coltsneckbob

Went to RP yesterday to purchase fuel again. I still can't believe I am paying $9/gallon for 110 octane racing (shhhhh leaded) fuel.

Saw some drag racing while there. Of perhaps 60 cars there were 3 442s. One Hurst/Olds, one W-30 and a 442.

Olds did fairly well making it to final rounds, but no cigar in the end. I gotta say though watching the beating those cars take makes me wonder how much longer they can last....well perhaps they are not much stock anymore anyway. It did seem like the Mopar cars though were pretty tough to beat in the 1/8 mile.

Mercedes AMG was also there. I got to drive the new SL63 and E63 around a 1.5 mile winding track. There were cones placed at intervals that you had to navigate through - with some really rigorous turns. AMG supplied an instructor/co-pilot and he had no problem telling me to get ON THE GAS.

The SL is very twitchy. With all the braking and turns and hard acceleration it was hard to control throttle. He really had me push both cars hard in some of the turns. Even though I've driven MB for 15 years now this was the first time I ever felt the ESP kick in and pull the rear back in line. The trial runs were free and you got a nice graphite pen for trying it.

Oh, they also had the new gull winged SL there.....but no.....you couldn't drive that one......they wouldn't even let you sit in it. It had an MSRP of $217,500. Actually though MSRP is a misnomer.....if you buy one there is no bargaining on the price.