most fun ive had in a while
September-24th-2002, 03:34 PM
#1
Protege Newbie
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Boone, North Carolina
Posts: 39
most fun ive had in a while
yesterday after getting out of my last class for the day i was sitting around being bored, so i thought i would go out for a drive. initially i was just going to drive around town and bit and come home. i ended up on a little curvy road about 20 minutes from my apartment, and was having a really good time just driving back and forth up and down the road a few times. but then i decided i should go else where because people that lived on the road seemed to be getting annoyed by me going by there houses around 15mph curves at about 35-40mph.
i dont know how many of you if any of you are familiar with the section of highway 421 that runs between boone NC and bristol TN, but it is about a 60 mile stretch of road that goes over 2 mountains, and the ride up and down both mountains is some of the curviest road ive ever been on in my life. i used to take rides around there in my 93 mirage (not much fun) when i got bored also. id say about 20 miles worth of the road, or maybe more is this curvy mountain road.
so i get started on the first mountain and im taking it kinda easy at first, cause ive yet to really push my car hard. im slowly getting a feel for how the car handles and down shifting and upshifting coming in and out of curves when all of a sudden i run up on a chevy tracker. looked to be a 2000 or newer model. so i start to get all pissed cause im behind a slow poke car when all of a sudden the woman driving the car starts taking curves like shes in a race car. by no means was she going fast enough for me to even get to push my car at all, but boy was it fun watching her take the curves in that thing. tires were squalling, occasionally the thing would almost go up on 2 wheels. so i just sit back and watched her and had a good laugh. just after we got to the bottom of the first mountain she turned off, and i ended up having free reign on the next mountain. i drove into downtown bristol, stopped and got gas and a snack, and drove around a bit there, and turned around to head back.
this time i was ready for the mountains. i felt like i had a good feeling on the cars abilities, and i felt comfortable with the road, and knew there was no gravel or water sitting any where. so on the way back i drove like a bat out of hell. going up the mountains occasionally left me desiring an extra 10hp to really get it out of the curves a bit better without having to kill my car by running second gear too hard, but coming down the mountains i was a total mad man. i was doing everything i could within safety to try and get the rear end of the car to start sliding around. but nothing i did make it break. i was so amazed with the grip this car has on the road. occasionally i would get a little body roll coming out of the curves, or it would start to feel like the rear of the car might start to slip, but it never did. i was taking U curves coming down a mountain occasionally coming out of the curve at over 40mph and the tires were barely making a sound. in my old car i would have ended up doing circles in the road, or running off the side of a cliff on the side of the road. the real reason why i was so amazed, is that the pro5 is rated on the skidpad at .79g in the reviews ive read. this is that same as what my old mirage was rated at, and i had my mirage lowered a bit, with stiffer suspension, and had went up to 15x6 wheels (dam things scrubbed the wheel well). i know my mirage should have been pulling more than .79g when i drove on the mountain the last time, but there is no way in hell it would have taken those curves the way my pro5 did. and the great thing is, with a few mods, and wider wheels/tires, it can only get better.
so here i am almost 9 months after i bought my car, and i have just fallen in love with the thing all over again like it was a brand new car. i hadnt pushed it before, so i had no idea what to expect. and what i found out was this car holds to the road like glue. i can now only sit and dream of what it would be like to take a mazdaspeed protege on the same roads and see what they can do. another thing that amazed me is the strength of the sidewall on these tires. when i checked the tires when i got home, there was no evidence of wear on the sidewalls from the tire folding over. good choice mazda.
i dont know how many of you if any of you are familiar with the section of highway 421 that runs between boone NC and bristol TN, but it is about a 60 mile stretch of road that goes over 2 mountains, and the ride up and down both mountains is some of the curviest road ive ever been on in my life. i used to take rides around there in my 93 mirage (not much fun) when i got bored also. id say about 20 miles worth of the road, or maybe more is this curvy mountain road.
so i get started on the first mountain and im taking it kinda easy at first, cause ive yet to really push my car hard. im slowly getting a feel for how the car handles and down shifting and upshifting coming in and out of curves when all of a sudden i run up on a chevy tracker. looked to be a 2000 or newer model. so i start to get all pissed cause im behind a slow poke car when all of a sudden the woman driving the car starts taking curves like shes in a race car. by no means was she going fast enough for me to even get to push my car at all, but boy was it fun watching her take the curves in that thing. tires were squalling, occasionally the thing would almost go up on 2 wheels. so i just sit back and watched her and had a good laugh. just after we got to the bottom of the first mountain she turned off, and i ended up having free reign on the next mountain. i drove into downtown bristol, stopped and got gas and a snack, and drove around a bit there, and turned around to head back.
this time i was ready for the mountains. i felt like i had a good feeling on the cars abilities, and i felt comfortable with the road, and knew there was no gravel or water sitting any where. so on the way back i drove like a bat out of hell. going up the mountains occasionally left me desiring an extra 10hp to really get it out of the curves a bit better without having to kill my car by running second gear too hard, but coming down the mountains i was a total mad man. i was doing everything i could within safety to try and get the rear end of the car to start sliding around. but nothing i did make it break. i was so amazed with the grip this car has on the road. occasionally i would get a little body roll coming out of the curves, or it would start to feel like the rear of the car might start to slip, but it never did. i was taking U curves coming down a mountain occasionally coming out of the curve at over 40mph and the tires were barely making a sound. in my old car i would have ended up doing circles in the road, or running off the side of a cliff on the side of the road. the real reason why i was so amazed, is that the pro5 is rated on the skidpad at .79g in the reviews ive read. this is that same as what my old mirage was rated at, and i had my mirage lowered a bit, with stiffer suspension, and had went up to 15x6 wheels (dam things scrubbed the wheel well). i know my mirage should have been pulling more than .79g when i drove on the mountain the last time, but there is no way in hell it would have taken those curves the way my pro5 did. and the great thing is, with a few mods, and wider wheels/tires, it can only get better.
so here i am almost 9 months after i bought my car, and i have just fallen in love with the thing all over again like it was a brand new car. i hadnt pushed it before, so i had no idea what to expect. and what i found out was this car holds to the road like glue. i can now only sit and dream of what it would be like to take a mazdaspeed protege on the same roads and see what they can do. another thing that amazed me is the strength of the sidewall on these tires. when i checked the tires when i got home, there was no evidence of wear on the sidewalls from the tire folding over. good choice mazda.
