I can't give exact coordinates of where we were when this happened, as apparently one can incriminate ones-self on the internet now-a-days, but let's just say it wasn't in my home State of California, and the road has epic curves in it.
We were coming home to Cali on this mountainous road, the weather was crystal clear, temp about 79 degrees. Traffic was light, 2 lanes in our direction, and we were passing groups of slower cars, on the left, on the right, where-ever the opportunities presented themselves. Some of the locals in this area pride their abilities to navigate this pass, and take offense to being passed by Cali drivers, and will take up chase upon presentation of the Cali plate on the rear of the car. (Note: Bimmer plate only up front.)
We cruised past an E-class Mercedes, and a Lexus IS350, both of which were moving at a pretty good pace, but perhaps 10 MPH slower than ours. As soon as the Merc driver saw me in his mirrors he picked up the pace, so I waited until the next turn to make my move as I didn't want to make this an acceleration contest.
I took him through the turn, and accelerated away, and noticed he was giving chase, so I hit the next 2 turns a little more aggressively, and watched him fade in my mirrors, all the while noticing what looked like an awful lot of body-roll on his car. I thought they handled better than that!
The Lexus, seeing what's going on, also decides to give chase. He has about an 80 HP advantage over our lowly 3, but either the Lexus is no match for the handling of the 3, or the driver is un-skilled. Either way, he is barely keeping up with the Merc, who is accelerating hard on the straight-aways, but continues to lose ground every time we negotiate the twisties.
The best part was that I wasn't even in 'road-race-mode'. I was trying to go as fast as I could through the turns without the hard acceleration in, brake hard, accelerate out hard method, as my wife was in the car, and I had to behave myself, and I was still pulling away! Once I put a half mile distance on these two I just did enough to keep them back there.
The balance of power and handling of these cars continues to amaze me the more I drive it. Driving should be fun, and this car is!
We were coming home to Cali on this mountainous road, the weather was crystal clear, temp about 79 degrees. Traffic was light, 2 lanes in our direction, and we were passing groups of slower cars, on the left, on the right, where-ever the opportunities presented themselves. Some of the locals in this area pride their abilities to navigate this pass, and take offense to being passed by Cali drivers, and will take up chase upon presentation of the Cali plate on the rear of the car. (Note: Bimmer plate only up front.)
We cruised past an E-class Mercedes, and a Lexus IS350, both of which were moving at a pretty good pace, but perhaps 10 MPH slower than ours. As soon as the Merc driver saw me in his mirrors he picked up the pace, so I waited until the next turn to make my move as I didn't want to make this an acceleration contest.
I took him through the turn, and accelerated away, and noticed he was giving chase, so I hit the next 2 turns a little more aggressively, and watched him fade in my mirrors, all the while noticing what looked like an awful lot of body-roll on his car. I thought they handled better than that!
The Lexus, seeing what's going on, also decides to give chase. He has about an 80 HP advantage over our lowly 3, but either the Lexus is no match for the handling of the 3, or the driver is un-skilled. Either way, he is barely keeping up with the Merc, who is accelerating hard on the straight-aways, but continues to lose ground every time we negotiate the twisties.
The best part was that I wasn't even in 'road-race-mode'. I was trying to go as fast as I could through the turns without the hard acceleration in, brake hard, accelerate out hard method, as my wife was in the car, and I had to behave myself, and I was still pulling away! Once I put a half mile distance on these two I just did enough to keep them back there.
The balance of power and handling of these cars continues to amaze me the more I drive it. Driving should be fun, and this car is!