DID YOU KNOW:
...That we were once hired by Road Track magazine as pro drivers to do a 200 mph test for the Special Editions? I had just won a professional road racing championship and was quite full of confidence that I was up to the challenge. Perhaps, in review I might have considered the opportunity a bit longer before accepting. See, the cars I raced were Mustangs and the highest speed they ever reached 155 mph. I thought to myself "How much harder could it be to test ten different vehicles at over 200?"
The difference became clear immediately as I made my way onto the very narrow tire testing track of Firestone in southern Texas. Normally this facility was used to test and develop heavy duty truck tires at low speeds. It’s a five mile oval with one flat lane and one lane with a 10 degree bank. They appeared narrow just standing by them; they seemed a whole lot narrower at 200 plus.
All the cars in this test came from well known aftermarket tuner shops: some were well done, others not so much. They consisted of a well-prepped and fast Mustang, but it fell shy of 200 mph with a best of 189 mph. A little party at topped but overall a solid effort. Next up a legend: a Ford GT with plenty of power and the most comfortable high speed feel of all the cars I tested that day. Using the narrow bank required that the car be guided on precisely seemed tough, but once there if you adjusted for a bit of slip it was doable. The GT ran a 204 mph; if had a bit more engine...the chassis felt up to more.
The Mazda RX7, the Pantera, the Camaro and the rest of the field struggled to pull numbers at the base of 200 mph but the Ferrari, with its 454 cubic inch high block Chevy engine equipped with two huge turbos was a total terrifying mess. It had 10 year old Goodyear Indy car racing slicks that were hard as rock, full of missing small chunks and so far out of balance the car shook like a carnival ride; By far and away the worst prepared car (given the task) I’d ever driven. The radiator pipes ran right under the driver seat and as the engine gained heat so too did the driver's bottom. We’re talking pretty darn hot. Though the engine and aerodynamics were willing to go quicker, the chassis and tires were so bad that 223 mph was all I had the outage to try. The car’s owner felt that I wasn’t getting it all, so he went out to show me how it was done. At just short of 190 mph, one of the rear tires came apart, tore up the body work and kept the owner busy for about a half-mile trying to get the car back under control. Oh, did I mention it was on the very first lap? Happy I handed that one over when I did.
The day’s rocket was the C6 Corvette: Well prepped, so clean and loaded with horsepower, this was ready to go short of some really scary handling. The car had just come from a professional alignment rack, so the owner/tuner was confident it was aimed right. I was a super sensitive and very twitchy, and it only got worse the faster I went. I knew enough to understand the alignment just wasn’t right but the owner was a pretty intimidating guy who expressed his concern that I was famous enough to be testing his car to one 200 mph. He made what I considered to be the strangest offer from I guy who didn’t believe in me. He told the Editor that he would ride with me to make sure I was giving it all it had. Really, you don’t trust me but you're willing to ride with at over 200 mph? Struck me as odd. So together we took off and the Corvette showed its ugly head instantly, but by now I was so pissed off that the guy didn’t think I wasn’t good enough that I was determined to hang in. It got so bad at around 180 mph that I decided that perhaps if I used the bank, shallow as it was, that maybe I could compress the suspension enough to take away some of its influence on the aim. So up on the bank we went, and sure enough it calmed down a little and we were now over 225 mph. The plan was working; oh neither of us were having fun but the car was making a lot of speed. What I forgot to factor in was coming off the bank onto the front straight, and that’s when things got really hairy.
As the bank disappeared underneath us, the 'Vette turned sideways and just to keep it interesting we needed to go through a fairly small open in the entrance bridge. Needless to say, I had never been in this kind of trouble before: over 225 mph and all crossed up trying to clear the sides of the bridge. As a race driver I know two things for certain: lifting the throttle was NOT a opinion and don’t counter-steer. So I stayed in the gas, neutralized the steering and hung on. We cleared the bridge by inches and we were still gaining speed. The timing traps were about 300 feet past the bridge we went through still a bit sideways at 232 mph! Not a fun time but I was very proud that I hadn’t got us killed. The owner was thrilled and announced that I was "the bravest S.O.B. he'd ever met." Not so sure about that, but I was glad the ride was over. Sadly the owner was killed just a few months later at a drag race and a highly respected fellow journalist was killed on the same test track a month after our test. I’ve tested a lot of fast cars since and have gone on to win more races but honestly I never want to try that kind of test ever again.
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