What do you most enjoy doing with your car,that gets your adrenaline going ?

[GBaxter]

What do you most enjoy doing with your car (or used to, when you were younger), as in reaching a certain speed, playing any pranks on someone, or being able to do any cool driving manoeuvre/s, most people can’t do, that got or still gets your adrenaline pumping (without ever causing any damage to the car, or incurring any physical injury to anyone) ?

[TimD]

Getting the double-declutching right on a fast drop-down through the gears and not being so full of myself in the next split second to foul up the line on the subsequent corner.

When I get it absolutely right, I'm so happy I'd even stand a pint for the cat.

[Aarrgh8]

I sense some strange responses heading into this thread.

[garcon]

[responsible mod type person]This is not an invitation to boy racers to boast about stupid and illegal pranks on the public highway. It's not big and it's not clever.[/responsible mod type person]

It's not big and it's not clever. However I vaguely remember it is great fun when you're seventeen. But please go find an empty car park or disused industrial estate instead. Even better, go and do some track days (it's cheaper than licence endorsements) and you'll find out you're not the driving god you thought you were.

On the road I enjoy it most when I get perfectly into "the groove" - anything from two or three to forty or fifty miles of testing country roads. Not necessarily reaching seriously illegal speeds but keeping it nice and smooth, flowing through every corner, hitting the sweet spot of every gear change, only pushing to 75% but making swift, smooth, unobtrusive progress. Much more rewarding than trying to take it to 100% and never quite getting it right.

On the track the adrenaline really starts to kick in when I've gone waaaaay past the handling ability of the car and have somehow fluked my way round a corner sideways without going into the kitty litter backwards...

[Grahame West]

In my track day car most challenging thing I've done is a track day in the wet at Croft last year. Great fun being able to drive the car in a way I'd never attempt on the road. Getting the complex and hairpin right at croft is just such a rush. In my younger days did some very scarey and silly things on motorbikes. Now I'm middle aged I try to behave - well most of the time anyway!

[Carlos]

First race I ever did, croft in the snow (rallycross). Only ever been on track to do ards test before then so "in at the deep end" smile on my face for about 7 hrs afterwards.

[bella]

i love roundabouts. getting one right is fantastic.

that's what i'd have said until yesterday, when i went into one too fast in the wet, spun and took a chunk out of my alloy on a kerb.

now i like it when i get stuck in traffic

[rdjones]

I agree with Bella there is something about getting a roundabout just right, there is one not too far away from here which I love.

Saying that there a bit of road again not far away from my house which is a bit like Eau Rouge at Spa which used to be great until they put a speed hump just on the exit.

[Pug620]

Six RS Mexico's all fitted with LSD on Yorshire moor roads in the middle of the night brings back happy memorys and big tyre bills but loads of fun

God I was soooo lucky to be 17 when these cars were still out??

Now its throwing my 205 rallycross car about like it was never designed for!!

[greenamex2]

Getting all the way to work and back again on my motorbike without some idiot in a car/van/lorry trying to kill me.

Anybody who drives a modern sporty car anywhere near it's limit on public roads is either an idiot or is driving to their limit not their cars.

I love meeting these types on track or race days and making them look seriously stupid in the correct environment for such behaviour.

[garcon]

A few years ago I was a regular at track days organised by the SIDC - Subaru Impreza Drivers Club. Those of us 'in the know' never bothered going out for the first stint because it was absolutely guaranteed that the big mouthed child who reckoned he was going to beat everyone in his wallied up WRX would end up planted firmly in the armco or upside down in the kitty litter on lap 2.

Thing is, they never understood why we were all laughing when the remains of their pride and joy arrived back in the paddock on the back of a recovery truck.

[DaveStyles]

I was on a track day where there was a Vauxhall Cavalier GSI thingy... big sticker across the back..
"OI COPPER ! CRUISIN IS NOT A CRIME"

I kid you not...

anyway... his mate was in a Datsun 240Z thing..

(same attitude)

how WE laughed when he put it in the armco...
(shame about the damage to the car)...

funny thing was... he thought it was brilliant that he'd had an off...

thought it made him into a racing driver...

[DaveStyles]

almost forgot...

got overtaken on a country lane by a 17 year old a couple of weeks ago in a fiesta type thing...

when we came round the next corner,... he was upside down in a field..
Lucky for him there were no trees around.

My sister in law was in the car and insisted on stopping, phoning ambulance etc...

Funny thing is, I don't think I'd have bothered to stop...

Probably just phoned 999...
"Sorry to bother you, but there's another pratt who thinks he's a racing driver upside down in a field"

[dtype38]

17yrs old - dad's old Escort Mk2 - figure-of-eights round a pair of lamposts in Tesco carpark at midnight in the snow... without ever pointing in the direction you're moving!

[topwelshman]

17 years old in my mum's Golf GTI up and down the lanes behind my house when they'd gone out and left the keys, they never did work out why they had to change the tyres every 5000 miles!! .

After that, the most adrenaline I've felt was standing on the pit wall at Silverstone before my 1st test day the weekend before my 1st race, made my hairs stand on end, never forget it

[GTRMagic]

Originally posted by rdjones
I agree with Bella there is something about getting a roundabout just right, there is one not too far away from here which I love.

Saying that there a bit of road again not far away from my house which is a bit like Eau Rouge at Spa which used to be great until they put a speed hump just on the exit.

They put a speed bump in Eau Rouge????

[Paul V]

Playing in the snow is just great fun, spent a good few hours in the local carpark one year, the car was a mk1 Mazda 323 (1300 - but RWD). Doing a skidpan course a few years later brought it all back.

Occasional current simple fun (low speed) is looping a local roundabout - getting it just right on the grip threshold is tricky, but it makes the kids giggle.

[rdjones]

Originally posted by GTRMagic
They put a speed bump in Eau Rouge????

Its called Flanshaw Road, you approach down hill into left then a quick right which is climbing back up hill, the speed hump is just as it starts to go up hill.

[Aarrgh8]

Originally posted by GTRMagic
They put a speed bump in Eau Rouge????

It's been moved to Nurburgring and renamed Bumpundflugenplatzundschittenfukkenwhoputzatder

[garcon]

I wonder if the autocensor can cope with words of over 40 letters?

[ss_collins]

evedently not - like it though...

Bullying boy racers, when driving dull company cars - now that is amusing as they are desperate to impress the tracy sat next to them.

Exploring Byways and rough whites in standard cars - bouncing down roads that most 4wd owners would reject as too rough on sight.

On the track - well generally scaring people. Silverstone, whilst waving to chezza who was marshalling I took my eyes off the track halfway round woodcote - I touched the rumble strip any had a very high speed 'moment' coming to rest about 2cm away from the pitwall - directly under my entire crew! gave em a wave and carried on - mega

Or in general - living up to being a rather sideways driver

[dubby99]

I love braking late very late, as late as possible then turning into a corner hopeing that some way you will make it around the corner and geting on the throttle as early as possible without going sideways into a gutter or wall.OUCH.

It one day happened and my car a VR commodore was never the same again, i mean after fixing the lower control and installing a camber/caster kit it still looked something like a wreck from a NASCAR race and that was the end off that **** box.

I now keep all the speed on the race track.

[Mike_Wooshy]

hitting top speed (well in my car is about 70 so when im on the motorway i just about hit it ;p)

[Woolley]

A snow covered road and no other traffic. Wonderful oversteery (RWD car) slides at sensibly low speed, and no-one to get in the way.

Roundabouts on dual carriageways. I love coming home from the City Centre, via 4 quite tricky islands, all with good visibility on approach. I do 40-45mph max, watch all the heros come flying past on the outside, trying to impress their girlfriends, and then wonder how they explain why I'm 150 yards in front after the island having outbraked them and left them for dead around the twisty bits, all without taking any risks. Especially when I've done it for the fourth time when they were very determined to stay with me the last time.

The best of it is, I'm not even trying to race them, just driving quickly but safely exactly as I would when they're not there. On two occasions, when we reach the island where I turn left into my road, I've seen them finally overdo it and slide straight over the middle of the island. On another occasion, one was going so quickly trying to make up in a straight line for his cornering deficiencies that he didn't bother to stop when the traffic lights went red. Shame he didn't see the police car coming from the side road...

[Happy Snapper]

Originally posted by hawkesfire
Six RS Mexico's all fitted with LSD on Yorshire moor roads in the middle of the night brings back happy memorys and big tyre bills but loads of fun

God I was soooo lucky to be 17 when these cars were still out??

Now its throwing my 205 rallycross car about like it was never designed for!!

Oh those were the days, had a MK1 Lotus Cortina, then LVX958J RS1600 MK1 and finally BLG 99K ex Scotish RAC car we did a few "night" rallies what fun!