I had been on James' crew before when he raced and had a chance to briefly drive his showroom stock car between the paddock and the grid, but I was totally thrown when he asked me if I'd like to take his new ITA car out for a spin.  You can guess what my answer was.

Since most of us don't own purpose-built race cars and probably don't get a chance to drive one like a bat out of hell on a track anytime we want to, here's a few thoughts on the car and driving experience: 

Opening the door, the driver is faced with the task of climbing in over the bars of the rollcage and wedging into the very form-fitting Recaro seat.  The seat sits extremely low in the car and has minimal padding to allow excellent support and communicate the feel of the road and the car to the driver.  It takes a minute or two to buckle up and cinch down the 6-point harness which truly makes the driver feel like an extension of the car.  For the most part, most of the interior has been removed (ITA class rules specify that vertical panels must stay, horizontal can go).   Detailing inside the car (as well as the exterior and engine compartment) is absolutely exceptional.  Wiring is all zip-tied and nicely oriented and routed.  All interior asphalt-backed mat has been carefully and completely removed and there is barely a scratch on all the now-exposed black interior metal.  The complexity of the cage also has to be admired - there are bars running practically everywhere.  In addition to protecting the driver in case of a crash, the well-designed cage also adds rigidity and stiffness of the car's body.

Looking straight ahead, I can barely see over the top of the steering wheel since the seat is sitting so low.  There is an excellent rear view of nearly 180 degrees from a wrap-around rear-view mirror that provides excellent visibility.  My left foot brushes a lower mounting bar of the rollcage when resting on the clutch pedal which did take a handful of shifts to get used to.  James and I are about the same height, so my driving position was just about right.  We check the position of the mirrors, and I put on my helmet.

Giving it a bit of gas, I turn the key.   Vrrrroooooommmmmm.....  Boy, this sucker is L O U D and I'm only at idle.  The exhaust exits the engine through a Saturn stock header, custom downpipe, a Borla race muffler, and a large-diameter short exhaust pipe.  A lot of vibration is transmitted to the driver thru the seat and harness when tapping the throttle.  I check the mirrors and I'm off.

The first thing that I notice when driving from the paddock toward the track entry area is how extremely sensitive and responsive the steering feel is.  The smallest steering movement has a large effect on the car.   James assures me that it is a stock first-generation Saturn steering rack, so the feel must be largely because of alignment settings, wheel offset, and the very wide and sticky Hoosier tires.

I merge onto the track and gradually add speed.  At this point, I'm driving it a bit easier than I did my own car on the track just to get the feel of the car.  When faced with the first turn, I again enjoy the excellent steering response - this car will absolutely go where you point it as though it knows what you're thinking.

Coming out of the first turn, I'm hard on the throttle.  Holy crap, the car pulls hard all the way to the red and is there almost instantly.  In my own car, I am able to feel where the car reaches the peak of it's powerband and power levels off before redline - this car didn't behave that way.  It has power as far into the red as you're willing to go.

The Centerforce clutch and shift feel was very much like my own car.  Brake pedal effort and feel is also very close to what I'm accustomed to (I'm using Carbotech F-compound pads on my own car) and didn't take much time to get used to.  The brakes also didn't seem to need any warm-up time, which seemed kind of odd.  As the straights continued to just fly by, I progressively put more effort on the brake pedal in preparation for the corners as my speed climbed.  Once in a while, a brief 'chirp' sound can be heard as the brakes momentary reach their lockup point.  I was not used to doing any sort of threshold braking, since my own car has ABS.

I started going into the corners progressively faster, and the car made it seem effortless.  Come anywhere close to the apex, point the car, nail the throttle, and hold on.  W O W - the custom Koni coil-overs and Hoosiers tires give an absolute grip through every corner.  The car has excellent balance and as far as I pushed it, I was not able to get any significant understeer which a stock Saturn will tend to do.  The super-stiff suspension transmits every detail of the road to the driver.  At times, I did feel shaken and tossed but it wasn't that objectionable since the thrill of driving a race car at speed more than makes up for it.

The track's straights allow the car to run up the revs at an amazing speed.  Redline isn't as easy to feel as a normal Saturn since the carefully 'tweaked' engine pulls as far as I'm brave enough to take it.  I found myself having to look at the tach more often to know exactly where I was with the revs.  I can always hear the roar of the exhaust but there is no noticeable buzzing, rattling, or vibration from the car's interior (or lack of an interior).

It was great how all the other drivers got out of the way and waved me by as the distance between myself and them closed.  I ended up doing 5 or 6 laps since I didn't want to take the chance of possibly hurting a car that has yet to be raced, plus I still couldn't believe that James let me take the car out anyway.  Thanks again James - It was an incredible experience to drive this beautiful one-of-a-kind machine.

And now on to the pictures of the race car...