I have to friendly disagree with you a bit Nightdrv. Besides tires, My buddy (a rabid Volkswagen fan) loves the way the car handles, and I can easily hang with his base GTI on most turns.
And braking, in my eyes, is FANTASTIC. I can rip my eyes out with the car, and it will easily stop as fast as a co-workers SRT-4. Have you seen the braking distance numbers? More than some performance cars. Rear drums are more than ok for occasional hard stops.
Don't get me wrong I'm not going to race the car on a track, but for an autocross, it seems like it will be ok, given it's an economy car after all. You must have come from a really nice car to think the ECO handles bad and stop Dangerously!?
A good friend of mine has won many SCCA 1st place titles in his stock ford escort...
