93 LX vs. 95 Cobra...

[Jeb_Bush_2000]

The s*** I get myself into...


My dad's got a '95 Cobra convertible. He paid three times as much for his car as I did mine, and he has less than half my mileage. He only drives it maybe 3000 miles a year. It's basically his warm-weather toy.


Anyway, it was beautiful out on Monday, so we both went out for a cruise. We hopped on 24 south, and just after merging, around 55mph, he hit it. I downshifted to third at about the same speed rolled into the throttle as I am wont to do. He got the jump on me at first, because I had to downshift, but it was the strangest thing. I closed the gap he opened, and then I just hung back behind him, both of us wide-open, both shifting into fourth until about 90. When I say I closed the gap, I mean I started five or six car lengths behind, he pulled a car length ahead, and then I returned to 5-6 lengths for the entire run. Damndest thing I ever saw.


We ended up at a stoplight a while later. I have what I refer to as the "short-stroke clutch option", whereby my quadrant is so far out of adjustment I only have two inches of clutch travel. He gave a few revs, while I held it just barely at the edge of engagement. Once again, he got the jump on me (my reaction time sucked). All the way up to 75mph, I didn't gain an inch, but neither did he. What's that mean?