I love high performance cars and there is no street legal car on this planet that I would rather drive on a nice twisty road, than my Panoz Roadster. Today for Father's Day I got my first chance in over a year to punch it out on my favorite drive. Highway 9 West from Skyline drive is one of the ultimate twisty roads. It's got it all: ultra smooth pavement and nicely banked corners with everything from tight switchbacks to short straights and sweepers. I left the house at 8 AM and got out there early enough that there weren't too many other people blocking up the road.

My Panoz has a precision tuned suspension and alignment and is 4 corner balanced with my weight in the driver's seat, with the standard bolt-on mods: headers, exhaust, intake, pulleys, gears. The stainless steel bumpers and A/C system have been eliminated. 1st and 2nd gear are traction limited, 3rd puts a big grin on my face and it still pulls hard in 4th (but that becomes irrelevant on a twisty road since 3rd takes you to just over 100 MPH). Its DOHC 32 valve Cobra V8 revs to 7k and pulls all the way up. It's got good low end torque but it loves the high revs and the real fun begins a 4000 RPM.

The car is so tight it becomes an extension of the body and driving it is like exercise. It's quick and twitchy with sensitive steering with the kind of P/W ratio that requires the driver to pay attention. Getting that car into the switchbacks in 2nd gear is an amazing adrenalin rush. It pulls over 1G of lateral acceleration on street tires and since the driver seat is almost right above the rear pumpkin, you get the "back of the roller coaster" effect as you drop the hammer and launch the car out of the turn and down the next striaght it feels like being fired out of a slingshot. You have to meter it out because if you slam it open, the power oversteer is goint to get you sideways in a hearbeat. So you unwind the wheel to keep the oversteer under control as you drop that hammer. Meanwhile you've got the quad cam engine roaring at 6000 RPM through its dual glaspack exhaust and eagerly begging for more as you spin it up toward 7000 and it pegs you into the seat with a ripping, snorting hellacious scream That's the incredible sound and feeling of pure, unadulterated raw power. Just as it touches 7000 you pop it into 3rd gear and it takes off with a new blast of power launching you down the straight at ridiculous speed with more of this insane acceleration.

As the next turn approaches you hit the binders not hard at first but firmly and progressively. As the negative G forces build it feels like slamming into a wall of invisible jello, as you keep your ears and feet attuned to the sound and feel of your traction. Then, quickly as it started, you're off the brakes and grabbing a chunk of throttle again as you steer through the next sweeper with the throttle, keeping the car in 3rd gear.

Driving this car is as exhilirating and exhausting as piloting a high performance motorcycle. After only 2 hours, my concentration loses its edge and I realize one cannot drive this car at anything less than 100% awareness. It's time to slow down to merely spirited speeds and enjoy the drive home. I smile all the way home, back in touch with a primal instinct that hundreds of thousands of years of evolution never eliminated from the soul. It's the same thing that makes dogs stick their heads out the window as you drive down the freeway. They, too, understand.