Elegy of Despond
Blue Mage
I mean of course taking your car to either a local drag strip, or auto crossing (a track set up of cones in a very large parking lot or other flat, paved surface).
When my mustang was running I made a few passes with it down some of the drag strips around here. It wasn't near as fast as some of the crazy beasts that people have dumped all sorts of time and money into, but it's still fun to try and take the kind of time that your car runs and make that number smaller and smaller.
Just the other weekend Chevy had this promotion going with a group called Rev It Up, who gets together with certain car companies and they hold this big auto crossing thing. They do it annually with Chevy every year and this year it was only $25 to get in. I've paid twice that price taking my own car to an auto cross to beat up on and eat up a set of tires and a tank of gas. Chevy was letting you drive their cars for that price. Of course, they get advertising and rigorous test drives from enthusiasts so it's all just a big promotion for them. The competition had us taking these shitty little 4-banger Chevy Cobalts for a few laps, but those little cars can take a beating man. I put those little bastards through all kinds of abuse. Whoever got the best time out of us all went to some finals thing later on that week to go against the winners of 4 other cities that were holding this thing too, and whoever won that got to win a brand new Corvette.
They gave us two passes in the Corvettes too, but the way they had the little track set up they didn't give us a straight enough distance to really open the thing up and take advantage of the kind of speed those things get. Soon as that fucker really kicked in it was time to slam on the brakes and take a sharp corner or go through a slalom. Their BS excuse was that they wanted to emphasize the Corvette's superior handling more than its speed, but they really just didn't want a bunch of people abusing the hell out of an expensive and really nice car any more than they had to. But it was still fun, even if all the 'vettes were automatics and not stickshifts.
It was a pretty fun night though, beating up on all of these Chevvys. And just like with drag racing, it was fun to try and shave more and more time off of each progressive run, and try to figure out if you take a corner this way, slam on your brakes and then hit the gas this other way, what can keep you in control of the car the best in this type of situation in order to get the fastest time? And all the while you're taking these turns and sliding across pavement you're honing another skill that you're not even realizing; how to keep control of your car in your everyday driving when you're put in the position of having to slam on your brakes or suddenly swerve out of the way to avoid an accident. Or how to increase your situational awareness by looking ahead to what's coming up so you can plan for it instead of focusing only on what's immediately in front of you.
Does anyone else here share that kind of passion for this sort of thing? I'd suggest going down and trying it at least once. Especially if you can find a place that is providing you with their own cars, that's even better although that almost never happens. If you're in the US and pretty new to this, check out revitup.com they do this thing annually. The Chevy thing is done and over with this year but they apparently do it every year and in 5 major cities, and it was a pretty good environment I noticed for people who have absolutely never even done this sort of thing before in their life.
When my mustang was running I made a few passes with it down some of the drag strips around here. It wasn't near as fast as some of the crazy beasts that people have dumped all sorts of time and money into, but it's still fun to try and take the kind of time that your car runs and make that number smaller and smaller.
Just the other weekend Chevy had this promotion going with a group called Rev It Up, who gets together with certain car companies and they hold this big auto crossing thing. They do it annually with Chevy every year and this year it was only $25 to get in. I've paid twice that price taking my own car to an auto cross to beat up on and eat up a set of tires and a tank of gas. Chevy was letting you drive their cars for that price. Of course, they get advertising and rigorous test drives from enthusiasts so it's all just a big promotion for them. The competition had us taking these shitty little 4-banger Chevy Cobalts for a few laps, but those little cars can take a beating man. I put those little bastards through all kinds of abuse. Whoever got the best time out of us all went to some finals thing later on that week to go against the winners of 4 other cities that were holding this thing too, and whoever won that got to win a brand new Corvette.
They gave us two passes in the Corvettes too, but the way they had the little track set up they didn't give us a straight enough distance to really open the thing up and take advantage of the kind of speed those things get. Soon as that fucker really kicked in it was time to slam on the brakes and take a sharp corner or go through a slalom. Their BS excuse was that they wanted to emphasize the Corvette's superior handling more than its speed, but they really just didn't want a bunch of people abusing the hell out of an expensive and really nice car any more than they had to. But it was still fun, even if all the 'vettes were automatics and not stickshifts.
It was a pretty fun night though, beating up on all of these Chevvys. And just like with drag racing, it was fun to try and shave more and more time off of each progressive run, and try to figure out if you take a corner this way, slam on your brakes and then hit the gas this other way, what can keep you in control of the car the best in this type of situation in order to get the fastest time? And all the while you're taking these turns and sliding across pavement you're honing another skill that you're not even realizing; how to keep control of your car in your everyday driving when you're put in the position of having to slam on your brakes or suddenly swerve out of the way to avoid an accident. Or how to increase your situational awareness by looking ahead to what's coming up so you can plan for it instead of focusing only on what's immediately in front of you.
Does anyone else here share that kind of passion for this sort of thing? I'd suggest going down and trying it at least once. Especially if you can find a place that is providing you with their own cars, that's even better although that almost never happens. If you're in the US and pretty new to this, check out revitup.com they do this thing annually. The Chevy thing is done and over with this year but they apparently do it every year and in 5 major cities, and it was a pretty good environment I noticed for people who have absolutely never even done this sort of thing before in their life.
