While the may sound like a dumb question on its face, lots of people are discovering the joy that is driving a slow car fast through racing like ChumpCar, The 24 Hours of Lemons, and it has been happening for decades at small circle tracks across the country in the form of Enduro and other racing. During my days at the University Of Massachusetts we raced the below pictured VW for years and it introduced me to all the fun of hammering a slow car at is absolute limits. From the earliest days of Jalopy racing to today’s roaming road race series, it has been a constant part of the gearhead culture.
So we’re wondering if you’e ever competitively driven a slow car at its limits. Maybe you drag raced a rental car, autocrossed the same, went road racing in a low buck class like Improved Touring? Have you flogged junk on a circle track during an enduro or other type of race? We’re interested in finding out!
BangShift Question Of The Day: Ever Driven A Slow Car Fast?
Back when my Dart had just a Super Six engine setup, it ran high 19’s. I drag raced it anyway.
Cars I’ve autocrossed include a Ford Probe with a seriously worn out engine and a stone stock Focus ZX2.
And I had the staff at the Auto Show in Motion get really upset at me for wailing too hard on a Malibu Maxx wagon. I hadn’t thought I was pushing it too hard, as I’m pretty sure I kept all four wheels on the ground.
I consider my daily commute to be a competition and I drive a really slow 4-cylinder S-10. Does that count?
I’ll see your slow car and raise you a tippy one. Trying to get any acceleration out of a CJ-5 is the lead-in to the fun that is trying to corner.
Started doing 24lemons a couple of years ago what a blast!!!
Back in ’91, my wife bought me a brand new Yugo, because I’d been riding my ZX10 Ninja in any weather, snow, ice, freezing rain, whatever, I rode (four years=90,000miles!). So I drove the Yugo mostly for bad weather. But I tell people that if you can have fun driving a Yugo, you’re not a true auto enthusiast. Low powered, slow cars teach you energy management, how to not lose energy and momentum.
We gave the Yugo to our eldest daughter, who thought it beneath her,and set about to destroy it. She did, but I still miss that little car!
Sorry, I meant “if you can’t have fun in a Yugo, you’re not a true enthusiast.
Yeah, I drive a slow ass VW Jetta diesel everyday, however like Gary said you learn to plan what you’re doing, and work to maintain momentum to drive that little bastard way faster then it was ever meant to go. I like hitting the exit/entrance ramps and not slowing down, it may be a 30 second quarter mile time but that sucker will turn right at 60 mph!
Not competitively, but I used to whip the snot out of my 86 Escort Pony every chance I got. That thing was a blast on twisty backroads, especially when I put the GT wheels on it. Wider, lower profile rubber meant I could take turns much faster.
The garage once gave my father a geo metro as a courtesy car while they were fixing his car, the tires would squeal on every corner I took with it.
I’ve driven my mom Escort way to fast for what it was supposed to do, my father Tempo (those were made to endure a lot of abuse).
We had an Econoline at work that was kept running 24/7 because there was some firefighting equipment that couldn’t freeze on it’s last few months of life that thing was aweful to drive, it would sound like a huge hot rodded engine and would feel like one too because it would lean back and lift the front end pretty good but then you’d look at the scenery and see kid on a skate board pass you. They retired it after a motor vehicule inspector cought one of us driving it on the street (it had a spare tank but still needed to be filled once in a while).
I could keep going for the rest of the day, I’ve had plenty of slow vehicules that I always drove to the limit (and sometimes over it… sorry mom).
It’s a right of passage for the young gearhead to get a slow car and thrash it, break it, fix it and thrash it some more. It’s how I learned how to keep my car going.
Raced a Pure Stock 4 Cylinder Ford Ranger at North Bay Speedway back in the 90s. I won’t say it was bone stock but…. it was certainly supposed to be. Like most 4 Cylinder class oval track cars, slow as balls. Somewhat competitive though.
Competitively…no, however when I worked for a local hardware store I used to flog the crap outta our little Ford Ranger 4 banger. Around the back of the store a a pretty good size open gravel lot with a barn where we kept extra fertilizer, grass seed, and etc. Needless to say whenever I had to go back there to load the truck up, I was always sideways. Not to mention neutral drops, hard corners, and the time me and my manager took it up to Chicago and it “accidentally” fell out of drive into 2nd gear at 70mph on I-90. (I was not driving during that one!).
I had a 1989 Nissan Sentra 2door sedan 5-speed. I realized it didnt have a sway bar on it. I went to the junk yard and found a wrecked Sentra sport coupe that had a big front and rear sway bays. I put sport springs and KYB struts front and rear. It was slow off the line but once it got going you needed very little or no braking in turns. I autocrossed the hell out of it. If I was on a twisty road and someone was tailgating I would “lead them into” a tight turn quickly and whip the turn and watch in my rear view mirror as the tailgater plowed straight on . See ya sucker!!!
My winter car is a $500 1.3L Ford aspire with not too many miles left. I’m not sure if I love it or hate it, but I certainly feel sorry for it!
Won many a SCCA Autocross trophy years ago in my bone stock 1977 VW Rabbit. Push those cars hard enough and they corner on three wheels. The two front ones and the outside rear one.
My first car was an enormous 1960 Plymouth wagon with a slant 6 and three speed on the column. Full throttle and speed shifting every gear, I got passed by a loaded school bus.
Wide open in first got you to 25 mph. Second was all done at 45 mph.