Is more power and more speed always better, or is there such a thing as too much when it comes to fast cars?
Have you ever driven a car so fast that it scared you?
Is more power and more speed always better, or is there such a thing as too much when it comes to fast cars?
Have you ever driven a car so fast that it scared you?
I'll start with one that maybe didn't scare me but took my breath away as it was just so quick for its time: Supra Turbo.
I drove a 1,000 + HP Z06 Corvette that scared me. It wasn't the horsepower so much as the poor calibration that didn't always close the throttle then you released the pedal.
The first time I drove a Northeast Dirt Modified it got my attention as well.
Modified 911 turbo with a manual transmission, allegedly a bit over 600 wheel horsepower. An older one that didn't have traction control, or if it did, it didn't work. At least on the street, it was just too much. Hit the throttle in lower gears and it was on the limiter instantly, and pulls in higher gears where it would actually hook up were beyond extra-legal. The turbo lag really kept you on your toes if you were trying to drive in the midrange rather than just cruising or really pushing hard where the turbo would spool quickly. I'm sure it would be fun on the track or a drag strip but it was just too much to be usable on the street.
This is an odd one, but: A Nissan Maxima.
I had one as a rental. It wasn't that the acceleration scared me, it was when I got to speed I became immediately aware of how terrible the tires/suspension/brakes were by comparison.
289 Cobra. The real thing.
Only in America would some idiot think that thing needs a 427.
Got through exactly one track event with ~400hp and decided that was a good way to get going way too fast way too quickly with relatively limited safety gear. Went back down to 200whp track cars and am much happier.
Car, not really.
Bike? Yes, a 2006 Honda CBR1000RR with no traction control and no ABS was ferociously scary on a cold wet day at Grattan with riders crashing and dropping antifreeze all over the place. It's the only time I've had one wheel locked and one wheel spinning simultaneously.
A very modified FD. Huge turbocharger. 740hp on the dyno. When the boost kicked in at 4500 RPMs it was almost impossible to keep the rear tires in contact with the road. It was pure misery to drive on the street but that 4500 to 8000 pull was guaranteed to get your heart rate up. You knew it was trying to kill you, but you had to do it anyway.
900ish HP 2013 GT500, every time I drive it I both love it and can't wait to give it back. Laying stripes at 90-100 MPH accidentally is not always fun.
Every big bump up is a little unsettling at first. After a history of small, light cars hovering around 100hp, the 220-hp-according-to-internet-recipe swapped E30 was a little alarming at first. Similarly for the 265hp WRX though obviously that's a very composed package.
I got used to both of them pretty quickly, though I would say that on the street you only ever get to use that for a few seconds here and there. I mean, at some point I'd love to drive something with 1000hp and AWD just to giggle after tiny pulls into hyperspace, but I don't think that's where the fun necessarily is. In real-world driving around mode, the E30 was more than capable of overwhelming the stock size tires, and if it was, say, raining in Portland, and I was on the half of the roads paved in old concrete with all the aggregate polished, it took some attention to make more progress than wheelspin when merging from a stop.
Oh, and the Aprilia RSVR, though that's not a car. That took longer to get used to. It felt like the engine didn't notice there was a bike and a person attached. I was also, again after cars no faster than the E30, not calibrated to see turn one at PIR approaching that quickly. I just had zero experience with the phase of deceleration from 135 to corner entry... (Yeah, someone making a better exit off of turn 9 would have been arriving a lot faster than that, too...) Slow cars also don't prepare you for the sensory experience of sticking your head into a 135mph wind blast just when you're trying to concentrate on smooth inputs.
Renault R5 Turbo. It wasn't the speed that scared me, but the torque steer. Those things were pure evil in a very, very attractive package.
Margie
Not driven, and not quite "scared", but I have experienced brain-rebooting acceleration on the street. The cars in question both made about 1000hp and were turbocharged, full-interior cars, so they were a lot quieter than one would expect from that kind of acceleration.
Driver: I'm going to do a pull in 3rd
Me (head in laptop, setting up a log): Okay
Car: booOOOOOOOOOST
Me: (brain reboot noises)
Not a car but when I was 16 I swapped my Honda XR200 for a CR480. It genuinely frightened me and I thought about taking it back. But by week two I was yee haw.... I did a lot of tight west coast trails and it would beat me to death, and sometimes coming home dog tired it would find some traction and just spit me straight off the back. I want another one.
Car, no but the most powerful road car I've driven is a 780hp Viper.
Single seater wise; a 240hp car was such that you'd arrive in places carrying a lot of speed but that was not scary to me but at that level of car things can go wrong in a hurry.
The operative words being "to me" as I'm an idiot motorcycle road racer ADD poster child...........so It takes a lot.
I've ridden a couple of bikes that were eye opening but for me the one I found scary was a heavily modified 500cc two stroke motocross bike making an honest 70hp. Mostly because I am not a particularly good motocross rider and I was so far behind the bike. I kept roaring up on things (big double jumps) that I didn't have the skill set to negotiate so I'd be all over the brakes trying to get the bike down to my skill level.
With that said I'm pretty sure a sprint car would be frightening.
Nope. I drove a C7 Z07 and was disappointed with how unenjoyable it was on the street, but wasn't scared. I was impressed with a Tesla Model X but it wasn't frightening by any means. Those are probably the two fastest things I've driven.
I did take my boss for a ride in his own C6 with headers, big cam, ported heads, exhaust and a tune and I did manage to scare him a little bit, that was pretty funny.
Like Chapparal, the one that got my attention most was another cbr 1000 rr, repsol repliracer with pipes and a jet kit. Open 'er up in 3rd and it turns into a 130 mph stripelaying burnout unicycle. Get the wheel back on the ground, grab 4th, it can't do that in 4th, right? 160 mph tiresmoking unicycle. Verrrry carefully get the front wheel on the ground, get the bike back to its owner (well I had to find another straight and do a 5th gear run, holy cow), explain that as a responsible grownup with a wife and kid and all, I just didn't have the maturity or discipline to ride a bike like that on the street or track and live. That bike was bath salts crazy.
I simply cannot imagine what that ridiculous Kawasaki H2 must be like....
I dont do bikes and Im sure they have the capacity to scare me, but cars, no.
Ive never had anything that the power made it scary, Ive driven stuff that was set up so poorly it felt like power was the problem, but it wasnt. Ive driven very high horsepower cars that are well sorted and dont feel scary at all.
Most recently and first time legitimately NOT OK getting out of a car was just a few weeks ago at Road America. I forgot to turn the shocks up and track was damp (or at least looked like it) + first laps there in a year.....had zero feedback from the tires and spent the session pretty much in fear of the car snapping around on me from a wet spot or bad driver input. Still ran a PB but was hyper and stressed out for a few hours.
More fun times were riding in my friends E30. Turbo S54 swap and drag setup. LOW boost was 36psi and yielded burnouts from any speed to limiter at 150+. He said high boost was around 58psi and when things were right it's an 8 second car. On the flip side he rode in my car and stomping all over an imaginary brake pedal on corner entry...
A very healthy respect for a car, especially because it was a customers (we had permission to rod on it) was a cobra kit car with a 427 windsor we built. Made 610HP and something like 580ft/lbs. Repeatedly told a coworker in an extremely serious tone "DO NOT wreck this car". After he came back the secretary wanted to go for a ride so I drove. Half to maybe 3/4 throttle tops in 2nd, 3rd, and beginning of 4th was rear tires lit up. That was more than the secretary was prepared for and drove it real easy the rest of the way. BTW the reason for my stern wording to my coworker was because after getting the car put together the first thing the customer did was floor it in 3rd on the interstate....immediately putting it backwards into the median. Extremely lucky he didn't get hurt or destroy the car.
I drove a 1600 Chevette with a normally collapsed front suspension at highway speeds once.
My first few laps in a ASA late model on the 5/8mile at LaCrosse certainly got my attention, too.
chaparral said:Car, not really.
Bike? Yes, a 2006 Honda CBR1000RR with no traction control and no ABS was ferociously scary on a cold wet day at Grattan with riders crashing and dropping antifreeze all over the place. It's the only time I've had one wheel locked and one wheel spinning simultaneously.
Same here. Car? No. '06 R1 that I pegged on the rev limiter in 6th gear.
A friends 03-04 Aprilia Mille.........didn't have the top end of the R1, but the midrange made it feel like it was about to throw you off of it.
Launch mode in a Porsche Taycan didn't scare me, but glad I had a headrest! Drove OK but finding electrons far from home scares me.
First time I drove a sprint car I was scared. By the end of the first practice session I was ready to go faster, Chet clamped a Vice Grip on the right front brake hose and taped it to the straight axle.
We changed the left rear tire to a smaller one and I was ready for qualifying. On the pole by my 5th lap. Yawn!!!
My friend has a 698whp Terminator. He had never heard the car from the outside. He said he trusted me so asked if I'd do a lap around the block and get on it as I passed the parking lot where he stood. I granny shifted to second, rolled into 1/4 throttle and the cold ET Streets started spinning. I coasted into the next entrance to the parking lot and handed the keys back to him.
Indigo. Only 400hp, but no roll over protection at all. And it was really light, too (CF Chassis by Reynard).
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