crewshell

my longest tank was 305. Which was on the end of a road trip to vegas last week. I started with 27 city miles already on the car however.. So i probably could have gotten to 330 or so if I had started on a fresh tank ... fasted I took it was coming home (had to get to work by 8 am hahah) and i hit 115 for maybe 2 or 3 seconds.. what was AMAZING is how the car feels exactly the same at 60 as it does at 95... soo smooth and steady .. amaazing amazing vechicle : )

I LOVE IT

(and I agree 120 in a school zone is idiotic, let me see you endangering my siblings like that and I'll whoop your tail)

Zatem

No children were ever placed at risk. Visibility was perfect. There were no pedestrians anywhere on the entire street. The road is straight as an arrow. I kept the vehicle in total control the entire time, as evidenced by the uneventful full stop at the red light.

Make whatever blanket judgements you want, but I maintain that there are safe techniques, times and places to drive at high speed. I'm certainly not recommending that other people go out and try this. I expect every driver to have an awareness of their own limits and I hope we would all have the prudence to honor those limits. But every wreck speaks otherwise, as we are reminded of the driver's koan:

Good judgement comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgement.

For those who still hold that my actions are stupid, I'll say that I've been operating high performance vehicles for decades. To date, a total of zero people have been injured/killed by any incident I have been involved in. To switch gears here, consider an analogy to the basic act of juggling. Most people can't do it. But it is not that radical of a skill to acquire through a certain amount of training and practice. But say you go through the effort. Three tennis ***** become a cinch. Then one day you decide to juggle three eggs, while standing in a school zone. People hear about it and they call you an idiot, Napoleon Dynamite-style, threatening to hurt you if they catch you doing it. You state your point of view that it was no big deal.

A point I have stressed throughout this thread is that if done properly, it is quite possible to drive safely at extreme speed. To continue that theme, I'll post a photo that I took a couple of months ago while driving at high speed on the interstate while watching a DVD movie. I know that there will be those who will want to sling attacks, but I also keep in mind that there is no shortage of people who view juggling three tennis ***** as impossibly complex.

What is seen in this photo is hazardous to be sure, but hardly impossible. Doing it safely requires a persistent cross check of several critical elements. If anyone would like to discuss that, I'd be glad to. Or we could save it for some other time.

crewshell

AHAHAHAHHAHA

A man who thinks its ok to go 120 in a school zone also thinks its o.k to snap a photo of a DVD playing in his car with his camera while driving at "high speed"

there is no logic in your statements, only misguided immaturity

KYLiquid

Your watching some crazy dance video and doing 111, was this taken while going in a school zone. Thats CRAZY!

I know most people will say that driving faster than the speed limit or faster than conditions would allow (safely) is stupid and dangerous...that said :

Its one thing to top out your car, or go for high speeds (IMO 'high speeds' is anything over what normal people will do in good conditions, so for me/my area that seems to be about 80-90, so anything over 100mph is definetly HIGH SPEED) out on a long straight of road, such as the interstate out in the middle of nowhere, when no-one is around, and your far away from houses, places of biz. ect. The times I have done this, I was out on a I95, it was a straight of about 5 miles, with no on or off ramps, it was 3 lanes wide, all nice pavement and there were thick woods on both sides, so little risk of a 'cross-over' accident. Even then it was still dangerous, anything can happen at any time, a blow out, an unexpected pot hole, road debris, ect ect ect. when you add in speeds of double the posted limit, the risks go up 10 fold.

Doing this on a city street, in a shcool zone, around houses, stores is totaly reckless. Its never safe to go at such speeds, but at least there are places that are safer than others.

Chrisbert

I've run mine up to ludacris speeds, and it is insane on any public road. Not gonna do it again.

Some things to consider while you are hoping that all the risk factors (deer, other cars, etc.) stay out of your way:
150MPH = 220 Feet / Second. You cover over 2/3 of a football field every second.
RX8 may be able to stop from 60 - 0 in 120 feet (not sure; guessing)
If (and no way in hell it can) it could stop from 150 - 0 in 120 feet you would have ~1/2 second from the time your eyes said hit the brakes until you hit the obstacle.

I ain't that fast. Good luck!

ShogunQ

"I've run mine up to ludacris speeds, and it is insane on any public road. Not gonna do it again."

Ah but have you ever gone plaid? <sorry Spaceballs got the best of me...

76.9% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

I have heard mention that the RX-8 becomes an extension of the driver's own body. I must agree that I feel in tune with my 8 and I can see no better way to meld man and machine than a spectacular wreck at 100+ MPH on public roadways... I think I'll just be content with sitting "in the car" at reasonable operating speeds as dictated by the authorities.

I have driven a vehicle on public roadways in excess of 120 at one point in my life (not in my 8). I was young, dumb, and lucky. The 8 may feel stable at high speeds but you are a fool if you think you can actually control the vehicle if someone suddenly pulls in front of you, an animal runs into the roadway, or any number of other things that happen on open roads. I have personally known a number of people that have been killed by other drivers who think they "own the road" and use it as their own personal test track.

Chrisbert

Never gone Plaid! LOL

Zatem

One way to avoid high performance fatalities is to avoid high performance driving. I understand this mindset and I agree with the prudence of it. I would recommend a further step of avoiding the purchase of a high performance vehicle. I certainly would not recommend a 4x4 to anyone who has no intention of taking it off road. I see the unused performance as a waste of money.

An alternative strategy is buy a vehicle that matches your performance aspirations, and then apply the proper Education, Training and Experience necessary to attain that potential while smartly honoring the risks involved.

It is clear to me which approach the Mazda designers intended to capture with the concept...

Zoom-Zoom.

8_is_enuf

Zatem,

You think you have it all figured out don't you??? Well, I learned the difference when I was a kid - someday you will to. I ran my bike like a bat out of hell because nobody else was around, so it was safe to do so... Until the deer came running out of some bushes..

A buddy of mine -- running well over 100, had a tire blow out. Try controlling a vehicle over 100 with only 3 good tires... He got lucky. He spun several times, crossed the median and put a car in a ditch. nobody was killed. All happened and there were no cars in sight.

You may have tons of experince driving and a good record. But how much of that driving was done at those speeds? A total of 20 seconds? And how much was done dodging objects such as animals? any of it? How much was done with a blowout? any of it?

Fact is - you have little control even though you think you do. Please grow up and don't do this on our (that's right we all pay for them) roads.

Zatem

The point was made that Mazda has designed a high performance car. We are buying them. Anyone who has reservations about extreme speed could have a much greater impact by taking up those issues with Mazda or the governments who have jurisdiction over the roads we are concerned about, rather than chastising individual drivers one by one. For instance, in the first post on this thread, I shared how my RX-8's cruise control will set at 130mph, but no higher. That wasn't my decision. Someone at Mazda came up with that. I hope we can all grasp the significance:

Mazda designed the RX-8 so that it can be driven on cruise control at 130mph.

I see my individual experiences to be insignificant in light of this fact. I'm sure that there are plenty of drivers out there with more, and plenty with less. Yet every single RX-8 is built to deliver extreme performance. While the government will intervene on something like emission standards and bumper crash standards, I don't see any hardware or software restrictions on top speed being imposed.

We can also consider something like this National Highway Traffic Safety Administration webpage that states the table of tire speed ratings:
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/rules/.../brochure.html

Notice the complex scale of 9 letters topping out at 99mph, 106mph, 112mph, 118mph, 124mph, 130mph, 149mph, 168mph, and 186mph. It would be so much more simple to rate all tires at just one industry standard:
"T" Rated, which would stand for "T"oo Fast.

...but they don't. Tires that are sold for driving on public roads are rated with this precise gradation of extreme speeds.

Elsewhere in this thread it is detailed how roads are designed for much higher speeds than what is posted as the "limit".

So we have cars that are engineered for extreme speed that are fitted with tires that are engineered for extreme speed that are driven on roads that are engineered for extreme speed. What strikes me as ironic is that this statement would also apply to a Honda Civic, yet here on this RX-8 thread we are seeing a vocal majority adamantly opposed to high performance driving.

Zatem

From that table I should also note the 10th letter rating, ZR, which includes tires that are designed for maximum sustained speeds in excess of 186mph.

And I also take note that the title they chose for this NHTSA webpage is:
"TIRE SAFETY - Everything Rides On It". Off to the side they show their logo carrying the motto, "People Saving People".

Considering that, I find it interesting that no caveats about the hazards of driving at high speeds are offered with the table on this particular page. It appears that the NHTSA's primary tire safety concern is not to exceed the rated limit "...at which a tire is designed to be driven for extended periods of time".

I'm sure that there are plenty of other pages on their site where they caution us about such hazards, but wherever they do that, I hope it is done without the insults, degradations and threats that have been presented in this thread. Whatever limits we decide to restrict ourselves to, the smartest way I know of setting that is through a rational analysis of pertinent facts.