Chevy Rev It Up

That's where I was yesterday.

It's a promotional fair that Chevy is putting on to push the SS versions of their cars.

The big hook is an autocross where you have a chance to win a '08 Corvette. But since they let pro drivers enter, what do you think the odds are of a normal schlep winning? Me too.

It is, however, a lot of fun. They have little skills clinics for driving autocrosses. Some displays showing Chevy's products, now and future.

And you get to beat the snot out of a couple of models.

There's a zero to fast as you can get to zero timed straight line course where you can drive either an '08 Impala SS or an '08 Trailblazer SS.

There's a short autocross where you can take either an '07 Cobalt SS coupe with an automatic or an '07 Cobalt SS Supercharged coupe with a manual. I drove the auto twice, Marv did one each. When I went to try the manual (at close to 9pm) they weren't running, out of gas.

Next event is an easy short autocross in an '07 Corvette. They limited you to two runs for the day. I really want a 'Vette now. WOW.

Last event is for the prize, a long, technically difficult autocross in an '08 Cobalt SS automatic coupe. My time was 42.665, indexed against their designated pro's time that gave me a score of 405 on my first run and 396 (42.845) on my second. The pro runs before each group to establish a base of 1000. Then you compare to his and that gives you your score. Marv got a 588 on his first and 571 on his second.

The top 25 of the prize event run the same course in a Corvette and the top driver goes to the national Rev It Up to compete against the other six top drivers for the '08 Corvette. For a few minutes, 588 was in the top 25. Marv was so close!

Top score of the day was 801. My 405 was about average.

The real thing to take notice of for the "American cars just don't have the quality that Japanese cars have" people. The only work done to the cars all day was TIRES. All them were beat on by people who were trying to get a high score in a race. Not a single car was down all day. There were prolly 5000 people there.