SC's kick some butt @ Road Atlanta

Daspanka

Registered User
Mike Puckett and I had a once in a lifetime experience at Road Atlanta last weekend. Mike will want to chime in here, since he had a different perspective than I did on the track. We met up at the Year One Experience to do the car show, run the parade laps around the track, autocross, and just hang out. The parade laps are broken up into groups of 5 cars. The pace cars are Audi TT's driven by Audi school instructors. The usual top speed is only about 70-80mph on the straights. If everyone is keeping up, sometimes the instructor will go a little faster. On Saturday, we ran and ended up lined up like this:

Audi pace car, Forza Motorsports Challenge series 1973 Challenger, Mike's 90 SC, My 95 SC, 05-07 Mustang GT, Never saw the last car.

Through the first few turns, the speed was pretty typical. Myself, Mike and the Challenger were chewing on the back of the pace car. After turn 5, he dropped the hammer. We hit almost 90 between turns 5-6, and over 100MPH down the back and front straights. The Audi would nail it and pull away exiting the turns. The Challenger was obviously WOT (squatted down with black smoke pouring out) but could not pull away from Mike or I. In fact, Mike had to back out to keep from running over him, then I would run up on them both. He pulled up beside him a time or two, but you aren't supposed to pass. One of Mike's wheel weights came of @100+MPH and hit my metal strip on my windshield. The Mustang GT behind me got a merciless spanking. His nose would come up as he nailed it exiting the corners, but on the back stretch he would fall 100-150 yards behind me by the time we all backed off. The Audi would brake WAY early to slow everyone down going into the corners, so the Mustang would catch up, only to have his butt handed to him again and again. On the last lap, I was running a little warm, so I backed off a little. I saw the Mustang catching up in my mirror. I nailed it and pulled away from him (to hell with the temp gauge:) ). We ran so fast down the front stretch that I got into my abs HARD braking for turn one a couple of times (friggin abs has got to go!). Mike's blower is loud, and my silencing ports are closed, so we made one hell of a spectical out there with the two Birds "wailing" around the course. There were hundreds of spectators lining the fence. I'm sure most of them had no clue what an SC is and were shocked to see Mike's Tbird chewing the paint off the back of Forza1 as well as the new Mustang GT gimping along behind us. After we ran, Mike and I were probably more suprized than anyone that our two Birds had obviously outclassed both a classic and new muscle car (if the 05-07 GT IS a muscle car. I bet the guy took it back to the dealership and threw his keys through their window:) )to that level. The Forza Challenger is a mildly race-prepped street car, modified for road course use.
This was one of those rare moments that makes all the skinned knuckles, curse words, etc that we go through with these cars worth it.
Here's a few pics. The last two pics are myself and Mike lined up to get on the track. The Forza car broke line (they are sponsered by Year One) and got in front after the picture.
 

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I was so busy driving that I never noticed if anyone was even watching us. I'm glad we attracted a crowd. I was afraid that we would end up behind the 2 Solstices and that 2 seater Saturn whatever it's called, but they went in the group in front of us and I was real happy to see the Challenger pull up. I wonder if that was planned when they saw the stickers all over my car. I really wanted to come back on Sunday and run again but the wheel was out of balance so bad it was uncomfortable to drive over 65mph.
 
Is there a rip under the hat in the back seat?
It sounds like you both had alot of fun. I wish I could do stuff like that here in new england.
 
Is there a rip under the hat in the back seat?
It sounds like you both had alot of fun. I wish I could do stuff like that here in new england.


Ha, yeah, I'm busted. The seams are pulling apart and I didn't have a chance to get it fixed before the event. I meant to take it down before getting on the track. That's my Super Coupe hat.
 
Thats a SC owners trick. Since we all have had that back seat rip.
Seems to happen only to scs with no tint.

Nice job representing the SC's I am sure you had some people talking there.
 
I was so busy driving that I never noticed if anyone was even watching us. I'm glad we attracted a crowd. I was afraid that we would end up behind the 2 Solstices and that 2 seater Saturn whatever it's called, but they went in the group in front of us and I was real happy to see the Challenger pull up. I wonder if that was planned when they saw the stickers all over my car. I really wanted to come back on Sunday and run again but the wheel was out of balance so bad it was uncomfortable to drive over 65mph.

Yeah, something caught my eye, and I noticed we had a little cheering section along the front stretch. Several guys were hollering, pointing, giving thumbs up, etc and oviously looking at yours an my car as we passed. Maybe they were amoung the handfull of people there that know what the cars are and where just pleasantly suprised to see a couple of SC's tearing it up out there. That's primarily a classic muscle car show and event, so you an I were "white elephants" and stuck out pretty good. We also had the loadest blowers around, execpt maybe for the CTS-V with the Blown Z06 motor. That thing was just scarry:eek:
 
Well you know that Caddy has to weigh close to 5000 lbs. I'm not sure that he's any faster or quicker than I am. That's why I really wanted to run again on Sunday, to go up against him.
 
Well done, sounds like you had a blast. :D

I was out at the small driver development track at Mosport yesterday to help out at a school. When I was out on the track for the instructors' lapping session, people around would be looking as I went by on the track closest to the pit area ... everyone I talked to after a session commented on the "loud strange noise" from the car ... seems they liked the howl of the MPIII. ;)


cheers
Ed N.
 
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