As you recall from earlier blogs in addition to the 1968 Camaro I raced the 1998 Z-28 convertible during my first SCCA outing but I had been wanting a fourth generation WS-6 for some time, and one came up on Craig’s List for sale at the right price. The only problem was the car was on the Big Island of Hawaii, and I live on O’ahu. After talking it over with my sainted wife Cris, we decided to fly over to the Big Island and check the car out for the day. We used miles to fly over in the morning on Hawaiian Airlines and return the same evening. Dad was here to stay with the girls for the day so it cost nothing out of pocket, and Cris loves visiting the Big Island. To make a long story short, we bought the WS-6 and sold my Z-28. In the process I stepped up to a higher class car (the WS-6 is, performance-wise and options-wise, on par with the SS, while the Z-28 is one step lower) as well as a 3 year newer car. The WS-6 has the 6 speed T-56 transmission with the optional Hurst shifter and a 3.42:1 rear gear with an Auburn limited slip differential. Additionally the WS-6 has sharper styling and leather interior, and was black on black, all of which I preferred. The last and best part was the fellow I purchased the Trans Am from had tastefully modified the car with the addition of SLP resonators and stainless steel exhaust, less restrictive air filters for the Ram Air, an SLP smooth bellows, a shock tower brace, and American Torque-Thrust wheels at all four corners sporting 275 rubber in the front and 315 steamrollers out back. He also had installed a sub-woofer to go with the 8 speaker surround system and a couple of amps controlled by a nice Alpine head unit that has the i-pod interface built in.
Preparing the Trans Am for autocrossing wasn’t that difficult. I had checked it out before purchase, giving it my own tech inspection. Mostly I just had to remove anything that was loose in the car. One of the amps was laying on the back deck without being secured, so I secured it with some Velcro and was good to go. I wasn’t sure how the car would handle relative to the ’68 Camaro. If driving the ’98 convertible Z-28 was any indication it would be a lot softer in terms of the shocks. I did expect it to be a bit tighter than the Z-28 as the WS-6 suspension is supposed to be a higher performance suspension. I was also keen to see how the big meaty tires would fare on the race track. Being a stick car, I knew that I’d be able to put the torque down a lot more directly than with the automatic-equipped Z-28, so it would take more finesse to handle the WS-6. It wasn’t the Camaro I’d be making my debut in the CP class in, but at least I did have a very nice back-up until I got the bent valvestem in the Camaro fixed…
