Rowdy Muscle Car

I had the chance to drive a late ‘60s Pontiac Firebird with a 455 big block. It has probably been 15 years since I drove a car with a large carburetor and I forgot just how much force it takes to open the throttle. Two of my most recent cars didn’t even have a throttle cable. Instead they had drive-by-wire electronic throttle bodies which feels totally different than the old Firebird and requires little force to move the loud pedal.

Fred took me out for a ride and the car is pretty intense. He mashed the throttle from a roll and the tires immediately broke free. They continued spinning all of the way through third gear. Wow

On the way back he let me drive the car. There were several things that felt quite a bit different from what I’m used to such as: throttle, shifter, steering, brakes… I already mentioned the throttle. He had a Hurst shifter in the car. I’ve heard the name many times but I never realized what made them unique. First off it has two shifter levers. The shorter of the two engages reverse. The other is a T-bar handle with a small finger lever that can be lifted. To get it in 1st gear you lift the finger lever and push the T-bar forward. For 2nd gear you just slam the T-bar back. 3rd gear is quick push forward. Then lift the lever and slam it back to grab 4th gear. There is no way to miss a gate when shifting fast because there are no gates. It just moves back and forth. He even had an electrically actuated over drive. Sweet! I wish I had a similar setup in my car.

This short drive reminded me why I think muscle cars are cool but I would never own one. The car was a rocket in a straight line with gobs of torque and tire smoke to let the on lookers know that you’ve had lift off. All of that power can get you in trouble quickly. Not just with the local PD but also with your own safety. All of that mass made the car slow to turn in and the suspension control was barely adequate. Then there were the brakes. The engine only pulls 6 inches of vacuum and that hardly provides any assistance to the master cylinder. Even with pushing on the brake pedal with all of my might, the car slows at its own pace. Like I said before, the car is very cool but I would never want to own one.

Pueblo Motorsports Park

I’ve been trying to find more 350Z owners with an unhealthy obsession with driving. The New Mexico owners seemed to be filled with ennui. Where as the Colorado owners are much more involved. The first track day of the season was at Pueblo Motorsports Park in Pueblo, CO. Which is about 4.5 hours north of Albuquerque. The week before was a little busy as I got the car ready. On Monday the car was taken to an exhaust shop to have the Stillen dual exhaust repaired / installed and a custom hitch made. Well that took longer than expected (day and a half) and had a price tag to match. Then I had one of the Volk wheels rebalanced to get rid of a vibration under braking. An oil change was next. Followed by installation of Cobalt Friction GT-Sport brake pads on Wednesday night. I went into work early on Thursday so that I could drive up to Pueblo afterwards. I don't know if that was the smart thing to do because I was so tired on the drive up.


The track trailer and custom hitch worked very well. The only time I really noticed it behind the Z was when I was crossing the Raton pass. The cruise control kicked out and I had to down shift to 5th but I was still able to pull it at 80+ MPH. I was able to get there on one tank of gas and even managed to get 21 MPG while towing a 600 lbs trailer.

The next morning everyone got up early to meet for breakfast. The day started with some basic car control exercises: threshold braking, accident avoidance, and progressively faster follow the leader laps to learn the line around the track. After lunch we took to the track for some solo hot laps. That first session had me a bit concerned because the car has a strong tendency to understeer when entering a turn. The heavy understeer was also causing pad knock back which caught me off guard because I have never encountered it before. That was killing my confidence because the car was not turning in as expected and the first step on the brake pedal didn’t always work. Yikes!!!


When I got back to pit row I traded cars with David (organizer of the event, red Z pictured below) and we went back out for a couple more laps. His car had basic bolt-ons (Nismo sway bars, Eibach lowering springs, Koni adjustable shocks, and Nitto R-compund tires) but it drove so much better than my car. It turned in much nicer and was much more stable through the entire corner. David couldn't duplicate the knock back issue but he did comment on the motor. He said that it sounded great and it was an awesome advertisement for the Stillen exhaust. He also noticed a significant improvement in power over his car. Nice!

During the next session I backed off on the pace. With the lower corner entry speeds, I obviously had less push from the front end and the pad knock back also went away. So my confidence in the car started to come up and so did my enjoyment. Each session got faster as I started to get used to the line around the track. It has a very nice rhythm to it.


You start the lap by rocketing down the front straight at 120 MPH. As the brake markers fly by, you decisively stand on the brake pedal to drag the car down to 80 and turn into Turn 1. This is a very long high speed sweeper and you continue to scrub off speed as you inch the car towards the late apex. The track straightens out briefly but you hold the same arc and the car tracks from one side of the tarmac to the other in preparation for Turn 2. A quick stab on the brakes loads the front end and allows you to turn in sharply. This is immediately repeated for Turn 3. Followed by a quick drop through a little valley. Turn 4 is at the crest and is slightly banked which helps to maintain grip. As you exit the turn you drop back down into the valley heading straight for Turn 5. Which is a sharp right hand turn that quickly rises up the other side of the hill. At the crest of the hill is Turn 6 which is an almost blind double apex turn. This turn feels great when you get it right. The car straightens out briefly. Then you stand on the brakes, grab 2nd gear and toss the car around Turn 7 the hair pin. Turn 8 is another high speed sweeper but it was also where I had the most problems with terminal understeer. From there you pick a straight line through the small bends leading to Turn 9. Followed by a short sprint toward turn 10. Which is the launching area for the drag strip. This is one of the most important corners to nail because it leads on to the longest straight but I had confidence problems in this turn. The track is made up of alternating sections of concrete and asphalt. Which makes for a bumpy ride with mixed traction. This made for rapidly alternating understeer / oversteer which felt pretty odd. All in all I really enjoyed this track. It has a nice technical feel with a good variety of turns. I just wish it were a little closer to home.


I didn't get a chance to setup the camera or data logger for this event. I think Daniel was the only one who had a camera running. His 240Z was a thing of beauty and it was surprisingly competitive for a 30 year old car.