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Posted on 08/12/2013 5:36:23 PM PDT by TurboZamboni
Fastest I have ever gone on the ground was on the back straight of the original Road Atlanta - in a race prepped twin turbo RX-7. Just got to 186 before I had to set up for the dip and turn 10.
At Atlanta Motor Speedway in a chipped Andretti car I did a bunch of laps +/- 165-170. Cockpit wasn’t really set for someone my size and the frame was really biting into me.
Wasn’t my car at Road Atlanta but it was my track and knew I had to get on the Brembo’s right away.
Fastest ever on the street is still classified ;-)
Anybody needing the particulars can pm.
True story between Destin and Panama.
I’ve gotten my ‘91 Miata up to 115 once. And that was all she had! The car still felt pretty stable at that speed, though.
BTW, I was on Interstate 5 north of Willows, CA when I did that. Since then I’ve gotten pulled over on that stretch (doing 83 in a 70mph zone in my wife’s car) and have learned they patrol it pretty heavily, in part because there’s a race track nearby. And coincidentally, when I got that ticket I was on my way there to go through an SCCA licensing school!
You forgot to reset the Trip Odometer when you filled up.
I hope you didn’t take that picture with your Cell Phone, you can get a ticket doing that here in CA.
Oh yeah, and no Texting.
Sir you have some big b@lls.
That bridge turn at Road Atlanta is like Eau Rouge at Spa....
Showroom stock B? Or IT B?
I raced in F Production in the SCCA years ago.
Had a 1973 Ford Maverick up to 120 mph and the front end began to weave back and forth. Was told later I was just a hair from going airborne. Scared me pretty badly AFTER the fact. Young and stupid.
Wow! That’s faster than I’ve ever gone on a track, but then again nearly all my on-track experience has been in a Formula Vee, which is only good for about 120 flat-out. I *might* have nudged 100mph going into Turn One at Thunderhill.
My Miata’s still a street car, but I autocrossed it for several years - first in C Stock, then in C Street Prepared, and finally in Street Touring S (the car’s still prepped for that but I haven’t autoxed in a couple years). If the funds came through, I could build it into an ITA car without reversing anything I’ve already done to it for maybe five or six thousand, but if I had the funds to build it into a race car I’d probably go F Production.
Had a similar non-fatal like that. I was a passenger, driver started nodding off. I woke him up, he slammed into the truck. Luckily the steel rod in the sunvisor glanced back off my chest sideways only leaving a deep scratch, but the driver cut his forehead open on the windshield through the steering wheel.
A couple of years back I was taking Reg Pridmore's CLASS riding school at Heartland Park in Topeka. We were supposed to tape over our speedometers, but they didn't check that TOO closely. On the main straight, I would get up to about 120 and that was plenty fast for me, since at the end of the straight, there was a 90 degree right then an immediate left.
The Pridmores had a charity thing going with the pediatric brain tumor foundation where for a donation, you get on the back of a track-prepped Honda 750 driven by Reg Pridmore (former AMA superbike champion) or his son, Jason Pridmore (he won the AMA Supersport championship that year, and went on to be a world endurance champion).
So, there I am, minding my own business going as fast as I could on the straight, when Jason with a passenger goes by me like I'm standing still. When I asked later, I was told they got up to about 155mph!
Once you hit about 100mph, the wind buffeting actually gets painful, and I'm too old for that stuff any more.
Mark
Ah but the bridge turn is turn 11.
Originally turn 10 was coincident with “the dip” which you entered at very high speed and down force due to elevation change put your suspension at full compression. If you didn’t know how your chassis would bump steer at that point,you WERE going into the gravel drivers right.
I had never taken my friends RX through the dip in full anger and did not want to buy him new fiberglass.
I flogged an F production Spitfire around that track so many times I could close my eyes and take a lap in my head and get it within two seconds of real lap times.
My first ever race there I logged a dreadful 2;18 best lap time. Thus earning the blue flag repeatedly. I did improve to 1;42s though.
I do miss it. The older I get, the faster I was :-)
When I drove that stretch a few years back I had to drive 100 to keep up with the traffic; well, a convoy.....no lie. It went on for about 15 minutes or so. At a point I backed off, thinking that we’d gone far enough.
After a few miles I went over a rise and there was the convoy, some twelve or so cars, all sitting on the side of the road with 4 HiPo cars all around them. The officers looked at me REAL HARD as I went past, but didn’t flag me over.
I figured an aircraft was involved in the deal.
LOL. Horsepower limited in a vee. Fun class though. Best driver wins.
And of course, there's the "Hut! Hut! Hut! Hut!" of the rappelling police!
Mark
I think that was right ... another of my favorites is: "I hate Illinois Nazi's!"
I love that movie, watch it every time it comes on.
Oh BTW: The mall that they drove through is about 30 minutes from my house. Belive it or not, it was finally torn down last summer. I remember reading about it.
Also the opening scene of Jake getting out of jail, that jail is about 15miles from me. The jail itself had been closed for years, it recently burned down.
I totaled up my 1973 Ford Maverick when it hydroplaned between Kingsport and Johnson City, TN. I don’t remember the newly constructed 4-lane divided route number, seems like it was 137?
Going about 70mph, I lost traction and turned clockwise off the road, hit the left front then the left rear on the vertical rock face where the road cut through the terrain. I ended up in the breakdown lane facing the way I was going, still holding the steering wheel thinking “What the hell just happened!”
Isn't that a cool experience? I did the racing school at Indianapolis Motor Speedway some ten years ago now and was able to hit 165 .... damn' that was cool. Specially in the turns.
Speedometer went up to 140. Won't say how many times it was buried. Did a quarter mile in very high 12's, very low 13's. 375hp, 390 ft. pounds of torque. She got up and went. Miss her badly. If I could find another one in as good a shape as she was, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.
The ONLY production car of its day out of the factory to beat the Corvette.
On the other end of the spectrum, I once owned a Dodge Omni GLH (GLH I was told stood for “Goes Like Hell.”)
It was a turbocharged 4 cylinder, 4 speed stick that was just flat out fun to drive! Near the place I used to work, there is a narrow road with a series of quick S-curves. The road was about a half-mile long. In any other car, you’d be lucky to get safely around those curves doing 20 (speed limit through this stretch was 25.) I used to gear down to second and take those curves doing 40, pulling some serious transverse Gs along the way. For about a mile almost every day, I felt like I was racing in the Grand Prix.
My fun ended when I went through two trannies on that car, but man it was fun while it lasted!
Thanks for the update. Chicago, since childhood, has been one of my favorite cities...despite it’s politics.
I once went to traffic court to testify about an accident I had witnessed and while there one dude, cited for driving a 100 mph, tried to pull that "my speedometer was broken" bit. After the judge quit laughing, he said, "You cannot tell the difference between 55 mph and 100 mph? The defendant is found guilty and will serve one month in jail and pay a $500 fine."
Funny.
If it was a Corvette, yes. The still image would be a blur from F to E. :)
7 spd forward, 911S, approx. 22-23 MPG, 350 hp @ 7,400 rpm. I hear top speed is 150.
Why yes John Adams. I like your style
I wish people would treat the "fast lane" like what it is actually called... the "overtaking lane".
G. Gordon Liddy summed this all up well... High speed is not really the cause of highway fatalities... it's high differential spee that causes them. I definately think that only about 25% of licensed drivers are worthy to be driving anyways.
I certainly am not a very good driver but I try. Whenever I get honked at or receive the hand signal, I figure I probably deserved it.
Pre airbag 911?
A bit of trivia:
The clerk at the Cook County tax assessor’s office was Steven Spielburg.
And of course, the officer checking out Jake from the prison was Frank Oz, the hand and voice behind Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear.
There were other cameos, like John Landis, Joe Walsh, and Mr. T.
Yup. To get good laps out of a Vee you have to carry speed through corners, because there’s not a hope in hell you’ll get it back on the straight. :)
Considering the funky suspension VW’s had, it handles really well. And you don’t need the brakes often, which in that car is a GOOD thing since it uses the stock VW drums! But the car communicates very well what it’s doing in a corner; I knew when I had enough speed through T1 and T9 at Thunderhill when I could feel the back end start to slide as I got back on the power. Quite a thrill once you get the hang of it.
Just bought a Z06. There would be 1 pissed Corvette owner if it was shut off at 100 lol
Was it a Dodge Stealth RTTT Twin Turbo or a Mitsubishi 3000 GT VR4? I had the privlege of owning an un modified show room 7 time “Best of Show” winning Fire Storm Red 1993 Dodge Stealth RTTT for 9 years until it got destroyed in a freak hail storm (golf balls and tennis balls made of ice falling from the sky fo 20 minutes). It was the finest, best handling, most fun car I have ever owned. It put a smile on my face every time I got behind the wheel. All wheel drive, all wheel steering above 30 MPH, 0 to 60 in 5.7 seconds. 27mpg crusing at 75MPH and a solid 19MPG around town. Rumor has it that it got “aired out” several times late at night up to 148 1/2 MPH and was rock solid glued to the road with plenty more to go but the driver was running out of road It had 63k miles on it and had never been driven in rain or snow when the fluke hail storm struck in NH of all places. Miss it nearly every day
You were fortunate and so was I. So foolish when young. The first step to solving a problem is to admit you have one. Those who advocate every kind of evil in this country refuse to admit they have a problem and have us all headed down the highway to hell.
Mark
I had a buddy that was a Porsche sales manager. There was a ‘72 911 S he wanted me to buy that he had taken in trade. He insisted I drive it for a few days because he was convinced I would give in and buy it.
Almost did but the money for the purchase and upkeep was a little out of my range. Those two days, however, I had a lot of fun “at speed.” It was a fine sensation to be at high speed and have excellent control and stability. Beat all of my previous high speed experience.
Until recently, Kerbeck’s sponsored a ToysForTots drive for Corvettes. We met at a rest stop on the AC expressway about 20 miles out (usually 400 or so ‘Vettes). The cops closed the expressway and we were let go 3 at a time...to go any speed we wanted. We had the beast cruising at 156...and people were passing us! Pretty wild. They stopped having the high speed drive in a few years ago. Some LIB weeny probably complained.
AKA the Italian tuneup.
Writer and director.
Yep, and all Chev's do, except the most expensive.
My sister’s Dodge Magnum ECM stops acceleration at 138 mph. It pulls quite strongly and then it just quits accelerating, and holds the car at that speed. You can lift your foot as much as 1/4 up, with no slowing, but it will not go any faster. I even tried on a slope, and there was no difference, up or down the hill.
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