Yup

[patrick]

[patrick]

Cept Penski .

[JCON]

Very true!!!

[mustang1989]

You can say that again!!

[Beekster]

Speed is money. How fast do you want to spend? It's a truism at every level. A couple of decades ago I used to autocross regularly and budgeted for sticky tires and accelerated wear of brakes. When venues near Portland became less available and events had to move to locations two hours away that required hotel stays, I gave it up. Spending fifty bucks a weekend on entrance fees was fine for a dozen events a year. Spending five hundred a weekend including extra fuel, meals, and a hotel stay was untenable.

[Tim]

Wow Beekster, that sounded like fun. It would be triple that now. My father once told me a pro ball player invested his whole earnings into a drag racing team...lost everything.

[BUCKY]

It never has taken me a very long time to spend money! HAHA

[Beekster]

Jun 1, 2022 19:01:24 GMT -6 Tim said:

Wow Beekster, that sounded like fun. It would be triple that now. My father once told me a pro ball player invested his whole earnings into a drag racing team...lost everything.

It is fun, and certainly hones one's skills as a driver.  Hitting a cone costs you time, and lowest time wins.  Missing an entire course element costs more time, effectively aborting a run.  Cars are put into multiple classes based on power, displacement, and weight.  A Corvette should beat a Mercedes-Benz sedan with half the cylinder count handily; but results are handicapped by class.  If the 'Vette driver doesn't beat me by enough, I "win" and place higher in the standings.  You never go very fast in autocross; I almost never never got out of second gear or beyond 60.  But you're never really going straight; always turning and either accelerating or braking.  And that's where the challenge lies, in managing traction when the tire is being asked to grip for both a change in direction and in velocity simultaneously.  Any normal car can autocross, though naturally some are better than others.  Miatas are great; an S-Class sedan less so.  I ran a Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3-16 until a road accident totaled it, then ran our C230 Kompressor sedan for a few years.  I've had the SLK out once or twice, and it is a delight:  Enough power, manual transmission, and short wheelbase for fast directional response.  Because SCCA rules allowed the swapping of some suspension parts with others used on a different model of the same body style, I fitted the humble C230 with the springs from the V8 C43 AMG, an inch shorter and significantly stiffer.  The car wears those to this day, and it still can surprise much newer cars with how nimble it is on a twisty mountain road.  Many's the time some hotshot in a slammed rice rocket or pony car has been dissatisfied with my measured 60mph pace on straighter sections, pushing to try to pass.  I let them, then when the next twisty uphill passing lane comes into view I don't slow down but just bend into the curve and accelerate.  The usual 45mph corner is uneventful for my car at 60.  I go right back past them and pull lateral Gs through the corners as they drop well back.  Eventually they catch up again, but often times they aren't interested in passing me again.

[gloobombking]

Beek, I never did the autocross thing, only fed some circle track cars.  Of late, in my old age, for fun I threw some Koni adjustable shocks, springs, swaybars, solid suspension bushings and some crossclimate tires at a lowly Cobalt.  I added a intake system, larger TB and a header and exhaust.  I totally understand the wanna be fast guys until they come to twisty roads.  The Cobalt straightens out sharp curves and I have seen some of those others leave the road trying to corner like the Cobalt.  Its fun and it really hurts the feelings of some Nissan, Honda and other makes owners when they cant keep up.  It is not really fast at all but corners like it is on rails, it even surprised me yet being lower to the ground, light and sticky tires some stock suspended nit wit with harder than the rim tires gets an education.  I understand your fun and even though I am really too old for this kind of stuff, I still get a thrill when I take a 40mph exit ramp at 70 and watch the tailgater following end up facing the wrong way or over the bank.  Ya really gotta know your limitations. 

[Beekster]

Indeed, we do need to know our limitations. Track days are great for that, though I haven't had the car on a real road course in a couple of decades. Maybe once the wife retires I'll pony up the cash to do a track day with the SLK. Let's see: there's the entry fee, a new helmet, at least one tank of gas, possibly a new set of tires afterwards. Won't be cheap, that's for sure.

Fast in the real world (not on a dragstrip) isn't about how fast you can go without incurring the displeasure of the local gendarmes, it's about how much speed you can comfortably carry when the road stops being straight and the cumulative effect of that over a couple of hours or a couple of hundred miles.

[Buddho]

I used to go with a friend when he would drag race his Trans Am...it was fun watching but I was not coordinated to shift and race another while trying to beat a time, lol.

[JED]

I have never been a millionaire nor had a fast car, but my 63 Morris Minor took more than enough of my money!!!!