©2008 Matt Finley

I've been riding motorcycles for many, many years. Longer than I've been driving cars. In fact, it is literally because of motorcycles (and an accident we had) that I married my best friend 14 years ago. Anyway, before I get side tracked, back to the topic.

I recently got the opportunity to take a long run up and down one of my favorite (motorcycle) roads in San Diego County (Highway 67 between El Cajon and Julian) in what is arguably one of the best performance cars made in the US: a 2008 Z06 Corvette.

This wasn't one of those dealer's test rides with the salesman sitting next to me. It was a "Hey, neighbor, lets go for a ride in my new Vette". Who was I to say "no" ?? Well, I had said no several times before when he offered to let me drive his 2005 production Vette, mostly because I didn't want to put myself in the position of wanting to go right out and buy one. Given that this was the Z06, who was I to decline?

So we left the Highway 67 restaurant and, after stalling it letting out the clutch once or twice, I quickly became comfortable with the handling. By the time we got to Julian, I had realized how quickly I was wrapping around corners, and couldn't remember going that fast around those same corners in ANY of the sport bikes I've taken up there over the decades.

I have heard people that don't know any better saying that cars can corner faster than today's sport bikes, and always laughed it off. I knew from experience that it was not true.

Until the Z06, that is.

I'm finally convinced that there's at least one American car that can corner like it was on rails, and I got to prove it to myself.