Great Machines: Driver's Notebook: Spring Fever
June 1, 2008
Putting my helmet on before squeezing into the Lotus Exige S 240’s cabin was probably a mistake. Under normal circumstances, such a maneuver requires a gymnast’s flexibility—with added height and restricted visibility, it nearly requires plastic limbs. But a racing helmet is mandatory, if I want to take a few laps around the 1.5-mile loop at Spring Mountain Motorsports Ranch in Pahrump, Nev.
After a few awkward yoga moves, I eventually contort myself into the driver’s seat, twist the key, and press the starter button. The car’s composite body panels vibrate as its supercharged 1.8-liter 4-cylinder engine revs to life. Then it’s time to test the car’s new launch control function, which catapults it to 60 mph in four seconds flat.
Upon entering the track, I quickly rev the engine to its power
peak of 8,000 rpm, and drop the clutch, sending 240 hp (20 hp more than last
year’s Exige S and the meaning behind the car’s numerical suffix) to the rear
wheels. I hit the top of third gear on the back straight before braking and
executing a heel/toe downshift for the sweeping right-hand arc. The close
proximity of the clutch and brake pedals take some getting used to, but
go-kart-like handling, a lightweight aluminum chassis, and my
ever-
increasing confidence make each lap faster than the last.
An optional $1,650 Track Pack enables the driver to tighten or loosen the dampers behind each wheel. A Lotus engineer twisted the round adjustable clickers to "8" in front and "7" in back, before I took to the tarmac. A softer setting of "3" is less jarring and more suitable for the daily driver.
However, the Exige S 240 is anything but everyday. From behind the wheel it’s easy to forget that the car’s roofline is waist high and only a thin sheet of aluminum separates passengers from pavement. In fact, the Exige S 240 offers so much feedback that a driver will be notified of every pockmark on the road through either the steering wheel or the seat.
This visceral machine performs like a supercar on a budget. With a base price of around $65,000, it’s a track car you can drive home. And you may need to, because at the end of the day, this Lotus is even harder to exit than it is to enter—not only because I lacked the headroom to remove my racing helmet, but because you won’t want to leave the racetrack.
Lotus Cars, www.lotuscars.com
advertisement
