Rams Eye The Track Guy

Photos by: Graham MacNeil A few years ago, I was still a student and I had a class called Internal Combustion Engines. It was easily one of my favourite classes, as you can image. Studying engines, calculating hp, torque, efficiency, and exhaust flow for grades? Sign me up! It wasn't just the content, though, as magnificent as it was. The class itself was taught by the coolest prof there is. You may think you've had a cool prof, teacher, coach, or instructor, but I've got the standard by which all educators must be measured. For one, he or she has to teach something that is cool.. does it get cooler than Internal Combustion Engines? (No, in case you're wondering). This one is also a true gear head, so much so that he sticks around after class and argues about cars, performance, lap times, and racing. And occasionally does so in the middle of class.. For one class project, I proposed comparing the engines and specifications of the C6 Corvette ZR1 and the Ferrari 5...

Last year, I joined the ranks of amateur wheel-to-wheel racers and went to race with the fantastic Vantage Motorsports racing team (to read more, go to The Ram's Eye Goes Racing ). It was just as much fun and rewarding as I imagined it would be so I was really looking forward to this (2017) season. Unfortunately, life has a habit of getting in the way of things you want to do so that's exactly what happened this year. I missed all but the last round of the race season, which was on Sunday September 17. It seems, though, that I had a full season's worth of racing experience in one day.. For starters, I missed the early morning call, which meant I had to start from the back of the pack in every race. No problem, I liked that I'd have more racing to do. I went out in the practice session and I found out I was very rusty.. My first hot lap was a 1:27.x, about 5 seconds off the pace of the car on the Toyo R888's that were on it. Second dropped to 1:26.x, then I sett...

Blasphemy!! Before you get your pitchforks, let's get two things straight first of all. Number 1, those two cars are not actually going to be cross shopped. I get that and don't mean to suggest that they would be. In fact, even for those people who can afford to buy several of either of those cars and would not turn their nose up a Chevy Camaro (they do exist), if any were to consider both those cars, they would not be looked at as alternatives, just two separate interesting cars. Number 2, stock vs stock, on the same day, same track, same (experienced) driver, the Camaro does not stand chance. Don't get me wrong, the Camaro ZL1 1LE is very impressive and supremely capable. More so when you consider the price. Even more so when you consider that this isn't like the last Z/28 or GT350R. As much as all the aero bits would have you believe, one of the ZL1 1LE's goals was to retain full functionality. As a result, it doesn't lose any sound deadening. You get to...

Cayman GT4 On Track at AMP - Graham MacNeil © It's a crisp, dry Sunday morning; the second day of the annual two-day BMW Club Atlantic Advanced Driver Training (HPDE) in August. The first day was very rainy, which did make it very educational and fun, but it wasn't the day to make speed. Sunday was shaping up to be a good day for that, and I had a lot more to look forward to than just making speed.. Because the tool by which I would be making that speed (at least for one session of the day) was not my sledge hammer. It was a scalpel, a Porsche Cayman GT4. You may be wondering how I got to drive one in the first place. Let's rewind a bit for that. Last year, a gentleman at our local track asked me if I want to come out for a few laps with him in his car, a Cayman GT4. Obviously, the answer was yes. I wrote about that (original post  here , if you want to read). Fast forward a few months to when I had that post featured front and centre in my updated blog layout, ...

In true Jeremy Clarkson fashion, I always found myself wondering "How hard can it be?" Not in a trivializing the effort kind of way. I just always heard about the safety risk. HPDE Instructors agree to trust a complete stranger not to kill them in a fiery crash, while said stranger pushes their car towards its limits and, in return, they teach you high performance driving. Trouble is: I have ridden shotgun in a very wide variety of cars that span a huge range of capabilities. I'm quite fond of my memory of a ride in a 997 GT2 RS so I always love an opportunity to mention that. I've been in GT3 RS's, a C6 Z06 on R-comps, M3's of various ages and ranging from stock to heavily modified, and plenty others. I have also been in stock GTI's, Miatas, and similarly capable cars. And I took them all with a giant grin on my face as some of the best drivers I know piloted them. I had no fear of the passenger seat. If an opportunity ever presented itself for me to...

Horsepower figures are finally in! The 2018 Mustang GT will make 460 hp and 420 lb-ft of torque out of the updated 5.0 litre Coyote V8. For those keeping score, those are increases of 25 hp and 20 lb-ft torque over the outgoing and exactly 5 hp more than the Camaro SS but 35 lb-ft less torque than the torquey small block Chevy. Back in February when I posted about the updated Mustang ( 2018 Ford Mustang Upgrades ), I figured it will be at least as much as the Camaro SS and was optmistically thoping for 470 hp. Ford landed almost right in the middle. While The Camaro should have the advantage at low rpms, the Mustang will have the upper hand in the top end and I love a big displacement high revving V8. The EcoBoost also gets some love. Although hp stays the same at 310 hp, torque jumps to 350 lb-ft, which should make it feel much stronger in midrange. Both cars will now switch to the 10-speed automatic co-developed with GM, but they'll still offer a manual option of course. Bo...

FWD is for kids. Anyone can go fast in a FWD car. Real drivers learn to handle RWD. That's what a buddy said when I was talking about managing throttle in FWD vs RWD in one of the turns on our track. Another friend of mine who is a diehard VW fan just bought a new Mk7 Golf R. Naturally, we argued about Golf R vs Focus RS as we've done countless times in the past. This time, though, the Civic Type R came up, and he said it doesn't matter because "it's FWD." If you agree with all of that, you can't take this new Type R seriously. You might as well stop reading now and move on. And frankly, Honda has done a pretty good job with the styling to convince you NOT to take this car seriously.. But you might be making a mistake. A proper, thoroughbred sports car needs to have RWD in my book. But we aren't talking about thoroughbreds here. We are talking about very-hot hatchbacks based on compact economy cars. So the question boils down to FWD or AWD? Well,...