Today's the day I took the Fit out for a spin, but not just any old drive: I went to an autocross. The event was at an old airport, and we ran on the concrete apron. Sadly, while I used to be quite competitive with my WRX in STX (even winning overall with PAX) my Fit and I are hopelessly outclassed while the Fit is in H-Stock (HS). I have no reason to believe that R-comps would have made that much difference on this course, as the brakes performed wonderfully even with street tires.
All that stated, the Fit is absolutely amazing while going through slaloms and offsets, and handles pivots (sharp hairpins) incredibly well. The only real issue is just that it's slow. Very, very slow. Body roll was noticeable, but not terrible since the car didn't generate enough speed to make it excessive.
Since this is the Sport version with the automatic, I get the super-cool paddle shifters. These worked amazingly well and were very quick. The only thing you have to do is stay aware of requested downshifts to make sure it was able to complete them. What is cool is that you can shift into first when it's ready (and it's got a wide tolerance) and if it didn't make it you can downshift again as you exit (or while you're still turning the wheel). I saw a review complaining about the shifters being attached to the wheel and how one can be "confused" or find it "hard" to find the right paddle while spinning the steering wheel. I didn't find any problem with it, as the wheel has a profile to it and paddles have different patterns behind them to denote one from the other. Suffice to say it wasn't a problem for me. :-)
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