Ron Fellows @ MOSPORT

[Exia]

I had the chance yesterday afternoon/early evening to do the Ron Fellows Performance Driving school at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park up here in Ontario, Canada.

The track was purchased by Ron Fellows himself about 10 years ago. This isn't the full experience of what you would get down at Spring Mountain but for us Canadians its a great way for us to experience the cars without going over the border.

They do 3 sessions and you rotate through all the GM performance vehicles, C8 Stingray Z51, Camaro ZL1 1LE and the Blackwings.

I got the Blackwing first and immediately went for the manual. I drove a manual ZL1 1LE as well when the Camaro came up.

I was in the fast group for this event. Between all 3 cars, the 5BW impressed me the most. It was incredible how easy it was to drive fast and how effortless the manual was. The shifter was like butter, the clutch didn't feel that heavy and this thing went around that track with ease. Power delivery was incredibly smooth. I had zero complaints about the car, everything was great about it. Usually there's some small nitpicking that can be done with GM vehicles but I couldn't find a fault with this or at least I wasn't skilled enough to bring out any faults.

As a comparison, the Camaro which uses the same chassis (or a derivative rather), engine and transmission felt completely different. I know with the 1LE package its almost a race car but the ZL1 was a wild ride, it would hop a little when you got on the throttle, I had the TC stepping in everytime I went down the straight (which is after a hard right). The shifter and clutch were great but didn't feel as nice as the 5BW and its the exact same transmission. The 5BW has more power, less tire and it felt more effortless. The Camaro you had to work for it, the Caddy was confidence inspiring.

The C8 was a C8, its a good car to drive, but everyone knows that, the most shocking revelation was how well a 4 door Caddy drives around a track.

I could tell GM really did something special with the Blackwings, even if a lot of the components are from the parts bin, I can tell the engineers really went above and beyond to create a special product.

Almost everyone there (group of 18) said they preferred the 5BW. A lot of them had never been on a track before but the car just instilled a lot of confidence and its a damn 4 door luxury car at that. I figured a lot of them would say they would take the C8 but most wanted to take a Blackwing home.

Ron Fellows himself even prefers the 5BW as a car to just drive. He put 3500km on them to get the break in done for race track use when he only needed to do 1000. He just couldn't stop driving it.

I'll probably still be waiting a while (hooray Canadian allocations) but after experiencing that, it will be worth it.

Or I'll just have to go again!

 

[ClassaxV]

Hmmm no feedback on the 4BW's ??? Was it outclassed in that group?

Totally agree about the zl1 which is the primary vehicle I have had access to do my admittedly very few car track days in. On the bike, however, we try to get the setup so that you aren't really thinking about the machine at all and you're feeling the track and grip levels via the bike as an extension of yourself. Too much bike for the rider leads to more focus on keeping it shiny side up than riding the track. The zl1 always gives me this feeling, where I just never really reach the place where I'm just focused on the track, instead of constantly managing the car. It wags its tail and the TCS kicks in places where you really need the car to be predictable which leads to nursing the car vs attacking the track. IE coming out of sugar and spice drifting out towards the wall, I don't want the car to get loose in the rear there on the upshift, which of course could lead to contacting the wall. Or if I have a point by on that short straight I want to accelerate not get the TCS light when I get on the gas because I'm running out of real estate before the braking zone really fast.

This in large part drove my choice of selecting a 4 instead of a 5. Based on your review it seems the 5 which is a longer heavier car, may have dealt with many of my concerns...

 

[Exia]

Nobody drove the 4BW, they had some and you could drive one if you wanted but we only had 3 sessions so everyone wanted to drive the 5BW instead of the 4BW when the time came to drive the Caddys.

I imagine the reason the 5 felt less skittish is simply the extra time GM had for developing it. The 5BW gets some nice things that the C8 also has like magride 4.0. The Camaro is at this point a 6 year old product. Technology improves and GM has made refinements to a lot of things even though the cars share a chassis and drivetrain.

The ZL1 is still a weapon but like you mentioned, I also has issues upshifting down the straight. Coming out of a hard right turn onto the straight which actually banks left a little, you're in second gear and while banking left your hitting the top of second down the straight so your shifting into 3rd while still turning left a bit and all along the TC is flashing, it makes for a bit of an experience. The cars weren't at risk of crashing but for me (an amateur at best) that specific section was definitely the highlight for me of actually having to drive the car, assuming it was a manual. For the people who had never been on track, I imagine that would be a bit hairy.

 

[ClassaxV]

No one wanted to drive the 4BW's

 

[565565]

Poor little 4BW, she’s like the super talented younger sister that gets overlooked cause her older sister has HUGE knockers.

 

[M2Cto4BW]

So guys just wanted to go as fast as possible in a straight line and hit the loud pedal?
Maybe they should have just set up some 0-60 runs

 

[Throat Yogurt]

Poor little 4BW, she’s like the super talented younger sister that gets overlooked cause her older sister has HUGE knockers.

Yeah, but dat azz.

 

[Exia]

The track is anything but a straight line, but you throw a bunch of high performance machines together and then toss in a 6 cylinder sedan, I think most people would rather put the money they spent to be there on the higher performance machines.

They also mostly had 5BWs, you would have to ask about the 4BW. Most people here didn't even know what a Blackwing was much less that you could ask to drive the 4BW. The 5BWs would be lined up ready the go, the 4BW wasn't. They also wouldn't want to do lead follow with a group of 3 people and one has a car with 200 leas horsepower.

 

[Tall Steve]

The track is anything but a straight line, but you throw a bunch of high performance machines together and then toss in a 6 cylinder sedan, I think most people would rather put the money they spent to be there on the higher performance machines.

They also mostly had 5BWs, you would have to ask about the 4BW. Most people here didn't even know what a Blackwing was much less that you could ask to drive the 4BW. The 5BWs would be lined up ready the go, the 4BW wasn't. They also wouldn't want to do lead follow with a group of 3 people and one has a car with 200 leas horsepower.

On one of our track sessions the instructor was in a 4BW with 3 5BW trailing "her".... She could get thru turn 9 so well that I could not catch her down the front straight.. I'm looking forward to driving a 4BW on the track! My next trip I'm going for more skill vs speed... To me sometime slower is faster..

 

[burn813]

On one of our track sessions the instructor was in a 4BW with 3 5BW trailing "her".... She could get thru turn 9 so well that I could not catch her down the front straight.. I'm looking forward to driving a 4BW on the track! My next trip I'm going for more skill vs speed... To me sometime slower is faster..

Tammy was effin fast