[Doc]

Well now... after reading through all this and some of his posts on the Mustang forum it's clear that for some reason he has a chip on his shoulder against me personally. Not sure why; what was his name here on the forum?

He conveniently ignores parts of my posts about the Z/28 that do not fit his "agenda" and rants on about things taken out of context.

In my comments about the Z/28 I've talked about it being a street-legal track car which, as Zfatuated pointed out is quite different from a real race car. Race cars are not street legal for many reasons. Even if a team begins with a production car they strip it down completely and rebuild it from the ground up with everything from safety-wired fasteners to full roll-cages, fire safety systems, telemetry and other gauges, etc. none of which you'll find on a street legal production car because they're completely unnecessary.

His "points" about rules for racing which he seems to think I'm unaware of are not taking into account the other things I mentioned about the Z/28. I've said many times in my comments that there may be a new manufacturer's championship series in the works ala the original Trans Am (the Camaros and Mustangs did not compete in the Can Am series as he mentioned in one of his posts). While looking at what Chevy is doing with the Z/28 much of it seemed at odds with what appears to be its target market; HPDE and weekend racers. I noted this and also made note of Dodge announcing they're making a car to compete with the Z/28 and now Ford has reluctantly admitted they're in this game. Yet they're all holding their cards VERY close to their chest....this all seems odd to me. It looks like the big 3 are playing a huge game of poker and each of them are sitting at the table with millions of R&D dollars ready to be invested...so the stakes are high, but what game are they playing? Is all this really for HPDE and weekend racers?

The Z/28 as stated by GM is NOT "meant" for any current organized racing... Dodge and Ford are in this game now.... Do the massive development investments necessary to create cars with stripped out insulation, making custom shocks, thinner rear window glass, deleting A/C and radios, creating custom wiring harnesses, putting in cooling and track abilities that allow you to run out an entire tank of gas non-stop really sound like it's being aimed at HPDE and weekend racers? It's overkill; big-time. They could have just added an LS7 to a 1LE and made a few other improvements; brought it in for much less than a Z/28 is going to be and it would have sold well; performed beyond 98% of it's customer's abilities. There's no logical reason to do what they're doing (as well as Dodge and Ford spending this kind of development money) if it's just for HPDE and weekend racers. They already have cars that fit that bill quite nicely.

These cars don't fit anything that's current; so what kind of game are the big 3 playing here? My thought is they may be planning a new manufacturer's championship series where the rules will be what the Big 3 (and SCCA) agree they're going to be. I don't have any inside info, I'm making a purely educated guess here but to me it looks like something is in the works that they aren't talking about.... yet. They're being just as secretive about it as they are about the actual performance of these new cars they're developing. Chevy isn't done with the Z/28 yet; why not? Is all this race-level secrecy and development REALLY necessary just for HPDE and weekend racers? IMHO no. The Z/28 has been at least 2 years in development, you can be sure that Dodge and Ford didn't just suddenly decide to start their own development while watching the Z/28 announcement. They're all working on something; they're being very VERY guarded about performance and such. That kind of secrecy isn't needed for HPDE and weekend racers; it IS generally seen when involved with real racing.

I don't know what Mr. Pill's issue is but he seems to have his ego and self-esteem seriously wrapped up with whatever he's driving and who makes it. I understand the rivalry between Chevy and Ford but he seems to be taking it way too far as though the only reason why anyone beats a Ford product is if they were "lucky". Saying that Chevy won the Trans Am with the Z/28 because they got "lucky" when they found Mark Donohue as a driver was just ridiculous.

So let me make my position clear: The Z/28 as we know it so far is a track car that's street legal; it's NOT a real race car that's street legal. I believe it's going to rule in HPDE and I look forward to seeing what Dodge and Ford bring to the table. If they BOTH bring cars with carbon ceramic brakes that aren't legal in any current SCCA series that I know of, then to me that indicates something else that's new might be in the works, which has been my position for some time now. I'm hoping for a new Trans Am or something similar that will be based on these new production track cars and be a new manufacturer's championship series.

Al O and Mark Stielow are not clueless idiots; they know the rules, far more so I'm sure than Mr. Pill does. They have to build cars that meet the massive amounts of laws and regulations for the street; they know what they're doing. It makes no sense for the Big 3 to be dedicating the amount of money it's going to take to bring these cars to market if its just for low-to-no public visibility HPDE and weekend racer track events. That market is so small compared to what they'd need to recover that investment that it just doesn't make any economic sense to be doing this... UNLESS they have something else going on we don't know about... yet. The cost of consumables for tires and brakes alone on these cars is out-of-range for the average Camaro/Mustang/Dodge customer, so who are these cars really being developed for? I do not believe these cars are being developed to "rip people off". I think the next 18 months are going to be VERY interesting.

This is just my opinion and I don't have any privileged access to anything.