Except that I actually DO race my car.
Yea. I'm one of those guys. Buy a fast car as a daily driver, and actually go to a track to race it. Weird huh? That's one reason why I didn't go for a fast beemer. 'cause I knew if I whacked a cone with it or took it into the gravel, it could cost upwards of $3k to fix. Whacking a cone at 80 in my firebird typically needs just a little cleaner wax to fix (unless it hits the EXACT right spot and makes it up to the radiator). It's a bit worse in a vette but chevy knew damn well people would be bouncing vette air dams off of speed bumps and stuff, so they're not too expensive and you can remove/replace one in your garage if necessary.
For my daily driver, I want a car that can get out of it's own way in a hurry, be decently comfy (ie. no dodge viper or race-prepped anything) and be built well enough to handle track days. The f-body is exactly that, in spades. The only thing that typically goes bad with f-bodys on the track is that the front brake rotors might crack at the end of a hard day of hot laps. At $40 apiece, that's not exactly catastrophic and most people I know who race their f-bodys on road courses just keep a spare set or two in their toolkit when they go racing. Mustangs tend to fall the hell apart if you really beat them up. I remember a police chase in CA a while ago where a bunch of cops in crown vics managed to chase down a dude in a mustang because the mustang oil or transmission or power steering or something like that overheated after about an hour of flogging it around town. That's absolutely pitiful. Camaros and firebirds built after 1998 are quite happy making lap after lap.
That's why after 127,000 miles, the only mechanical item that's gone wrong with my car is the water pump seal started to go. I had a dealer fix that, making it a grand total of $500 worth of engine repairs after 127k miles, 10 years, and 4 solid years of SCCA solo2 racing. Not too shabby IMHO.
