xtreme driving experience GT500

ttocs

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I got the ticket a year and a half ago after it was delayed because of covid and then that date was rained out after driving 5 hours round trip. This year weather was only slightly hotter than I would like it to be but for august it was great in the low 80s for a track day.
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My stomach actually let me out to play as well and I made it up and back with no problems. The GT500 sounds absolutely wicked down the straight.
But then really it sounds good just out of the pits, in a corner, out of a corner, just starting up... The lamborghini also sounded amazing.
We got there around 11:30 a little more than an hour early and it was perfect time as the crew was taking their lunch break and they had the cars lined up to cool down and let us drool on them as long as we wiped it up with our headsocks.
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We also got to talk to the crew that was there to make sure we wiped what their favorites were and most of them said the porche was just a great all around track car with a nice interior and a lot of fun to drive. Their least favorite was the mclaren just because they have more problems with it than with the other cars.
the black lamborghini had a beautiful black paint with a blue/green pearl in it.
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my buddy did the hellcat which made me laugh because he is actually an executive at chrysler and should have driven one by now for free, but he did just get a promotion with a company car and is considering a hellcat so I can understand.
It was a check off the bucket list day for me for sure. I live in a small town in indiana and the chance of just seeing a GT500 roar by in the other direction or maybe see it at a show would be about all that I could hope for around here so the chance to get to drive one on the track all out was a dream. It was expensive, I had to wait a long long time and I hope they do it again next year as I might do the porche or lamborghini to check an exotic off my bucket list. If you can you need to do this, ask for a gift or something but it really is an amazing experience. The first lap I was positive that the back end would be "fun" to deal with and I was honestly scared while getting a feel for the grip it had. 2nd lap I got into a little more into it and it still just didn't even begin to step out or get squirrely and it the acceleration just never stopped the entire way down the straight. I spent the night before watching youtube vid of some racing at the track and I was so thankful that I did to take the surprise out of it. The third lap I finally had a feel for the confidence in grip and was almost determined to finally test it and again the way it pulled out of every corner and then stopped as soon as I stomped on it was still amazing me. On the third lap now that I had seen the corner before the straight on youtube and now done it 2x I was finally happy with how I hit the apex and then rolled back on the throttle full blast and I could not help but let out a "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" for a brief second as I roared down the straight.

I hit 130 before stomping the brakes hard enough this time that I felt the front start to studder a little bit and I was a little worried but while it shook a bit the harder I pushed the pedal the faster it stopped. It was absolutely amazing how confident the car was as long as you were smooth with the throttle and brake. I have an in car video that has a g-force meter/mph/track location that I need to edit the long beginning out of but its been a long day. I will post it up asap.
 

DKblue98GT

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Sounds like a super fun day. Glad you finally got to go.
 

Venompower

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Honestly, if I had the money I would be in a Challenger Scat Pack with the 392... which is interesting because I've had an aversion to Dodge for years based on quality. However, the car ticks all the right muscle car boxes for me. I'm also over the complexity of the OHC V8's... it would be nice to be able to remove a head without messing with the timing chain, but I digress.

Your statement about where you live and seeing a GT500 is interesting. I have been to multiple car shows / cruise nights this summer, and live in the west suburbs of Chicago and I have seen one at a car show, and one driving the other way on my commute. They seem to be fairly rare no matter where you are...

Question, how did you feel about the paddle shifters compared to a traditional manual? Do you think you could live with no traditional gear shifting over the long term?
 
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ttocs

ttocs

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They had a widebody hellcat that you could do a ride along with their drivers to see the track. That was the car in front of me in the video. My buddy did the challenger but he never even looked at the track prior to getting there so he was blind to it and afraid to loose the back end as bad as I was.

I live 30 mins outside of the 3rd largest city in indiana with a HUGE population of 120k. I am willing to bet even a podunk town outside of chicage will have some cooler cars then us being closer to the city. E'ville wants to try and bill itself as a big city but it isn't. There are some shelby's here/there but not many.

Being totally new to the car, only having seen the track on youtube and not that experienced of a racer I let the auto do all the work and really didn't have any complaints about it. That thing got moving so fast and was already into the next corner before I knew it that there wasn't much time to watch the tach
 

Venompower

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They had a widebody hellcat that you could do a ride along with their drivers to see the track. That was the car in front of me in the video. My buddy did the challenger but he never even looked at the track prior to getting there so he was blind to it and afraid to loose the back end as bad as I was.

I live 30 mins outside of the 3rd largest city in indiana with a HUGE population of 120k. I am willing to bet even a podunk town outside of chicage will have some cooler cars then us being closer to the city. E'ville wants to try and bill itself as a big city but it isn't. There are some shelby's here/there but not many.

Being totally new to the car, only having seen the track on youtube and not that experienced of a racer I let the auto do all the work and really didn't have any complaints about it. That thing got moving so fast and was already into the next corner before I knew it that there wasn't much time to watch the tach
It's one of the few things I really like about Chicago more than where I'm from... on pretty much any given night of the week there is a car show or cruise night all summer long. Like you pointed out, there are also a ton of cool cars to look at...
 

joe65

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Good stuff Scott! yeah worth the wait i'm sure! Talking about the gt500 i saw 3 last weekend at our cars and coffee here. It does depend on where you live i'm sure. Out here in Colorado now that almost everyone has moved here and its as expensive as hell to live now i see lots of exotics. I mean everything. There seems to be a really good Mclaren sales person out here somewhere. The treat of the weekend tho, was an original gt40 that showed up to the cars and coffee. I asked him for a ride along, and i got the sorry not today. I'm sure i was the 100th person to ask. lol.
 
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ttocs

ttocs

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There are a couple around my town but not many, I was surprised on the way home to see a lamborghini with the top down. I loved seeing super cool cars when I lived in phoenix and during jackson barrett you are libel to see damn near anything on the road. While I lived there I worked at two shops in scottsdale and you could see almost anything roll around that town as a DD as well. In southern indiana the closest thing to a cool shelby I have seen in the past few years was one of the trucks they made. That is all another reason that the day was so much fun. Next year I think I have a few friends that want to go.
 

joe65

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There are a couple around my town but not many, I was surprised on the way home to see a lamborghini with the top down. I loved seeing super cool cars when I lived in phoenix and during jackson barrett you are libel to see damn near anything on the road. While I lived there I worked at two shops in scottsdale and you could see almost anything roll around that town as a DD as well. In southern indiana the closest thing to a cool shelby I have seen in the past few years was one of the trucks they made. That is all another reason that the day was so much fun. Next year I think I have a few friends that want to go.
Yeah but there's something to be said for living in an area that is not getting crazy crowded. It has changed a lot here in Colorado. There's just too many people here now. Its a mess traffic wise, most of the time. Of course Colorado is way behind on highway expansion also.
 

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Yeah but there's something to be said for living in an area that is not getting crazy crowded. It has changed a lot here in Colorado. There's just too many people here now. Its a mess traffic wise, most of the time. Of course Colorado is way behind on highway expansion also.
100% I grew up outside of Kansas City in a small town, and KC was big enough for me... even being so close to Chicago I almost never want to go into the city for anything.
 

joe65

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100% I grew up outside of Kansas City in a small town, and KC was big enough for me... even being so close to Chicago I almost never want to go into the city for anything.
Side tracking a little bit here on Scott's post, but i checked the population in the Country when i was in HS (1980s) because Colorado was an awesome place to live then vs today. In approx. 30 years the population in this country has gone up by right around 100 million. Think about that.......
 
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ttocs

ttocs

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as much as I sidetrack I welcome it.

I think its a grass is greener kind of thing because after living here for the first 25 years of my life and them moving to phoenix, I loved az and the city. I loved having all the options that the city gave from endless mountain biking to what ever you wanted reall and just wish I had more $$$ to do them when I was there. On top of that I would certainly not call E'ville a bad city as its not as there are some good people in general around here but on the other hand its had its drug issues go up the past 10 years and there is more and more stupid shit all the time.
 

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