Mercedes Power Trip

[Donn and Sally York <dyork@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Last Friday, I went to the Mercedes Power Trip, which took place at
Chicago Speedway, an oval track near, you guessed it, Chicago.  I have
to say it was a lot of fun and much better than I expected.  They had 5
or 6 AMG Mercedes on the track and you could get a ride with a
professional driver in any of them.  My friend and I went in the CLK55,
the E55 and the ML55.  I thought this would be a 50 mph saunter around
an oval track, but I was wrong.  It was a 100 mph 4 wheel drift around
an oval track with cones set up to add some zigs and zags.  Although the
drivers were obviously driving at about 4/10s, they were still going
faster around the turns then I could have.  It was a lot more
interesting than I expected.  Unfortunately, on hot lap only lasts about
a minute, so it was over pretty quick.  We got there early, though, so
lines were real short.  Then they had a semi interesting presentation
about all their great cars and features.  You could choose from their
nice buffet lunch while they were impressing you.

After lunch/presentation, they had two autocrosses set up in parking
lots.  One had the C class sedan as well as the yet to be introduced C
coupe, along with it's "main competition", as IS300, a 325i, and an A4
2.8.  They actually let you go as fast as you wanted around the cones,
using what they call "SETs".  Someone Else's Tires : ^ )  The other
autocross track featured every Mercedes in their lineup except the AMG
cars: SL500s, E320 and E430s, SLK320 (with stick), ML320s and ML430s,
etc.  A couple of us did kinda hot laps, where we made a little more
noise than the average Mercedes shopper.  People thought when we came
back to drop off the cars, we were being "talked to".  In fact, the
consultants who were manning the auto-x were giving us pointers on how
we could be better, smoother, faster!  I was quite impressed that
Mercedes seemed to go out on a limb with this whole Power Trip marketing
exercise, rather than yielding to lawyers and liability insurance
hounds.  There also was a drawing for a free set of Conti tires and an
Olympus camera.  Amazingly, the woman who won the camera said she'd
rather have won the tires!  Now, THAT was surprising : ^ )

Anyway, all in all, a fun way to spend a nice day.  I was a little more
impressed with the Mercedes than I expected to be, although I still
think the ML55 is in the middle of no man's land: not that much fun, and
not that useful.  But I won't tell that to my neighbor, who just bought
one and sold his 1 1/2 year old '00 Carrera 4 with a grand total of 180
miles on it.  But that's another story.

Donn
'97 328i sedan with 31k miles for sale - inquire at front desk

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