I saw one of these on the road the other day. It was the Ford Focus wagon Platinum edition and it was yellow. It looked pretty darn cool! I thought that it would be a fun car to take out on the track. Ford seems to be coming up with some better design lately and they are also more reliable than they used to be as well - go Ford! I believe they didn't take any government money either, so go Ford again!
Here's some pictures of the one I made online. I forgot the price but it was near $30k. For me, I'd rather almost get a used Lotus Elise for that much cash, so I don't plan on getting one but here's the one I would get.
I really like the lines. Very aero-dynamic looking and it looks tough, too. With the interior, they've done a nice job with that as well and I like the options available. Whatever my next car is, it will have to have heated seats - for sure. A must-have in Wisconsin, I think. Just watch, I'll get that and then move to Arizona or something. :-)
I do look forward to seeing more of these on the road - and I do like the 5-door sport wagon more than the coupe for some reason. More sporty looking - it probably has a higher center of gravity though.
Well, I turned the big 4-0 this year. I figured I have to do something fun and Las Vegas came to mind. My brother, Mike, and I spent 3 nights in Vegas and took Saturday to go out to the Exotics Raceway where you can take some exotic cars out on the track.
The whole thing takes about 2 hours. They register you and then you have a half hour briefing. From there, you get two discovery laps in groups of 3 or 4 as the instructor takes you out on the track in a Porsche Cayenne. You then get a helmet and wait your turn to hit the track in the car you picked (some cars are more per lap than others). I had 5 laps in a Lamborghini Superleggera LP570 (looks kind of like a Stealth fighter, sorta):
Lamborghini Superleggera LP570n
Engine: 5.2L V10
Gearbox: 6-speed E-Gear
Power: 570 hp at 8,000 RPM
Torque: 539 Nm
Top Speed: 202mph
Acceleration: 0-60mph in 3.4s
Market Value: $265,000
That's the fastest car they had there. It was pretty sweet to say the least. The interior was more comfortable than I expected even though that car is meant for the track (not the road) and most of the "niceties" have been stripped out. It's paddle shift. The paddles stay in place and don't turn with the wheel - unlike other paddle shift cars I've driven but that makes sense. You don't want to shift and upset the balance of the car when the tires are not straight. The V10 engine is computer controlled and the car takes care of downshifting for you - so no double clutching required - nice! With that kind of power, we were only really shifting from like 4th down to 3rd and back up to 4th again once we got onto the track. There was definitely a wide range of power to work with.
As I drove, the instructor was barking out commands but what he said made sense and I was glad he did that. He was good. I passed two cars out there and the straightaways were really fun as you got to just floor it. I think it got up to 110 or more but you could hardly tell in that car. I think going something like 50 in that car would really feel like you're going nowhere.
Here's the video of the experience which has a camera at the top of the windshield (so it's close to the view I had) and an inset video of me driving it. The instructor is barking out commands of what to do, which was helpful. I'm pretty sure that the 2nd car I passed (orange Lamborghini) was my brother:
It was really fun. A good experience. I'd do it again but I'd definitely want to do 10 laps or more - for sure!
This was the second time I've gone there and my second time ever on a track. It was great. We had awesome weather (in the 70s and sun).
I was registered in the Intermediate group but I sat in on the Novice lesson again and took the first session with them. That was a good refresher. I then ran with the Intermediates after that. It turned out that I was sort of the low man on the totem pole with about the lowest powered car. I was up against some pretty beefy cars but I had fun. I just let them pass and worked on my driving.
I really think that I need to upgrade to racing brakes on the front. That's going to be the best upgrade I can do. I'll have more confidence in them and it'll totally change how I drive that track. I'll need racing rotors, calipers and pads. They'll enable me to brake later and give me more control. A lot of race driving is about braking. I don't know what a pro would call the percentage but I would say it's over half of it for sure.
The morning sessions weren't that great for me since I was getting passed so much. I couldn't really help it, I thought. In the afternoon, I know I learned more by watching what the people passing me were doing and how they were driving and my driving definitely improved. By the end of the day, I was really satisfied with my performance and improvement. I know I gained a lot of time. Better brakes will do that even more, so I plan to get that done on the RSX.
I would like to take the MR2 out there but I think I'll wait. I just got used to knowing where to shift this car and don't want to start all over. I need to work on driving and putting another car in the equation will not really help me.
The guys with the Lotus Elises were not there this time. Oh well.
I funniest part of the day was in the afternoon when a turtle was trying to cross the track. I saw him on one lap and was able to go over him and not hit him. By the time 6 other cars encountered him and I got around again, he was toast. With each lap after that, there was less and less of him there. Poor thing. In the wrong place at the wrong time.
I'll be heading to the track again next week. I've been driving the MR2 for the last week and now I've switches back to the RSX so that I can get used to driving it.
It's funny how skiing and racing have some similarities. You get trained or take a lesson and then you have some things to work on. That's true with about any sport, I suppose. With race driving, I'm working on some things in my normal driving. For instance, I'm making sure that I've downshifted before I enter a turn. I also am more conscious of my hand position on the wheel as I turn. As I mentioned, I'm also learning to double clutch as well.
It's not as easy to work on driving the line in normal driving simply because you can't really hog the road and start your turns wide. One thing they said in the race driving class last month was that you need to throw out many of the rules that you've learned in driver's ed a long time ago. It's true, so there are so many things you can work on in normal driving and for the rest, you need track time.
If the weather is good this time, then I should get 2 hours or more of time on the track. That's a lot of time on a 2 mile track. Many laps. It'll be nice if it's warm and sunny but hot would kind of suck since you have to wear long sleeves, long pants and a helmet when you're on the track.
I'll try to get some more pictures and video this next time and then post them here again. I also hope I can drive a Lotus Elise this time. I'll have to try to talk one of the owners into letting me take theirs out for a few laps if those guys are there this time. Last time, one instructor had one and one other student did. I've kind of got my eye on one of those. More on that another time.
