gfxdave99

I did both of these this weekend.

Volvo - Its free You get some free foodage (muffins snacks etc) sit down and listen to about a 30 min presentation on the S40 vs its competitors, one of which being the TSX.. They didnt dis the TSX too bad cept to say that its missing low end torque. They had 2 courses, one for performance driving where you got to do a slalom, some curves and a nice straightaway at the beginning to test acceleration and breaking. The 2nd course is the safety driving course where you get to practice emergency manouvers and crash avoidance. I drove the base automatic and the Turbo 6 speed, I have to say its a nice handling car however I dont like the clutch feel / shifter compared to the TSX. Cornering and response was excellent however.

It has dates in DC and NY left http://www.volvodriveevents.com/defa...?redirect=home

Mazda - It's free if you just want to hang out and do some low key test drives of all the mazda cars from the 3 to the rx8 to the MPV minivan. I chose the $40 route however. This is much more fun, you register and they have the competition race course and 3 clinics. The clinics are on different styles of driving from knowing how to use the tire contact patch to your advantage to learning how to drive an apex correctly. Then on the actual competition course you get to compete against the pro driver and then the top person from each event (chicago, etc) gets to compete in june in california.

As far as the cars, I really liked the Mazda 3 a lot. It cornered nice and the 4 banger was pretty responsive even with the auto trans. The interior is nice and I like the cool 3 pod dash design with the tach speedo etc..

The mazda 6 is nice as well but the power to weight ratio change compared to the 3, it just didnt feel as light on its feet but it was still a fun ride and was good in the turns and had decent straight on accelration.

I drove the mazda MPV cuz there was nobody in the line and I have to admit for a mini van it wasnt too horrible

And last I drove the Mazda RX-8 6 speed.. Its a fun little sports car but I dont think I would want it as my daily driver just because I felt a little clostraphobic inside it.. however the shifter is nice and the clutch feel is excellent and it turns like a mofo

Overall I had a great time and I would suggest both to anybody if there are ones left in your area and if not, mazda does rev it up every year and I would highly suggest going next year.. I know I will be..

http://www.mazdarevitup.com/locations/f_default.asp there are plenty more rev it ups left...

biker

Sounds like an even better deal than beating on a rental!

ortiz

I want to have fun like that too. To bad it is not offered in my area.

xizor

I'm going to Rev It Up in DC in 2 weeks. I'll post some pics and my thoughts afterwards. I wish I could go to the Volvo one in DC too, but that'd require driving 3.5 hrs, plus there's an autoX next week.

gfxdave99

My friend went with me and took some pics i'll update the post when they are ready

Mokos23

gfxdave99 i agree with that post you have about lacking some torque, please see my lack of torque post that's been viewed 100 times, but no responses cause it's true about the TSX all of us own.

gfxdave99

here b da pics

http://www.screenager.org/photos/04-18-2004/