Withdrawal pains are over for road racers and track addicts on the Front Range, now that High Plains Raceway is open. The four years we’ve waited since Second Creek closed seem worth it, so good is this new facility, which sprawls over 460 rolling acres just east of Byers off I-70. The track itself is a monster, with 15 flowing, rhythmic corners spread out over its 2.5-miles. But what makes it truly spectacular is the 340 feet of total elevation change per lap. The best tracks in the world, like Spa Francorshamps in Europe or America’s very own Laguna Seca, are legendary because the heart-in-mouth thrills of their rising and falling turns. No matter how many laps you run they still give a jolt of limbic-system juice as you’re variously compressed into the seat or go momentarily weightless. While drivers of all skill levels will enjoy the challenges of HPR, the special ingredient for us amateurs is how much run-off room the track layout gives; you’d have to be working very hard to wad up your car there, as any barriers are at a far remove from the action. This is the first road racecourse in the ...

Every driving course I’ve ever attended—as disparate as Bob Bondurant’s Corvette Z06 School to Bridgestone’s Winter Driving courses—emphasizes getting our eyes ‘up’ and looking way ahead while driving. This critical skill is hardly ever taught in traditional ‘driver’s ed’ courses, and the result is many of the accidents we see on the roads on almost a daily basis. I’d say that, based on my own experience (including being head instructor at a driving school two decades ago), if there was one thing you could teach drivers that would dramatically lower accident rates, it wouldn’t be threshold braking, or on-the-limit skid correcting, or any other ‘car control’ skill. It would be just looking ahead. Why? Because a) you see the dumb things other drivers are doing ahead of you in heavy traffic in time to stop or swerve out of the way; b) you get to read the road conditions (ice, snow, etc) early enough to get your own car’s speed down to safely negotiate them; and c) even if you have all the honed skills of a professional racer, they wont do you any good if there’s not time to implement them. Besides, even if you don’t have those skills, ...

It was a stellar year for the introduction of cool new rides, but four out of my top five were updates of existing machinery. Herein, five at various price points that stayed in my mind. Ford Flex EcoBoost From the moment the Flex debuted, I dug its look and out-of-the-box (pun intended) take on the crossover thing: no faux offroad trappings, no trying to hide its people-carrier roots in swoopy sheetmetal. But when they stuffed in a 355hp twin-turbocharged, direct-injection monster motor I fell in love. The Ecoboosted Flex will smash sixty in six seconds flat, and feels even faster. Its stiffer chassis also handles more taughtly without loosing its smooth ride, its tranny shifts faster, and this Ford shows that you can implement electric power steering assist without giving up feel or precision (unlike two of the most disappointing cars I drove in ’09). If I had kids, I’d have one of these. Hyundai Genesis Coupe 3.8 Not only did it Korea’s first rear-drive sports car look fresh and original, but Hyundai had the guts to launch the Genesis Coupe at a race track. We journos thrashed them on a road course, autocross, and got unlimited chances ...

There are almost no truly awful vehicles these days. These aren’t necessarily the worst cars, trucks, or SUVs I drove in 2009, but in one way or another, they were the most distressing or disappointing. Chevrolet Camaro SS I really rather liked the V6-powered RS model—frugal, fast, and quick-witted. But the heavily hyped, 426hp big brother never met expectations. Sure, it looked awesome, but the Camaro SS neither pulled as hard as it should or had the decisive handling promised (blame its lardy chassis), and it didn’t even sound all that great. Chrysler Sebring Convertible Unlike the decent but unfulfilling SS, this one is rubbish: craptastic interior materials, a flexy structure, weak engines, overwrought styling inside and out, and an insanely high asking price akin to that of real convertibles. Bankruptcy anyone? GMC Terrain Forget about what I think of its exterior styling (or lack thereof); what sucks about the Terrain is how badly it misses the mark set long ago by the Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4. The 4-cylinder model promises great fuel economy: EPA ratings of 20mpg city and 29mpg highway. Yet, on a long drive across the Midwest, cruise set at 70mph, we couldn’t top 20.2mpg on ...

As I splashed through the slop of Denver’s first big storm this morning, I started thinking about tires. You’d think I was all good: all-wheel drive, all-season tires. But the initial quick rush of acceleration meant nothing when it came time to brake while turning onto the highway’s onramp. Understeeeer…eeeeh! Luckily I was ready for it, having been to Bridgestone’s Winter Driving School twice. But watching everyone else careen about on the Interstate, I knew the only way to have that extra margin of braking or turning reserve was with the right winter (i.e. snow) tires. That’s a simple difference between grip and traction: traction (like a 4x4 offers) will get ya outa the ditch; grip is what allows you to make an emergency maneuver or out-brake an impending pile-up. The new (December) issue of Car and Driver magazine does a great job of covering summer vs. all-season vs. winter tires on the same car under controlled condition, and Tirerack.com’s got a great test here as well. Suffice it to say, even though I live in the Rockies, I’d rather trust my safety to a rear drive car on appropriate—winter—rubber than to an AWD one ...

How would you like the seven-passenger flexibility of a large and luxurious crossover, but with fuel economy approaching 30mpg on the highway? It’s possible, as I’ve just proven while participating in the Audi Mileage Marathon, an epic 4800-mile, two-week N.Y. to L.A. contest designed to show Middle America how frugal Audi’s new TDI clean diesels can be. Comprising over 23 vehicles and 184 drivers from around the globe, it was a convincing demonstration of Audi’s technical acumen, and the viability of diesels for American premium vehicle shoppers. My part of the journey comprised a three-day stint; the first leg being a dash across the Rockies from Denver to Durango. My teammate and I tried all the tricks we could think of to eke out every last erg from each gallon of diesel; things like shifting into top gear as soon as possible, and keeping our acceleration as methodical as traffic would allow. We couldn’t lollygag, however, as the contest’s rules gave points for average speed, along with best overall fuel economy. First impressions were how quite the new 3.0-liter V6 TDI was; there was little to give away its compression-ignition nature. No smell; particulate traps and Audi’s ...

There is a common theme in almost all successful road racers’ resumes: they began their careers—and keep their skills honed—at the wheel of a racing kart. Not to be confused with the lethargic ‘go-karts’ puttering about neighborhoods and farms decades ago, today’s high performance machines are ferociously honed to rip 0-60 in the three to four second range, and can yank your body sideways with over 2g’s of lateral load in corners. The highest paid athlete in the world, Formula 1’s recently retired Michael Schumacher, began his career in a kart, and those youngsters hell-bent on reaching his level of glory and success follow the same path. Nothing else is as good at honing lightning fast reflexes, or teaches all of the road racer’s arts—vehicle dynamics, the line, traffic management, out-braking, and passing—for such a moderate outlay. Now Colorado is home to one of the finest karting facilities in the United States: the Track at Centennial. As in golf course design, the land and architect are key. Penned by renowned designer Alan Wilson, the Track swoops and banks over 8/10th’s of mile, and its devilishly clever cambers and an elevation change of seventeen feet mean it ...

‘Slow down!’ I could see the old Explorer-driving lady’s lips form the words. No surprise, really, considering we had just zipped through an S-bend in the wonderful BMW 335i convertible on a beautiful summer evening, passing her lumbering SUV in the process. Never mind that I used my indicator, had passed on the correct side of a divided four-lane, and probably never exceed half a gee in the process. What did take me back—and then cause me to rocket forward—was her increasing large, angry visage, as she decided to chase me down. To do what? Chastise me for enjoying myself in a safe manner from behind the wheel of something other than a rolling throwback to the Flintstone’s era? We’ll never know, as I didn’t stick around to find out. Exploiting that superb powermill’s prodigious midrange torque, I make a quick getaway. The encounter did cause me to ponder why other road users take such umbrage at the safe implementation of automotive enthusiasm. There weren’t any squealing tires, sideways action, or other dead-giveaways to antisocial action. All self-justification aside (I know when I’m really up to big dirty fun), why does America have such ...

It is bad enough when accountants, and not engineers, mandate the cars and trucks we drive. But the most significant car designer for the next generation of automobiles will be someone with no background at all in the industry—and possibly even an ethos that could be considered anti-motoring. That man? The next president of the United States. The two candidates for the most powerful office in the world, senators John McCain and Barack Obama, are preaching many of the same themes, and their automotive party platforms are actually quite similar. Both say they want more fuel-efficient vehicles, and both profess to admire (but not actually understand much about) hybrids. They also share a desire to use government to legislate technological advancement. The liberal love affair with hybrids, combined with an ignorance of their shortcomings, can be seen in the Democratic party’s statement that “We’ll dramatically increase the fuel efficiency of automobiles,” while Senator Obama himself proposes a $7000 tax credit to buyers of the plug-in variety—even though none are on sale yet, and no one knows how well they’ll perform in the real world—and his pledge to get one million on the road by 2015, as part ...

Motorists tend to get exploited by the government. We are an excellent source of revenue in the form of taxes and fines, and we rarely--if ever--band together to fight for our rights. There is only one organization I know of that represents us, the National Motorist Association; for decades their founder Jim Baxter has fought the good fight, up against the huge insurance company/trial lawyer/government axis of evil. They're worth supporting, especially now that certain silly congressmen are proposing a reimposition of the 55mph NMSL (National Maximum Speed Limit), a boondoggle that does little to save fuel, nothing to save lives, yet contributes greatly to state and federal coffers. What else can you and I do, in the face of monied and massively funded lobbying efforts by those intent on reaching into your pocketbook since they're too timid to raise revenue in legitimate ways? Write your representatives--especially now, as we near election time--and let them know what you think. Here are a couple of letters I've sent to my Congresswoman and our Senators; the first one seems a bit dated in the context of $4/gal gasoline (but I think it still relevant if we're truly serious about CO2 ...