Well, as some of you may know, Da Hapa and I went to a Lexus ES300 test drive event over the weekend where you get to drive the lexus against some of it's competitors. They had 3 different autocross courses set up. One of the courses was with the Lexus IS300, and that was the most fun out of all of them. On that course, you basically had to get within a second of the time set by a professional driver. We had those IS300's squealing big time.

The other 2 courses were for luxury riding and performance driving. Overall, none of us were really impressed with the new ES300. In the one I drove, the tranny kept slipping every time I floored it. It would rev for a bit before actually going anywhere. I really like the Mercedes C320 and the BMW 325i. The Mercedes was a bit heavy, but the power it had was great. The BMW just had a really good balance of everything, power and handling.

I think we all had a great time though. Da Hapa was pretty good driving the high speed course. I think he got the best time out of all of us. Great meeting you down there.

 

Hey Mark-

It was fun. I actually really like that IS300. Can't wait to try a proper manual tranny. Good balance, good power, great brakes.

I only wish we could have gotten our cars out on that track. Now that would have really been fun.

See you on Sat.

 

Yeah, that IS300 was a blast to drive. Too bad we couldn't get invited to the Lexus IS300 test drive.

See you on Sat.

 

Did you get to drive the course in your stook? Did my advice work out for you?

 

No, couldn't drive the course in the S2K. It's too bad too, we would've torn up the racing track.

You should've seen all the nice cars in the parking lot. At the end of the test drive, the couple next to me were leaving in the jag and his wife turns to me and asks me if I was going to trade the S2K in for the Lexus. I told them NO WAY, and then asked them if they'd trade in the jag. They pretty much told me that same thing.

I got a nice story about someone tailgating me in a station wagon on the way out of El Toro. Needless to say, the S2K had to show the station wagon what was up around a set of 25mph corners.

 

I guess they weren't stupid enough to bring in the TL-S.

 

Nope, they had the Acura TL. They also weren't stupid enough to bring in the BMW 330. Had the 325 out there instead. I guess they don't consider the BMW 330 or the Acura TL-S to be their competitors.