Hello, Kansas City, and welcome back to the Bespoke Automotive Refinement Podcast. We are your one-stop shop for all things detailing, car detailing, Kansas City paint correction, Kansas City ceramic coating, and of course, all things Kansas City car detailing. Guys, I am your host, Thomas Till.
I am the owner and founder of Bespoke Automotive Refinement. We are the number one Kansas City car detailing service. And guys, today we are going to be talking about why race cars are not ideal for the street.
Now, if you’re wondering where that idea for a topic even came up, my favorite kinds of cars are race cars. I love factory race cars. I love that every manufacturer offered—not every manufacturer— a lot of manufacturers offered the option for their sports car to be able to own a track variant of it.
That’s why I own a Z06. That’s why I love the Porsche 911 GT3 RS. That’s why I really enjoy track-focused sports cars and supercars.
And one thing that if you’re not—I don’t even want to say if you’re not a car person, but if you’ve never driven these kinds of cars before, there are reasons why these are terrible cars for everyday commuting. And it doesn’t have really much to do with the things that you think, and we’re going to get into that. So, what are some of the main reasons why race cars are bad for daily use? Number one, they sit really low to the ground.
If you live in a normal city like I do, and you have potholes, and you have dividers, and there’s construction, and there is virtually no way to be able to avoid scraping the bottom of your car. I mean, I have already wrecked a carbon fiber side splitter on our Z06, and I have held off putting the carbon fiber front splitter on because I know once I do that, I’m going to have to be a lot more careful with the way that I drive. And whether you’re driving a Ventador SVJ, a GT3 RS, or a C6 Z06 like in my case, these cars all sit really low to the ground, and they were not built for daily use.
Number two, they run really hot. These cars were designed to have a lot of airflow flowing through the engine. That’s why you see a lot of vents, and you see a lot of cooling ducts on track cars.
You know, when you look at a… the perfect instance is the 911 GT3 RS. If you look at that car and you compare that car to a 911 Carrera, the biggest thing you’re immediately going to notice is how many air vents and cooling ducts are all around the body on a GT3 RS compared to a 911. The reason for that is those cars are designed to run really hot, and part of the cooling mechanism is speed.
So the car has to be moving in order to continuously be cooled. These cars aren’t designed to sit in a parking lot and idle for 20 minutes on a hot day while you’re waiting on your groceries to be picked up or dropped off to your car if you use Instacart like we do. So, I’ve found when I drive the Z06 that if I’m at a drive-through, if I’m waiting on someone, I’ll shut it off, I’ll roll the windows down, and with all the heat that we’ve had lately, right now it’s 102 degrees out, it’s very unpleasant driving that car if I’m going to be in a lot of stop and go.
That also includes traffic. I mean, those cars getting way too hot sitting in traffic, they’ll overheat, they’ll get too hot. I mean, you’ve really got to be mindful of your temperatures with these cars, especially when you’re just driving them around the city.
Number three, transmissions and gearing. I have not driven an Aventador SVJ in regular stoplight-to-stoplight traffic. I have driven a GT3RS, a GT2RS, and my Z06 in stoplight-to-stoplight traffic.
The one thing I will tell you is the way those cars are geared, the way the transmissions are set up, they do not like being driven at low speeds bumper-to-bumper. Those cars need to be on the accelerator, you need to be going. It just is what it is.
Plenty of times in bumper-to-bumper traffic with the clutch, with my Corvette specifically, it’s got a twin-disc high-performance clutch rated for 1,800 horsepower, so it’s a very heavy clutch. It’s not very fun driving that car in bumper-to-bumper traffic. It’s not very fun driving that car in downtown Kansas City from stoplight-to-stoplight because I’m working the clutch, and I’m trying to give it enough gas, and I’m paying attention to the temps.
All these things you have to be very mindful of when you’re driving a car like this, versus when I’m driving my Dodge Caravan like I’m driving right now. I can almost just space out in traffic. I’m not worried about my temps.
I’m not worried about my clutch. Same thing with my Jeep. I can sit in the parking lot for 20 minutes and target and idle to keep the car cool.
You can’t really do that in a track-focused sports car. Finally, they were meant to be driven fast, not meant to be driven slow. This is something that I’m really trying to convey to my wife.
Driving the Z06, when you say it’s a point-A to point-A car, it really isn’t even an enjoyable car to take out to dinner or to take to anywhere in the city because it wants to go. It feels the most healthy under acceleration. It feels the most healthy at higher RPMs.
That car does not feel healthy at low RPMs and stop-and-go traffic at stoplights. The same can be said for the GT3 RS. The same can be said for the Aventador SVJ.
These cars were built to be driven. They weren’t built to be putted around. Guys, if you’re looking to book a Kansas City Car Detailing Package or a Kansas City Car Detailing Service, you can give us a call at 620-282-0402 or you can go online to BespokeRefinement.com. There you can check out a list of all of our different Kansas City Car Detailing Packages and Kansas City Car Detailing Services.
And if you want to get more information on any of our Kansas City Car Detailing Services, you can give me a call at 620-282-0402.
Kansas City Car Detailing: Why Race Cars Make Terrible Daily Drivers (And What Most People Don’t Realize)
