Hi,
See http://www.edmunds.com/ - a car testing event in L.A., Calif. on
9/23/00 through 9/26/00, you can test drive over 120 cars on 8 test tracks.
SoCal take note! 15 bucks (includes food and tshirt).
I had a great time yesterday at the SF Bay Area test event. Me and my
friend drove as many cars and trucks as we could, and nearly all in the
near-luxury sedan track, mid-level sedan track, and SUV track. They let us
drive them as hard as we wanted, without any warnings. Generally they won't
bother you if you look like you're handling the course. Some of the cars
were pigs and we almost wiped out because the rear ends were all over the
place on turns, but we managed to make it through the day without hitting a
single cone. However, the attendants were busy putting back the rubber skid
strips on some turns every time we did a course!
We had the most fun with the Lexus IS 300, revisiting it half a dozen
times, our favorite in performance. Distant runner-up was the BMW 323i. Sad
to say that the Infiniti I30 didn't handle as well. The lines for Japanese
and European cars were long, the lines for American cars were empty. We
tried the American cars, most were horrible performers but we were
surprised that the Chrysler 300M handled very well.
With the SUV's, the Ford Explorer Eddie Bauer was the worst (as expected).
Lots of wheel hop and bouncing on turns, difficult to control. The course
included dirt berms and hills. We were surprised to find that the Nissan
Xterra and Pathfinder performed best out of all the SUV's we tested.
Fred - So.SF, CA
BADROC
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