I recently spent a couple of days in Phoenix, AZ (well, not quite two, since I drove over and stayed one night and drove back) to do a couple of photoshoots. Had a great drive over in me and Kristen's 2007 VW GTI. This car never ceases to amaze me. I've had my fair share of VWs (2 A1 Sciroccos, 1 16V Scirocco and an MKII GTI), but the MKV GTI is simply an amazing car. Terrific gas mileage (I think I spent around $70 dollars there and back and still had some left over), fast enough for any situation and totally comfortable for extended freeway driving. So far my biggest complaint is the excess body roll and terminal understeer that gets in the way of chuckability. Nothing that some smart suspension tuning wouldn't fix.
Anyway, I digress. The first day I got to Arizona, the destination was Mesa. I checked into a hotel in Tempe (lots of local bars, etc since its the home of ASU) and then headed over to Turbokraft, a Porsche tuner shop owned by the always affable Chris Carroll, who also happens to build some exceedingly quick Porsches. The subject of the shoot/story was a 2000 Boxster that had been turbocharged. We also met up wiith some nice local Porsche enthusiasts who brought along a stock Boxster to do some comparing with. Shoot went well, the turbo Boxster S was a terrific car to drive. My only reservation was that the suspension, etc was stock, and with around 300 wheel horsepower it was obvious it needed to be stiffened up. But still, the addition of forced induction in a mid engined car as accomplished as the Boxster was a great addition.
After the shoot, I headed back to the hotel to get some shut eye. The next day I had to be at Thunderbird Raceway, or more specifically, the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving to do a piece on the Corvette ZR1 school that is included with every purchase of this reedonculous car. As if the Z06 wasn't enough, Chevy decided it needed a supercharger, resulting in a 638-hp Corvette. While I wasn't able to drive it, I was able to do a hot lap with one of Bondurant't steely-eyed instructors who proceeded to launch it into turns at the "please don't screw up because it will really hurt if you crash" rate of speed.
