From: Dave Whitworth <dave@wcsllc.net>
>We have a very large contingent of Impala SS's here in St. Louis. Several
>show up at many of our events, and I rode with one guy who was having
>trouble finding the course one time. I was VERY impressed with the
handling
>of that car. He had enough mods to put him in ESP, but he has steadily
>moved up the ladder in the class.
In 1996, I had just learned that I was to drive an automatic-transmission
Corvette at Nationals. Bill Latimer suggested, partially in jest, that I
should drive his Impala SS at Canterbury Park as a sort of preparation. The
biggest car I had seriously driven in an autocross before that was a Mustang
convertible built to Shelby specs. That was in the early seventies, and it
was a manual-transmission. The only automatic I have ever owned is my
Suburban.
The first thing I noticed is that I had no idea how close the pylons were.
(That certainly didn't change when I got into the Corvette.) The next was
that I didn't understand all the ramifications of automatic transmissions.
The course that day had some good fast bits. I was powering my way into a
fast left, admiring the car's slight drift under power, as the engine came
up to a shift point. The back end decided to step out. I quickly decided
that the thing to do was stay on the power, wait for the shift to end and
hope the rear hooked back up. It did.
Although a perusal of the Nationals results will confirm that I didn't
figure out how to drive a Corvette (now THERE'S an understatement), I had a
good time wheeling the big Chevvy around a course.
Thanks, Bill, wherever you are.
Phil Ethier Saint Paul Minnesota USA
1970 Lotus Europa, 1992 Saturn SL2, 1986 Suburban, 1962 Triumph TR4 CT2846L
LOON, MAC pethier@isd.net http://www.mnautox.com/
"It makes a nice noise when it goes faster"
- 4-year-old Adam, upon seeing a bitmap of Grandma Susie's TR4.
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