I was instructing this weekend at Grattan. Awesome weekend of instructor training, mentoring new instructors, and just having a blast driving with friends, and listening to Ross Bentley who was our guest instructor (he skipped LeMans for our event). One of my past mentees let me drive his GT4 RS with him riding shot gun last year. This year he showed up with a GT4 Clubsport. I asked him if I could have him give me a ride sometime during the weekend. "Sure, no problem". Well, I was swamped with students, mentoring, and just driving myself. On Sunday he was about to pack up and said, "hey, do you want to take it for the rest of this session". My jaw dropped. "Are you riding with me?". Nope. I got to take his pretty much brand new GT4 Clubsport out for about 6 laps around Grattan - solo. I was laughing the whole time. I didn't push it (the tires cost more than my Miata, probably), but after a few warm up laps I got a lap without much traffic. I think I saw 160mph at the end of the front straight (again, wasn't pushing it on the entry to the straight either). I turned a 1:24.91 without breaking a sweat. My Miata was doing 1:34s this weekend. I was within 0.8 sec of the owner. There was a lot of time left out there. The car was so easy to drive, yet you had to be perfect to go fast. The brakes are what suprised me the most - how much I could push. I never got to the limit. They just kept going the harder I pushed. So. Much. Grip.
