Listen Up Assholes, I’m Only Going to Say This Once.

There has been some interesting debate in the comments about my performance in the 2011 Mojave Mile, piloting the Corvette ZR1. Mainly, the debate revolves around two factors:

1) I am fat, and if I were not fat, I would have broken 180 mph, the completely arbitrary goal I set for myself that day.

2) The 2012 Nissan GTR shouldn’t be faster than the Corvette in the mile, yet in the video, the announcer at the Mile says that a “girl in a stock GTR” ran 179.9.

Let’s explore these items after the jump.

First, lets get all the facts straight. Going into this event, I had no idea what kind of number the car would run. I picked 180 as a completely arbitrary number, having no idea if the ZR1 were capable of that. Is there evidence that any bone stock ZR1 has ever cracked the 180 mark in the mile? No. Never been done. I probably should have looked that up, before running, but whatever. The organizer of the mile runs a ZR1, and he said that in absolutely perfect, sea-level conditions, his car wouldn’t do any better than 178.5. And he’s a professional NHRA/SCTA drag racer.

Mojave is also at 2800 feet of elevation, which is good for nearly a 50 horsepower loss. So I wasn’t running with 638 horsepower; it was much closer to 590.A horsepower loss like that is good for about 1.5 mph in the standing mile. There was a 15 mph headwind as well, good for another 1.5 mph. So I was, basically, limited to 3 mph slower than the car’s absolute performance potential for this test.

Now, about this whole “fat driver means slow car” issue. It’s true that being lighter is better, whether you’re talking about the car or the driver. Or is it? Check out this video of Autocar’s standing mile race between the Corvette ZR1 and the Porsche 911 GT2. You may notice that a) the video is shot in england, which has an average elevation of 500 feet. and b) the driver of the Corvette is, compared to yours truly, one skinny little limey. Obviously, because he’s skinnier than me, the car simply must go faster in the mile, right? RIGHT? Nope. Skinny little England’s ZR1 hits 175.9 mph, 8 tenths slower than my fat American ass ran one at elevation. Weight comes into play for the kind of stats that manufacturers need to sell their cars: Acceleration from a standstill, handling, and braking. No manufacturer this side of Koenigsegg tries to market their vehicles by saying how fast they will accelerate over 150 mph. At those speeds, it’s all about horsepower and aerodynamics, not weight. I neglected to mention the driver’s weight for the fastest recorded standing mile run in a stock ZR1, 178.5 as run by the pro mentioned above. The guy is 300 lbs, or about 45 lbs heavier than I am. If driver weight matters so much, how come the heaviest racer on the runway can run the fastest pass?

Now that we’ve proven the ZR1 won’t do 180 in the mile in stock trim, even with a skinny driver, let’s discuss the GTR. In the film, the announcer says that I am getting beaten by “a girl in a stock GTR” that ran 179.9. In hindsight, lets take a look at the race results for ourselves. If you’d like to see them all, click here, otherwise I’ve screen-shotted the most important part below.

You’ll notice the stock 2012 GTR, piloted by Irmina Martinez of Oceanside, CA, did not actually beat me in the mile. She ran a 175.3 to my Corvette’s 176.7. So the announcer was just fucking with me for video purposes. On the other hand, Dave Scholtz, in the 2010 GTR, seemingly ran 180.5. Anyone who knows anything about GTR’s knows that there’s no way in hell a stock 2010 GTR will beat a stock 2012 GTR in a simple drag race by that much. 5 MPH faster in the mile with otherwise identical cars would require one of the cars to have more than 100 extra horsepower over the other. Google says that Dave Scholtz is an accomplished amateur autocrosser and road racer, but in a GTR you really just mash it to the floor and go. If both cars are truly stock, as they claimed, I think that Irmina’s 175.3 is much more realistic. Bascically I’m calling bullshit that Mr. Scholtz’s car is stock.

Basically what I’m saying here is that I ran that damn ZR1 all day long, every which way possible. And I’m convinced that I ran it as fast as it would go. Would me losing a few pounds make the car go any faster? Maybe a fraction of a mile per hour, but nothing of significance. Standing mile is about horsepower and aerodynamics, not ultra low weight and launch grip. The internet has made gigantic horsepower numbers seem so normal, and no one even realizes what a feat they are. Going from 0 to 176.7 in just a mile is ludicrously quick. In order to get that same car to do 200 in the mile, you’d need over 1,000 horsepower at the wheels. 

So while yes, the idea of this post came about because I was sick of reading hundreds of comments calling me fat, the truth goes much deeper than that. Any asshole can post up some dumb YouTube comment. In fact, for every one thoughtful comment I see there are at least 50 more written by University of Phoenix online rejects, people with 5th grade reading and writing levels, and fucking morons. Do your homework people. You want to use a car not reaching an arbitrarily chosen goal on a runway as a good excuse to call someone fat? At least make sure you know what the fuck you’re talking about.