They’re great cars–terrific suspension. The only downside for serious racing is since they’re MacPherson strut-style front suspension, there’s no way to dial in negative camber. Negative camber allows you to use more of the tire’s surface in a turn, and carry more speed in and out of a corner. Without it, MINI’s ride on a very narrow strip of tire in mid-corner. You can get camber plates to correct that, but that knocks you up a couple of classes in SCCA.

The ‘S’ is faster, because of its supercharger. In the Cooper, you had to manager momentum, while the ‘S’ had 55 extra HP and better gearing to pull you out of the corners.

Terrific cars, but not simple or cheap to fix when they break!