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October 12, 2002
Currently playing: Garbage - Stupid
Currently playing: Garbage - Stupid Girl
Those of you who buy fast cars and mess around with them on the street... I can only offer to reinforce my previous opinion of what you should do with them: take them to the track!
At the very least, go autocrossing with 'em. Don't bother with the stupid crap; canyon racing, street racing, late night illegal drags (think "organized" street racing)... take the Z-rated tires, four wheel disc brakes and independent suspension (unless you're a Nissan Maxima or Sentra owner *sigh*), and the various go-fast bits you bought for your car, and use 'em in an environment where you can take your car to its limit, close to its limit, or even over (!) its limit without killing yourself and endangering the lives of others. The three, five, ten, even twenty seconds of rush from a quick street race... it can't compare to the 80 minutes of track time you get in one day at some of these track events, or even the five minutes of autocrossing you get at a busy SCCA Solo II event.
At the very least, go to the local drag strip (Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, California Speedway near Los Angeles, Sacramento Raceway in Sacramento, etc. etc.) if you can't afford to make it to an autocross or can't afford the time and money for a track event. It's worth it.
Yes, I acknowledge I'm human too- I can't resist stomping the gas on the street all the time either, but the occasional auto-x or track event... it relieves 99.95% of my unsafe impulses on the street. =)
Of course, because I'm a complete newbie at track racing (and a newbie to the track I was at today, Buttonwillow), and my autocross experience didn't help me much at all... I made all kinds of mistakes, probably scared the crap out of everyone in sight at least twice, got dirt all over my car... but it was worth it! Dropping from 105mph to 70mph for the sweeper entering the east loop, or the satisfaction of a good line coming through the sweeper at the bottom of east loop, flooring it in 2nd, dropping to 3rd, flicking it to 4th through the esses... ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh beautiful. (we'll ignore my habit of blowing turn 1 completely and ending up in the dirt. oops. =) )
Posted by brian at October 12, 2002 11:47 PM