IRS was more optimized for the street, softer sprung, more travel, more authentic, and took more time with the set up to make it work well on track. The newer IRS however really is the best of both worlds, it out handles the 3-link in terms of lap times and rides better on the street. When we first tested the IRS we took a street MK4 to the test track (NCCAR) and our test driver was a very experienced challenge series racer, his initial impression was that the street car with IRS was quicker than his race car along with being easier to drive. My initial thought was that the 3-link would still be quicker on an autocross because of the froward bite, with both the standing start and lower speed corner exits, however my experience there has been the same as on the track, the IRS is just quicker.

As for how it drives compared to other cars this is still a 90 inch wheelbase, rear heavy car and it is going to be trickier to drive than a well set up 105+ inch wheelbase car at the limit, but with such a low overall weight, such a wide tire, and so much of the weight on the rear tires, the performance envelope is quite high to begin with. Its also quite rewarding and more fun than most anything once you get the hang of it.