The road course is really in good condition for a track built way back in 1969. I was impressed on how well the XLR did in comparison to driving a Z06 at Firebird last month. Of course the grip wasn't as good due to the smaller tire size and the XLR doesn't have the brute low end torque and acceleration of the Z06, but handling was excellent and actually very similiar to the Z06 to me. I left the transmission in auto, just put it in the sport mode. It held in gear most of the time when I backed off for a turn, but sometime it would upshift and then would downshift abruptly when I didn't want it too. After learning the track it would probably be better to manually shift to make sure you are in the right gear for the turn. We just did 5 laps for $50 so it was just an introductory drive. I could have signed up for a two day course, but didn't want to subject the XLR to that much track time on those expensive street tires! There was a huge turnout of Mustangs there. In fact more Boss 302s than they said they had seen in one place. I had one pass me on the straightaway and he was pulling away from me at a good pace. (Gizmo where were you?) A few Porsches, a Volkswagen that was really fast, a Daytona, several Cobras, and a believe it or not a Fiesta that was amazing in the turns.
