2011 Chevrolet Corvette Z06

Don’t feel bad about it. I don’t. Few mortal men are truly man enough to drive the Chevrolet Z06. In fact, if the phrase “Professional Race Car Driver” doesn’t appear on your resume, don’t even bother. (And “race car driver” doesn’t apply to your Spec Miata, or that clunker you and your friends drag to LeMons. If it ain’t televised, it doesn’t count.)

And when I say “drive this car,” I don’t mean puttering over to the local Friday night cruise-in and revving the motor for the crowd. I mean driving it the way it was meant to be driven. There’s a reason Chevrolet sends Corvette buyers to a professional driving school when they pick up their cars. Try to test your limits in a car like the 2011 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 and you’ll probably run out of talent and get yourself killed.

To say that the Corvette Z06 is fast is to say that Led Zeppelin played music. You don’t have to be a fan of either to appreciate what an enormous understatement that is. You can feel the raw power of the 7.0-liter V-8 pulsating through the car as it idles. The Z06 is so completely devoid of sound- and vibration-dampening measures that you feel more connected with the car. You can hear the fuel pump running and the alternator spinning. The whole car vibrates with lope of the big LS7. Put your foot into it and it will redefine your sense of speed.

To get the launch right, it takes just a dab of wheel spin and a roll into the throttle (never, I repeat, NEVER stab it). If you’ve already hit wide-open throttle before the engine reaches 4000 rpm, you will spin the massive rubber steamrollers out back the rest of the way to the 7000-rpm redline. Michelin Pilot Sport PS2s are arguably the best street tire you can buy and even they’re not sticky enough to hold back the LS7 V-8′s rage.

Ah, but what about the ZR1, you say. They’re nearly same car, you say. The Z06 even borrows the ZR1′s best suit and dresses for the occasion. In fact, the car we’re driving is essentially a Carbon Edition with Z07 and Carbon Packages on the tab. All true, but these cars couldn’t be more different in how they go about the business of speed. The ZR1 is almost sedate when compared to the howling madman that is the Z06.

Spool up the supercharged ZR1 and the power comes on like a jet engine, fast but smooth and linear. The noise it makes is even more civilized, muted by the massive blower. Stick it to the Carbon, though, and it’ll bite back. The whole experience, from the sensation of acceleration to the noise it makes, can only be described as menacing. Imagine the MGM lion roaring through Metallica’s amplifiers. When those exhaust valves open, you may as well be running open headers. There is no mistaking Z06 Carbon’s intent, and it is not a friendly one.

Like the ZR1, Chevrolet has carefully designed the Z06′s throttle to protect you from yourself. Either car can easily run to the store without melting its tires or getting you arrested. But where the ZR1 and its fancy magneto-rheological shock absorbers turn the mighty beast into a grand tourer, the Carbon makes no excuses for what it is. It’s louder in the cabin, it rides harder, and it dares you to test it.

Driving through town, though, there’s enough of a buffer in the gas pedal to keep it from acting like a 505-horsepower light switch. The Z06 also gets magnetic shock absorbers and even a “Tour” setting for the suspension, and for what it’s worth, you can actually feel a small difference as the smaller road imperfections are ironed out. The clutch is just firm enough to provide good feedback and is easy to live with, as are the crisp throws of the shifter. The steering is quick, accurate, and alive with feedback from the forward rubber. It’s almost too much, in fact, as the giant front meats have a tendency to follow ruts and gouges in the road as they please, and require an attentive driver to keep them in line.

Of course, you’ll experience all this through the Corvette’s famously sub-par interior. Insert the standard laundry list of Corvette gripes here. The seats are unbefitting a base Corvette, much less a car with these capabilities. All of the switchgear feels state-of-1998. The materials are cheap, from the faux leather on the dash and various boots to the fake carbon fiber on the center stack. The nav system was outdated before the C6 even existed, and the steering wheel came from a Cobalt, of all things. About the only thing worth hanging onto is the gauges, but they could use a full-color display instead of this old dot-matrix green piece. Worst of all, there’s no switch to keep those exhaust valves open all the time.

But you don’t care about all that. You just want to know how absurdly fast this car is. Well, here you go: The Z06 Carbon will hit 60 mph in 3.8 seconds and obliterate the quarter-mile in 11.8 seconds at 123.4 mph. Yes, there are faster cars out there, but few deliver the same experience.

But the Z06 isn’t a dragster. This car is essentially a street-legal track car, with the numbers to back it up. Charge into any corner flat out and flatten the brake pedal and the titanic carbon-ceramic brakes will scrub the speed every time. If you really hit the panic button, they’ll haul the 3253-pound car to a stop from 60 mph in 102 feet. Once you’re in the corner, the mighty Michelins dig into the road hard enough to peel up the paint from the lane lines if you dare cross them. All told, the Z06 will pull 1.08 g average through the corner and can annihilate our figure eight course in just 23.1 seconds at 0.90 g average. That, for the record, is the fastest time with the greatest lateral g a Corvette has ever recorded on the figure eight, the ZR1 included. Though one ZR1 did manage 1.10 g average on our skid pad, the best the Blue Devil could do on the figure eight was 23.4 seconds at 0.87 g average.

Of course, all this testing was done in capable hands of trained professionals. As I said before, if you don’t have Le Mans-level driving experience on your resume, don’t try it. In fact, you see that little button on the center console with the picture of a Corvette leaving squiggly lines all over the road? That’s the Traction Control button. Don’t ever push it. If you do, you will end up exactly like that picture. Sure, you think you’re a good driver and you can handle this car without any electronic nannies getting in your way. You are wrong. Drop a hard one-two shift and this car will get away from you and head for the sidelines while you’re attempting to accelerate in a straight line without the nannies.

As much as it has to do with the ridiculous power on tap, it’s also the tires. The PS2s are great, but combined with this car’s abilities and an average driver, they’re too good. While they’ll let the right driver experience monumental cornering speeds, the wrong driver will quickly be watching the corner go by through the passenger window. The limits of these tires are extreme, but when you reach them, they let go almost instantly and completely and you’re traveling very, very fast. You’ll be backwards in the weeds before your brain realizes you should be counter-steering.

Don’t be discouraged, though. You’re not incapable of handling the Z06. You just need a lot more training and a lot more seat time. Above all else, you need a healthy respect for what the car can do and for your personal limits. The term “street-legal race car” is overused in the automotive media, but the Z06 truly deserves that title, for better or worse.