2024 Acura RDX Drags Lincoln Corsair and Mazda CX-5, They're Gone in 15 Seconds

Although it's March 2024 already, some parts of the world haven't seen the last of Lady Winter. For example, Sam is still dressed up like it's freezing weather – and for good measure because his latest skirmish occurred with a little wind and snow on the side. But that's less important, as it turns out, because even on the channel's usual unprepped surface, these premium or near-premium compact crossover SUVs performed admirably and never lost grip.

As of late, maybe due to the inclement weather, Sam has done a lot of drag-and-roll races with massive participants. We saw early last month, a Ford Explorer ST brawl with the Acura MDX Type S and a Genesis GV80 with surprising results, and later on, the MDX also fought for supremacy in a 'close, but not close enough' manner with the Audi Q8 and BMW X5.

After that, a quirky minivan drag race pitted the Honda Odyssey against the Toyota Sienna and Kia Carnival – if the Chrysler Pacifica had also been there, it would have been a party. Just recently, the month of March came with a couple of extremes – first, Sam raced the massive 2024 Toyota Sequoia full-size SUV against the mighty GMC Yukon and a Land Rover Defender.

Now he switches to compact near- and premium crossover SUVs – the 2024 Mazda CX-5 meets with the 2024 Lincoln Corsair and the Acura RDX A-Spec. The technical details are easy to understand – they're all motivated by turbocharged inline-four engines and have around 250 to 272 horsepower. The Acura is the most powerful but also the heaviest, so it was used as a benchmark against the other two.

As always, the channel's host pairs the contenders two-by-two, and the first roll races and drag skirmishes were between the Acura RDX and Mazda CX-5. The RDX easily won the initial roll race from 60 kph (37 mph), but when they switched to 80 kph (or 50 mph), the surprise happened – Mazda narrowly snatched the victory, and it was all down to the drag race to decide who continues for the crown.

On the other hand, the drag races were no contest, and it was over in 15 seconds for the RDX and 15.2 seconds for the Mazda rival. Next came the Lincoln Corsair, the least powerful of the bunch. However, it held up well during the initial roll race, narrowly beating the Acura CUV. The second roll race wasn't the decider because the RDX driver won the rematch, and they continued with three drag races. In the end, the Acura proved much better in all three instances, so the RDX was crowned champion of that windy and snowy race day.