CARSHAVA

In the Automobile Magazine letters mailbox, there is a certain genre of complaint that I'd characterize as, "Why don't you guys get real?" The theme is that we're a bunch of out-of-touch hedonists who spend our days driving Pagani Huayras up the side of the Matterhorn with Scarlett Johansson riding shotgun. And while that's a great idea, now that I mention it, it does behoove us every now and then to dip a toe into the cold bath of reality. Well, how about driving a Dodge minivan to Atlantic City? And after that, how about off-roading in rural Pennsylvania? Is that real enough for you? It's as real as the 1000 percent of the recommended daily allowance of sodium in a bag of truck-stop beef jerky, my friend.


We depart Boston early on a Friday morning, gunning for a date with Atlantic City -- after a detour to see if we can talk the Man Van onto the track at New Jersey Motorsports Park. This isn't my first meathead road trip to Atlantic City, as I and a different band of cohorts once made the trip in my grandparents' hand-me-down 1985 Cadillac Seville, which at one point ran out of gas with an indicated two gallons remaining in the tank. That wasn't as bad as the other thing that happened, which is that someone walked into the wrong bedroom one night and tried to climb into bed with a nun. (It's a long story about why we were bunking in the same house as a nun.) The bottom line is that there are many ways in which a trip to New Jersey can go awry, regardless of whether anyone bed- invades a servant of the Lord.
Thus, I'm pleased that the first leg of our trip is mercifully uneventful. When you have to cover 353 miles in one of the most crowded traffic corridors in the country, a minivan is the right tool for the job. Although, admittedly, I'd rather be in back, where Elliot is dealing blackjack while Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure plays on the flip-down DVD screen. Since I'm stuck behind the wheel, the others have to answer my barrage of questions about the unseen movie. "Was their band called 'Wild Stallions,' spelled 'w-y-l-d'?" I ask. "Yeah," Jimmy replies. "They just showed the logo. Also, they spelled 'stallions' with a 'y-n-s' at the end." It turns out that Keanu Reeves' acting is horrible even when you can't see it.
By early afternoon, we arrive at New Jersey Motorsports Park to some good news and some bad news. The good news is that we can probably score some track time late in the day, when members are packing up. The bad news is that we have a couple hours to kill. This gives us time to wander around the pits and see if anyone here has the courage to challenge a Grand Caravan R/T out on the road course. The "T" stands for "track," you know.
We find a likely candidate in Jim Scheckter, owner of Ultimate Track Rentals. As the title implies, his business is renting track time in serious machinery. He's got a Nissan GT-R here today, but my eye is drawn to a more rudimentary piece of machinery: a Dodge Charger R/T. Scheckter's R/T is possibly a little bit faster than ours, in that his is an 850-hp NASCAR Car of Tomorrow. Facilitating the fantasy Mopar showdown we've all been asking for, Scheckter agrees to put the Charger up against the Caravan at the end of the day.
Meanwhile, I also corral Rob Fini of Performance Information Technologies and convince him that the Grand Caravan needs full data-acquisition capabilities for our hot laps. By the time the track is open, the van is wired with Race-Keeper video, GPS, and OBD-II data-recording equipment (see sidebar below). I figure there's no point in using a minivan to challenge a stock car on a road course if you can't quantify your average rpm afterward.
Shortly thereafter, we're charging down the straight at 100 mph, just four guys wearing helmets and riding in a minivan that's being pursued by a full-race stock car on a fast road course. A real-world situation, just like I promised.
I'm surprised to find that the Caravan actually holds together on the track. With 283 hp and a six-speed automatic, the Man Van has some punch, particularly in the tightly spaced first three gears. The stability control system stays out of the way, the brakes resist fading, and the transmission responds to manual downshifts without second-guessing. As for that special R/T suspension, the Caravan can be induced to rotate a bit with a sudden lift of the throttle and a violent yank of the wheel. Sure, the low-rolling-resistance tires are grip-averse (strangely, they're both narrower and higher-profile than the rubber on non-R/T Caravans), but I'm sure most R/T buyers will probably go straight for a set of track-compound Michelin Pilot Sport Cups after the ol' Kumhos wear out.
After three laps, there's smoke billowing off the front brakes and my passengers look decidedly green. Jimmy reports that high-g maneuvers caused him to hit the door-mounted seat-heater button with his knee. I hope Dodge addresses this potentially devastating ergonomic flaw. As for the Charger, it seems like he can pull me on the straights. But does he have a heated steering wheel? No. And I do. So I'll call that one a draw.
By the time we make it to Atlantic City, night has fallen and we're exhausted. I'd anticipated an evening of debauchery, but ten hours in the car has a way of dulling one's ambitions. Wings at Hooters followed by some light gambling? Sounds great. We sit down at a $15 blackjack table at the Tropicana and Graham is dealt an eighteen. "I'll double down," he says. He goes on to win $50 while I lose my pile of chips within ten minutes. It's fair to say that I'll never develop a gambling addiction, because that would require winning sometimes.
The next morning, our bleary-eyed crew piles back into the Dodge. We have three hours of driving to get from Atlantic City to our ultimate destination: the headquarters of Legendary Excursions in Tremont, Pennsylvania. Legendary operates a 3000-acre off-road park that includes a two-mile high-speed dune-buggy course. Buggies await, if we can get there on time.