I hate to, but just for FYI purposes, I got to drive an SRT-4 on a 2.2 km roadcourse in Canada August 25th. We also had some other new cars out there to thrash on that dealers brought out. The new Caddy CTS-V, a paddle-shift BMW M3, a Crossfire, and also a bright orange '04 Mach 1. First off, the SRT-4 was pure dog doo-doo on the road course. Thank goodness for the racing buckets, 'cause the body roll in hard corners was so severe I could have reached out the window and touched the ground with my hand. After the 1st lap, the brakes were into HEAVY fade, and I warned the guy who drove after me "this car sucks, and watch out for the brakes. They go away after a single lap..." He came back, and shouted at me across the paddock "what a piece of crap, and thanks for the warning about the brakes!!!". Power? Yawwwnnnnnnnn. Once the turbo boosted it had good squirt, but no stronger than a bone-stock '99-'04 GT, in fact, it didn't feel that strong. The Mach just made it look silly. Since we were all amateurs, there was no passing allowed, but you were supposed to wave the faster cars by on the back straight. If you were driving the Neon, you just kept your window down because you knew you'd be waving to everything except the 4-door Acura TSX that was out there, which was a better handler, and could keep pace with the SRT-4 even though it was outgunned on the straights. All in all, after a couple of hours had passed in the morning when everybody was driving everything they could out of curiosity, the Neon spent most of the remainder of the day parked, as nobody cared to suffer it's wallowy handling, non-existant brakes, and all-or-nothing hornet's nest engine. I begged my buddy to drive it, just for laughes, and he refused, saying "from what I've heard and what you've told me, no thanks.." The Mach, to it's credit, held its own with the higher-priced stuff out there. While it was lacking in refined feedback at the edge, and "feel", it made up for it in athleticism once you got comfortable driving it at its limits. Everybody seemed to agree that it was the easy winner of the "bang-for-the-buck" prize. You could start way way behind the SRT-4, and gobble it up with the Mach so easily that it was laughable. Then you just sat on its rear bumper and played with it, and maybe took the opportunity to find a good radio station, until you could pass legally on the back straight. So, SRT4fan, I've driven your little toy, on a serious road course (Dunneville AutoDrome, Ontario), and believe me my boy..... It's a crappy Neon with a turbo and good seats. That's it. Now go play with cars your own size, and go to a drag strip if you want to quote 1/4 mile times.