Hot Rods And Sports Cars

95% of owning a hot rod or a sports car (or a super car) is the bragging rights.

It's one thing to be able to say you've got 436 horses under your Corvette hood.

It's another to apply it to the ground and use it.

Your car can pull a g on the skidpad?  That's great!  Ever take a corner faster than the lid on the Starbucks cup can contain?

So many people I see with these cars drive them like golf carts.

It's well within their rights to do so, but it's such a shame.  These cars were made to run.

I sometimes think you could slip a 4.8l LY2 from a pick-up into any C5 plus Corvette and the owner would never notice.  It would sound right and still has enough torque to beat the average mini-SUV; they might even brag about improved mileage.

But they'd never know they'd lost the rated top speed of the car.

I know I'm unusual in the C6 world in that I know my car can do the 185mph max.  You have to break the law to find out and it takes miles of open, straight, road to check.

For lots of people, getting three digits on the speedo is both scary and enough.

On the topic of cornering:

I've used the little g meter on the HUD to see how hard I can pull up a clover-leaf.  My max is 0.75g.  When I'm in a crowd of Vettes...  I'm often the only one pulling that hard.

I'm at a loss to relate to these people sometimes.

Many of them have dropped lots of money upgrading the power too.  They straight-line it.  I think cornering is a lot more fun.

Gimme The Tail of the Dragon on a nice day without cops and traffic and I am in heaven.

I noticed this back in my Interceptor/Ninja days too.  I liked leaning into the corners.

Others just putt putt.

Yet...

We're still connected by our love of the cars.

Go figure.