Many higher-end sports car manufacturer/dealers do just that, but $80K doesn’t qualify as “higher-end” in that world.
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There’s a lot of “he’s a moron” in this thread, but there is a technical issue here, which is that Launch Control teaches you that it’s correct to pin the throttle and let the CPU drive, which worked great until the Launch Control apparently cuts out all at once when you touch 2nd gear. Fine if you’re aware of that, trouble if not.
Under normal operation, traction control on this car is on all the time, unless you turn on competition mode, which helps manage cornering, but not at all in a power-induced spin, or turn it off entirely. Reading downthread at the link, there are a number of track veterans who are confused by their Vette’s assist settings.
Per the linked source:
After shifting to second (expecting the torque management to continue working) it was unrestricted power to the wheels and just came as a surprise, which is why there wasn’t really a reaction to it. The car was in track suspension mode and sport 1 traction control, so active handling would’ve been expected to handle slight yaw from wheel spin, but didn’t. The driver was experienced with high power cars and owns a heads/cam/intake c6 z06 also.
Active Handling manages cornering by applying brakes, it doesn’t cut the throttle (traction control does, but seems “Track 1” allows a little bit of “fun”), with the results in evidence.
When I’m feeling extra adventurous, I push the “Sport” button on my Fiat.
…yeah, good times.
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Actually it’s kind of a brilliant addition to a car. Probably cost the manufacturer fifteen bux or whatever that is in Euro. I’d kind of like if it I bought a new ICE car and it came with some sort of affixed jumper cables. I’d take that over floormats.
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I’m assuming it’s because most 6-figure+ hypercars are garage queens that get driven very rarely, so built-in jumpstart is very useful.
It seems to me any car that, at the shift of a gear, has the ability to wrest control out of your hands if it’s in a certain mode, should simply not be allowed on the streets. Period. That tree could have been my Hyundai.
Caesar, the salad.
My mechanic sometimes works on luxury cars. He was telling us that he had a Ferrari Testarossa in the shop not too long ago. He’d had it parked out front until so many people stopped to take pictures with it that he pulled it into a bay. He told us that it is virtually impossible to drive it. That you have to sit in this tiny seat and cock your feet over to the left.
He said that most of the Testarossas have very low mileage, due to this issue of them not actually being driveable. Apparently, the thing is to pick up your supermodel girlfriend in your Ferrari, drive to your glamorous event, drive back home and keep her in the garage until your next fancy function.
This was sad for me to learn. They are so beautiful.
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At any track day at a drag strip that I’ve ever been to (it’s been over a decade now, but I don’t imagine things have changed much) in my area, the only thing they check is your safety equipment (if your car can reach certain speeds, they require helmets, etc). Never any real inquiry into one’s experience. Hell, they let me go out with my silly little near-stock Neon R/T with ZERO experience, granted there was very little chance of me spinning out of control in that car. They DID, however, let my buddy go out there with his suped up 10 second Camaro, also with no experience.
And yeah, I agree that if your car is powerful enough, they should include a track day with an instructor to teach you how to control it. I remember back in the day, Jeep doing a promo where they gave out an offroading course if you bought a 4x4 from them.
That’s not a very nice way to treat your supermodel girlfriend. At least let her into the house until your next fancy function.
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Did you mean this unclear pronoun reference? If so, very funny…but wouldn’t a supermodel get cold in the garage? And what about bathroom facilities? 
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fist bump!
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Ugh, Testarossas, the Patrick Nagel poster of sports cars. There’s a Ferrari shop nearby that always has one or two up on the lifts, from which I learned that those stupid looking side air intake things are to cool the dual radiators mounted in the rear wheel wells (!)
OTOH it’s the perfect car to put one of these into:
Mmm, Nakamichi.
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^^ Try a track with corners?
You can track just about anything, provided it’s track ready. (Some convertibles will need a rollbar installed). It’s always great seeing an econobox or plucky Miata catching up to some expensive monster in the corners.
Find a good club. Usually a track day requires a bit of prep work to memorize the track, but they’ll go over flags and the trickier corners between sessions. Good groups will force newbies to have an instructor for everyone’s safety and to get you up to speed so you’re not clogging up the track. They primarily want you to understand the flags, how to safely get on and off, how to execute safe passes and be passed safely, and to work on your consistency and safety margin so you’re not spinning or crashing like an idiot.
If you do crash, it’s just about the safest place to do so. There are flag workers, so no one else should crash into you, and emergency vehicles on site.
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Well, the video from the OP has the Corvette attempting a drag-strip style takeoff, so presumably if they were going to a track they would also be going to a drag strip. Which is why I was arguing that taking this car to a track to race it in the same manner wouldn’t really be that much better (and could be worse, if he was racing next to somebody)
One of my favorite reviews of the little Kawasaki Ninja 250 said similar, that yeah you will lose out on the straightaway but you will totally own the bigger bikes on the curves.
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OTOH, I know someone who took his VW Transporter on a track day. I think that’s where he finally managed to kill it.
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It’s high performance driving, not racing. You need a racing license and a good deal of experience to do that. Some groups even forbid timing yourself at the track to help prevent idiocy. The lower skill groups should never have someone next to each other, and passes are only initiated when the passee sticks their arm out the window to allow the passer to go. If someone passes without permission they’ll get black flagged and probably ejected for the day if they keep messing up.
In any case, the whole point of taking your car to the track is to feel out the limits of your car (or more likely your limits as a driver), because it’s incredibly stupid to do this on the street.
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Right… I get that. But again, pointing to the OP, I don’t think the driver was particularly interested in that. Just wanted to drive his (I’m assuming a man, since men are the primary perpetrators of such stupidity) fast car really fast in a straight line. That’s the only reason I brought up drag strips in the first place, in reference to the “take your car to the track” response that wouldn’t really make much difference to the OP’s end result.
I imagine that actual track days at fancy tracks with corners are quite fun, though I have no real interest (nor time, thanks to the 3 year old and 6 year old eating up all my free time) in that sort of thing any more.
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