Go Ahead, Wax Poetic About the E30 M3

But it doesn’t mean shit until you’ve chased down a current generation M3 on track. 

Okay to be fair, I may not be the most impartial voice on this topic (I love E30 M3s), BUT, having driven both first and current generation M3s on track I will invoke a small amount of clout. 

Sure, it’s been done, and done again, but the roundels aligned last Monday and there I was, entering NJMP’s Lightning circuit right behind an E92 M3 coupe. It immediately became my mission to make that E92 my[the E30s] bitch. I felt the vibration of the motor through the wheel, the shifter, and the seat of my pants; all of a sudden all I could hear was a thick German accent saying “SCHNEELLLL!” 

 The E92 looked quite stock, probably on street tires. The E30 is stripped, caged, and has had the motor massaged for better low end torque. Oh yea, and it was running R compound tires (very sticky). 

To some the outcome may have seemed obvious, but to my ham-fisted-Ariel-Atom-spinning-self, it was an indescribably blissful feeling to be keeping up with a brand new car in something that was built less than a year after I was born. Like I was proving something to the engineers who insisted on more weight, and more power, and more plush. 

He pointed me past when when I got close, I led him for a few laps, then pointed him by when I was obviously holding him back on the straight. If cars were a religion, and the E30 M3 were the Messiah; I would be a true believer.