Charles,

Sorry for late response. Too many things going on in my life at this point, hard to keep up . I feel bad for guys who do not have canyons as well. The corvette is made for twisty roads, not for drag strip. Besides racing on the track, I have actually stopped street motorcycle riding since I bought my corvette. Just like you said, it is a quite risky activity, where everything can end badly in a split second. A year ago I was riding local canyon road, and took a blind right hand side corner at ~70 mph. As soon as I exit the turn, there is a van stopped in my lane, with cliff drop on both sides of the road. Somehow instinctively I turned the bike left to avoid the van and went to oncoming traffic lane (luckily there were no cars there). Everything went so fast that I did not have a second to think what I was doing. I got very lucky that time. My heart did not stop pounding for a long time. Other driver unpredictability is what pushing me away from street motorcycle riding. It is a risk I do not want to take anymore. The track racing is a total different story. BTW, where do you live right now?
Tomas

Charles,
That’s lots of Corvette riding you did in last 20 years: I am jealous. This is my first year driving the vette and I love it every day. Quite a few miles I put on her have no purpose but just pure fun factor in the Canyons. My brother says that I am helping oil companies by burning gas and tires. When I go to Chicago next time, I will need to look into local Canyons there. It has been some time since I lived in Chicago, but originally I am from Oak Lawn, IL (Southern Chicago suburb), and my family still lives there. I went to school for undergrad at Northern Illinois University, and grad school in University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I moved to California 7 years ago for only one reason: to drive my motorcycle in the canyons (I was young and idealistic in those days). For a while I didn’t even own a car. California is truly a blessed state as far as canyon riding and outdoor activities go. I just came back from 100 mile ride, 70 miles of which was pure canyon fun. All the roads I did many times with my bikes I am repeating with my corvette. Canyon riding are lots of fun. However, financially and politically, California is not the best state to live in. Sate taxes are bad (just like Illinois), and DMV shafts me every year for 2 cars (truck and vette) and 3 motorcycles…

There is nothing wrong riding the car close to the limit if you know the road very well. I have a peculiar canyon riding style: on straightaway’s I do 10 mph (15 max) above speed limit (55 mph), but I take corners as fast as my tires can with a bit margin left. I rarely use brakes, and I never brake into corner to save tire sidewalls. My Hankook tires will start loosing traction at ~0.95 G’s (+/- 0.05), and I like staying in 0.9 G range. Once in a while I get a bit sliding, but if you hold your lane and do not apply extra throttle, the car will scrub off the speed and gain back the traction as you are sliding in a very controllable and predictable way. Please don’t try this on your corvette: the speed is too great. Personally I think the best car to learn sliding / drifting is Toyota Prius. My company rented me one for two years, and I would go through tires on those poor Prius’es every 8k miles. It is very easy to induce and control sliding in Prius, and speeds are not high (like 35 mph versus 55 mph on vette). Avis Rental Company did not like my driving style .

Be careful with your corvette, she will bite if mishandled. One thing I learned in motorcycle riding / racing is to never touch the brake in the corner, especially if you a carrying decent speed. I have done what you did a few times on motorcycles when riding unknown roads and luckily I didn’t crash. With bikes you will high-side, with cars you will crash if hitting the breaks in the turn. Basically hitting brakes in the corner accelerates you loosing traction, and you already have reduced traction. What happened in your case is help from active handling, which is a great system: it uses Yaw sensor, steering angle sensor, and lateral acceleration sensor to determine when you are sliding, and then it independently pulses rear brakes to apply opposite torque. I would highly recommend doing a few track days to improve your performance riding. If I remember it right, there are a few tracks not too far from Chicago. Unfortunately, track days cost quite a bit of $$$ once you add entrance fee (~$200), tire cost (~$100 per day), and gas (~$100), but they are lots of fun.

Tomas