Next, we still had the road course to attend to. Our test track clocks in at 13 turns and 1.35 miles-yes, it's tight, perhaps too much so for our 200 mph test machine. But it does have two decent-sized straights, a banked corner for Turn 1, S-turns, a hairpin and some elevation changes. It is a perfect facility by which to judge brakes, steering, and road holding.
Our first order of business was to disable all the car's electronic handling nannies. In the past, we've found they do more harm than good if you really know how to drive. Doubtless, they'll keep the uninformed from killing themselves on the street and at open-track events, but experts will find them intrusive at best and counter-intuitive at worst.
Like all new Vettes, the ZO6 has virtually no understeer and has a propensity to oversteer. One must use the throttle judiciously when exiting turns or you'll find those four beautiful round taillights trying to do pirouettes around you. Once acquainted with the power and the car's capabilities, you'll be rewarded not just with incredible lap times, but an unbelievable driving experience. Laying into the throttle will snap your helmet into the seat and keep it there as long as you keep your foot down. Approaching a turn? Wait till the last second and shove the brake pedal to the floor and hard as you want. The ZO6 scrubs off speed like a racecar. Turn-in is precise. Clip the apex, go through the corner and its full speed ahead.
Thanks to the 7000 rpm redline and abundance of torque, shifting is kept to a minimum on this course. You spend most of your time in second and third gear. You eat up the short chute between Turn 1 and 2 instantly, stab the giant brakes and turn the wheel. Turn 2 is a late apexer and you have to be patient. We finesse our way through 2 and 3, and shift into Third for the climb towards Turn 3. Three is a long sweeper that blends into the first big straight. Hammer down, you rocket towards turn 4. Waiting as long as possible, you see 122 on the head-up display before calling up the 14-inch front and 13.4-inch rear brakes. Five is the first of two hairpins on our track. We're eating up the inside portion of our course like no other car on regular street tires that we've ever experienced. Our hands and feet were flying, executing heel-and-toe downshifts and upshifts, and relishing the excellent steering and precise controls. Our thumbs never left the 9-and-3 spokes on the wheel.
Once we got through the second hairpin, we were onto the longest straightaway. We saw 127 before our self-preservation instincts kicked in at Turn 11, which is followed immediately by Turn 12. This is a tricky part of the course, one that upsets lesser cars. Not this Corvette. We were amazed by its balance through this zone - on the whole track, actually. It was predictable and you could drive it right on the edge without going over.
From behind the wheel, everything felt tremendous. But for actual numbers, we turned to our Race Pak G2X from MSD Ignitions, a GPS-based data acquisition system. Since the Corvette doesn't have a steel body, we used 200 mph tape to attach the antenna to the windshield.
So how'd we do? The ZO6 turned in consistent times in the low 1.22s, with a best of 1.21.92. This ranks third best of all the car's I've ever tested on this course, and the fastest time ever for a bone-stock automobile. Again, it bears mentioning that this was done in severe heat. If the functional air scoop was ingesting cool air, there's no telling how much faster we'd have been able to lap the track. Such is life.
But the ZO6 is about more than lap times and low e.t.'s, although as you get used to the exceedingly high limits, you start to revel in its raw power, amazing grip and brakes that could only be described as world class. There are only a handful of cars on earth that can touch it, performance-wise, off the showroom floor-and none of them can do it without at least tripling its as-tested price of $72,235.
As you exit the track and have to deal with the craziness that is the real world in the 21st century, you are blown away by its civilized manners, its feather-light clutch, and its tractability in bumper-to-bumper traffic. On this 100 day, we set the air conditioner on "kill," cranked up the tunes and merrily went on our way.
The ZO6 is all-Corvette, only more so. The styling is, in our opinion, the best of any Vette since they threw a rubber bumper on in 1973. The LS7-equipped hot rod comes with dual-mode mufflers, which are quiet around town, but have electronically controlled baffles that let the world know you've arrived (or left) at full throttle. And if you find the right fuse, the baffles will stay open all the time. Your neighbors will love you.
The engine is filled with stuff that would have been considered exotic on a racecar just a few years ago. Titanium rods and intake valves, sodium-filled exhaust valves, dry sump oiling, and CNC-ported aluminum heads are stock. So are pressed-in cylinder liners, a dual-pattern cam with .588/.593 lift, and 12 valve angles. The weight-saving measures gave us a device that tipped the scales at just 3,352 lbs, including the driver. It makes the ZR-1 mentioned earlier feel sedate by comparison.
We'd say it's the ultimate, do-it-all Corvette. At least until the rumored supercharged version of this car scheduled for production some time in 2008 hits the street.