pace with and passing a 996 GT3....which I thought was pretty cool. There was 1 nogaro B6 S4 avant out there as well.

He SAID he was going to be out of town for QFest. Hah.

Look carefully at the power to weight ratio and it will become clear. There are very few vehicles running in Driver's Events that stand a chance against a Lotus Elise if the driver has a clue what he is doing with it.

If I had the money/space for a true track toy, this is one of the top choices I would grab.....

I guess not in this case. It was clear watching the cars go through the shikane that the Elise was meant for the track. Walking around the Lotus is pretty funny too...it's a tiny little car!

The Porsche will kill it on the straights, but that is not enough to make up for what the Elise will do to the Porsche when the turns come back up.

Seems almost crazy to say that the GT3 Porsche can't handle well, but against the Elise it's true.

BTW - the original European version of the Elise was only 1700 lbs. There are at least one or two of those that show up to track events at PIR.

I've instructed at a couple of their events this year. I had a surprise last week. Turns out I had been the instructor for my dentist earlier this year in his 540. We hadn't recognized each other, but when he saw my name on the chart, he recognized it, and then remembered where when he saw me. That was kind of cool.

That particular GT 3 was not driven by an advanced driver while the new Elise was driven by Dennis P. probably the most experienced PIR driver I know - however the track was so slippery the times that I was on the track with Dennis I had no trouble passing him and pulling away - that will probably never happen again.

Except for toasting my brakes the S4 did very well, I was never passed and pissed off a lot of BMW's that didn't like not being able to keep up with a station wagon (ego's are a fragile thing).

boy them BMWs are slooooow in the wet! :P But to their credit at least they run in the rain, you'd be surprised how many other clubs around the country don't think BMWs should enter the track in the wet! I'm not kidding...