Hawk Performance, the Official Brake Products of SCCA®, offers a variety of brake pads, and the reason is pretty obvious: When it comes to performance brakes, there is no pad that does it all. For high-performance driving, Hawk offers several compounds, including the HP+ and HPS 5.0. When it comes to autocross-specific applications, while those pads will work, they’re not necessarily optimal – this is why the HPX was born.
“Autocross doesn't give brakes the same conditions road racing does,” a recent blog post on HawkPerformance.com explains. “There's no warmup lap, no sustained heat cycle, no opportunity to ease into optimal temperature before the finish line is in sight. [In autocross] you need effective friction from the first pedal application to the last, and you need it to communicate clearly so you can use the brake zone to rotate your Subaru BRZ, Mazda MX-5 Miata, Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, Nissan Elantra N, or heavily modified Civic Type R without guesswork.”
That, Hawk says, is exactly what its HPX pads were built to do.
“Smooth bite, clean modulation, and quick activation are the core engineering targets [of the HPX pads] – not as marketing language, but as literal performance requirements that the friction material was held to through extensive dynamometer and real-world validation,” Hawk says.
Quick activation means no cold hesitation that higher-temperature compounds experience, which is one of the key places the HPX differentiates itself from the aforementioned HP+ and HPS 5.0.
“HP+ was developed for sport driving and technically straddles street and track use – lower wear rates and higher torque values than any street-only compound,” the blog post explains. “For autocross, it works. It generates strong stopping power, and its wider operating range means it can handle an event day that’s warm. The tradeoff is that HP+ is noisier, dustier, and less forgiving when it's genuinely cold.”
The HPS 5.0 is a true street pad, with Hawk stating: “It lacks the aggressive grip and temp capacity of either HPX or HP+.”
To learn more about why HPX brake pads should be on your autocross car, check out Hawk’s blog post by clicking here.
Photo by Jeff Loewe
