As we all know, the LS power plants have been on this planet for 15 years now. I’ve personally been involved with them for the last 10, and I’ve participated in all of the events, all of the shows, and I’ve done my fair share of tinkering and drag racing. For the last decade, there was always something LS under the hood of whatever car I was involved with at that time in my life.

I’m not complaining of course, as it’s always a blast to hit the throttle to the floor of any LS-powered beast, covering an area of 1,320 feet in less than 13 seconds (or 12, or whatever the case might be.) There’s no denying the intense rush of instant acceleration, the roar of an unbaffled, high-revving V8, and the gratification of pulling a lower ET than the guy next to you. We’ve all been there, and to say that it’s never put a smile on my face would be a lie. But I don’t think even us as car enthusiasts are really enjoying these cars the way that they were originally intended. Let me explain:

There’s always a flip side of the coin. As much fun as it is to create massive amounts of tire smoke in the burnout box, it’s just as annoying having to sit idle for an hour or two as the man with the golf cart and the mop cleans up whatever mess the last car that ran down the track had left. As much as I loved beating the guy next to me or setting lower times with minimal mods against cars that had much more work done, catching a lot of slack from what could only be described as “haters” in the pit lane did get old after a while. These people, of course, were usually the ones that had been sitting in the bleachers all afternoon, and claimed to have a cousin’s-friend’s-brother that had a faster car than you. I guess it’s all based on your tolerance level for people, really.

During the few years my Trans Am had been down while I was building it into a street/strip car, I didn’t miss drag racing as much as I thought I would. In fact, when it was almost completed a buddy of mine let me borrow his LS1 Z28 for three days during a weekend-long event at the local drag strip. The Camaro wasn’t as fast as my WS6, and although I had a blast all weekend, it really didn’t fill me with a desire to spend every weekend for the rest of my life at the drag strip either.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not bashing drag racing at all; I’m just sharing some of my personal experiences. To be totally honest, I’ve always been more of a driver anyway, and I’ve always preferred to travel on the open road rather than driving a quarter of a mile at a time in a straight line.

I suppose the same can be said of my experiences of the local weekend car show scene. I’ve always loved car shows since I was a little kid when my parents would take me. I used to dream of the day when I would be able to show up in my own car and show it off. But for me, it seemed to be more fun 10 years ago than it is today. At least in my area, it used to mean hanging out at the local A&W from the late afternoon until the wee hours of the night- cruising, racing, trash talking in the parking lot or whatever.

Now it’s just a bunch of old guys with lawn chairs falling asleep after staring at the rear bumpers of their cars for a couple of hours. They don’t mingle, they don’t check out the other cars, they don’t even cruise nor have fun at the lights. They merely show up, sit down, fall asleep, wake up, and then they leave, driving straight home right at dusk. I suppose everybody has their idea of fun, but I don’t understand that kind. Speaking of old, is it still absolutely necessary to play ‘50s do-wop at a car show all night? They overplayed that stuff in the ‘80s, and you would think as the years went on, they would’ve moved more into the ’60 and ‘70s stuff by now. Is it too much to ask to play Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd every now and then? I think if they played later music, it might also attract a younger crowd and more people in general. But I digress.

I feel that all cars are meant to be driven and enjoyed, apart from a Toyota Prius, obviously. Some people worry about things like fuel prices, accumulated mileage, wear and tear, and of course, depreciation when it comes to their cars. That might be understandable for Mr. and Mrs. Jones who could care less about performance cars, but why does the average enthusiast worry about it?

I understand that drag racing and car shows are a big part of Americana, but with where we are in terms of automotive technology (performance, reliability, handling, braking, and so on) I’m surprised more and more people don’t get out and enjoy the open road as well. It’s one of my top five stress relievers! I want to see more people cruisin’, and not just parked at the “cruise-in,” and I’d like to see more drag racers do the same. To me, traveling at a constant speed of 70mph or so, with the roof open, the windows down, and my favorite music loaded up into the CD changer is absolute nirvana. Doing this, while having a 400 plus horsepower, rear wheel drive car that can handle, turn, and stop in which to do it in, makes it that much better.

So this summer, instead of spending hours on end polishing your car or endlessly beating on it at the track all weekend, set aside time to grab some of your favorite music, and take a ride through the countryside. In an age where everybody’s on the go-go-go, it’s nice to step back and take time to relax. I think we all can use it at this point.