Ultimate test drive: road course

Christine Jerritts with a Camaro at the Rocky Mountain Automotive Press Driving Event

This was a great week in Denver to be writing about cars.  Representatives from about twenty car manufacturers descended on the city bringing almost forty new vehicles for the Rocky Mountain Press Association Driving Event.  It would have been great fun to tool around town in a new Camaro or Ford Raptor, but instead we had the intense pleasure of ripping around High Plains Raceway and the Colorado Off Road Extreme C.O.R.E. rally course!  The following is part one of my two part report (part two):

The day started out in familiar territory at High Plains Raceway, a favorite race track of mine - and not because it was the site of my first Formula Enterprises win.  This turned out to make evaluating the collection of street cars rather challenging, since my performance expectations were a little of whack. Nevertheless, several cars caught my attention - for better or worse.

Dodge sent an entire team of people and cars from their SRT group, including a Viper SRT10 Coupe with it's own personal test driver - even race car driving journalists were not invited into the left seat - and I can see why.  The Viper's V-10 delivers explosive power that sent even the pro himself into a sideways bobble during my demo ride. Customers who purchase a new SRT car from Dodge are invited to a complimentary performance driving school - rumor has it that Vipers have a nasty habit of winding up in telephone poles early in their careers, so should you be the next lucky owner of shiny Viper I highly recommend the lessons.

The assortment of cars we were permitted to drive on track was long and varied. From a Toyota Sienna minivan to a Ford Mustang to a Hyundai Genesis Coupe.  Wait - hang on a second - did I just say we did hot laps in a minivan?  Indeed the Sienna was quite a riot to drive. Without sport seats I had to hang on for dear life, but the peppy V6 and tiptronic style tranny had us flying only a few mph slower than cars like the Hyundai Genesis Coupe at the end of the long straightaways. The company's current slogan "Daddy Like" at least makes some sense to me now.

Among my favorite driving experiences was the VW GTI. More than likely that little car turned better than anything else we saw all day - it certainly helps to be light and small.  It's sibling in attendance was the Jetta TDI Cup Edition car, a tribute to the popular TDI Cup spec racing series. The special edition simply meant a sportier suspension and some interior details - I was disappointed to discover that didn’t add up to much added performance on the track.

Suzuki pulled out all the stops and brought their prototype Kizashi with a Road Race Motorsports turbo charger bolted on that increases the horsepower of the little 4 door from 185 to 290. Stiffer springs and 19” wheels round out the package.  Hot laps required gentle throttle modulation to keep from jarring your passengers around as the boost kicked on and off, but in some ways that made it even more entertaining to drive.  Suzuki fans keep your fingers crossed that the factory decides to put a turbo edition into production.

The drive that had me grinning - even giggling - in my helmet the most was provided by the Cadillac CTS-V.  Here is a rocket ship cleverly disguised as a simple A to B four door people hauler.  The 6.2 L V8 produces 556 horsepower and 551 ft/lbs of torque, all delivered with a graceful roar.  While the CTS-V certainly doesn’t handle as if “on rails”, it was fun and easy to get around corners quickly and did a much better job of it than most of the other American made competition I drove.

While BMW, Mercedes and Mazda brought a great collection of cars to the event, unfortunately the race track lineup was void of M cars, AMG cars, and Mazdaspeed cars.  I only mention this in the hopes that we see some next year.

Read Part Two: Rally Course of this report.