Yesterday afternoon I met up with the usual gang for what was probably the last of my sunday afternoon drives for the summer. This time, though, I did things a bit differently: I drove my own car. I had never done this before as I’ve always found it is more fun to ride along and take in the scenery; I figured it might be fun though, since I just recently redid the whole suspension and hadn’t really given it a good sorting. After everyone was gassed up the total number of cars was three: me in the Z, the F40, and the Enzo. Rolling out of the meeting point I figured I would be left in the dust; trying to get a run on two cars with double the power to weight ratio of the one you’re driving is not the easiest thing to do. I was more than slightly surprised to find I had zero trouble keeping up; in fact, I frequently passed the F40 and remained closely in line behind the Enzo for the entire afternoon! It sounds almost completely ridiculous to even think about when you get down to the numbers. After we stopped for lunch, I thought Dan had been pulling my chain and wasn’t really pushing it, but he claimed he was and even asked if I wanted to lead the way since I was right on his tail the whole time! I had a pretty hard time buying any of it.

I have to attribute most of that to the fact that the road isn’t always straight, and I know the Nissan and its handling tendencies inside and out. As you approach the absolute limits of either car’s adhesive abilities, it is significantly harder to push the Enzo than it is to push the Nissan…there’s so much less going on with the Nissan and it doesn’t make any significant amount of downforce. By comparison, the Enzo is generating epic amounts of downforce and is capable of some absolutely mind-bending performance if you can muster the courage to keep your foot in it. Another thing to consider is that I pretty much drove the wheels off of the Nissan in order to keep up — easily some of the most frenetic driving I have ever put the car through. Regardless of where the explanations lie, I thought it was pretty damn cool that I was able to keep some sort of pace with a purpose built supercar piloted by a competent driver, and I had an absolute blast doing it

The only problems I ran into had to do with the brakes on the Nissan (which have always been my main complaint and nearly caused a number of heart attacks yesterday) and the fact that, regardless of how you dress it up…the Z is built on a platform shared with a passenger car. When you do any kind of race prep to a platform like that (non-purpose built) or significantly firm up the suspension, any inherent flaws in the chassis start to become overwhelmingly apparent as it is then more easily identifiable as the car's soft spot...and unfortunately one which cannot be altered except at great expense.