Jul '10

Written by Jim Edwards | 01 July 2010

"The Beast": A Performance Driving School Workhorse

The 1999 GT convertible you see in the accompany pictures was acquired new by Jim Edwards in July 1999 from Lake City Ford in South Carolina. It was ordered with the leather delete due to the Columbia, SC heat where I was living at that time. It was my daily driver for a number of years and in fact, it was in late 2000 while dropping off dry cleaning that Leah Gowan approached me and extended an invitation to join CRMC. The “Beast” as it was to become known remained a daily driver for a couple years and then a weekend driver when I acquired other mundane transportation to reduce mileage on the black beauty. Oh, if you notice that the front fascia looks unfamiliar for a ’99 GT that is because the “Beast” and one very large dog collided on I-20 early one morning and a used Cobra fascia was cheaper than a new GT one.

A few years later, I met Jim Pantas and he invited me to participate in one of his NASA Autocross events. I did and had a blast but when I examined pictures taken of the “Beast”, I noticed that the body roll was preventing me from making good times. So a shopping trip to Maximum Motorsports that resulted in new shocks, springs, dampers and a four point rollbar for chassis stiffness. Back to an autocross event and I won a second place trophy (which by the way, Jim Pantas you still owe me that one).

In 2006 my schedule allowed me to participate in the CRMC Performance Driving School. I knew nothing of these sorts of things so I was ill-prepared when I arrived. Not ill-prepared to drive but lacking sufficient bottles of water, hadn’t thought about how hot Kershaw can be in June, etc. Of course, if I’d have read the instructions from the driving school materials I’d have known but that’s one of my hard-headed traits. Nonetheless, I was truly amazed at the track, the instructors, the CRMC staff and the incredible level of expertise each member of the volunteer driving school team possessed. As I’ve admitted, I was hooked and shortly thereafter, a very lightly used ’03 SVT Cobra sat alongside my “Beast”. The following year, I convinced Kat Messenger to attend the driving school and she brought along the “Beast” since the Cobra was now my choice of “weapon”. The “Beast” having survived that, the following year my son-in-law attended and again the “Beast” was his vehicle for yet another two-day driving school. In the meanwhile, the “Beast” had seen duty at Barber Motorsports Park during the 30^th Anniversary of the MCA’s open track event.

So now we’re at 2010. The “Beast” had changed hands and Kat became its second owner. During the just completed 10^th Anniversary event of the driving school, Kat’s daughter Marion took the “Beast” out for yet another driving school. Marion acquitted herself nicely (as per her driving instructor who said she was a natural) and the pictures you see accompanying this article attest to that fact. The “Beast” is now 12 model years old, has over 100k miles and still purrs like a kitten and runs like the beast after which it is named. My brand new grandson should have his license in about 15 years and 8 months. Who knows- the “Beast” may serve as his workhorse at the 2025 edition of the CRMC performance driving school. But of course, I should note that Marion believes the “Beast” is more feminine in nature and for now should be referred to as the “She-Devil” or something similar until a better name comes along.