Who is right?

[Edmond]

Hello,

I was at work yesterday and decided to check out the new Car & Driver. They did the test between the '02 Z06 and the 911 Turbo. They were supposed to include the Viper, but it's clutch blew!

Anyway, I read in the paper that GM estimated a 0-60 time of 3.9 seconds, but on the test; they pulled a 4.4 and I'm wondering what's with the big disparity. That's half a second! They clocked the 911 Turbo at 4.5 but Road & Track got the Turbo in at 4.0

I was wondering who is really right about this and how they come up with these figures. I mean, a half second in the 0-60 category is just too much. Are they talking about perfect test conditions? I know they use professional drivers, but what about the everyday driver?

On a funny note, I was driving to work the other morning and noticed a car was broken down at the stop light. I get up there and notice that it was a Mustang! To make it worse, it was a dealer Mustang and that means that the car must've been new

 

[Hib Halverson]

It's day the dispairity may stem from one of two problems

1) The antipowerhop agorthms in the engine controls software. If the driver was unaware of them or didn't know how to launch the car and avoid them, the 60-foot time would have been affected.

2) a test car not as quick as the car GM used to validate the Z06's performanc

3) poor starting line technique

 

[BlkZO6]

I would think in this case it had more to do with weather and track conditions than anything else. Both cars were slower than I would have suspected. I tend to doubt it was the driver in either case. Mostly because the Vette driver was a guy named John Heinricy, who knows a little about racing Vettes. The Porsche driver was as well known to Porschephiles as well.

Cars will run different times on different days at different tracks for a variety of reasons (temp, humidity, track condition, etc.). I wouldn't pay as much attention to the numbers as I would the matchup. These cars are obviously closely matched, and it could go either way on different days.

Having said that....the ZO6 won!!!