I think we should all keep in mind several things when looking at these results:
1. It's the same track, but the track conditions, surface temperature, atmospheric temperature, barometric pressure and other such variables may hold for comparisons between vehicles tested at the same time, but VEHICLES TESTED A YEAR OR TWO APART, are likely to have been tested under very different conditions both on the track and regarding weather.
2. Do we know who was driving each vehicle? Differences in drivers on a road course can make a huge difference. Did the same driver drive the Cobalt SS as previously tested the MS3?
3. They are posting the single best lap for each vehicle. Would the result have been different had they averaged the laps? Might be best to throw out the best and worst laps and average the others. Road races aren't won by the single "best" lap.
4. Little adjustable variables with the vehicle like changes in tire pressure can make big differences too. Were they optimizing tire pressure for each vehicle, or just using whatever the factory put in the owner's manual?
I think the best that can be said about these comparisions is that the results may be valid for the group of cars tested on that particular day, and only if the same drivers are involved and if the weather did not change during the course of the day. Take a "hot lap" in a turbocharged or supercharged vehicle on a 50 degree cool fall morning and compare that with a lap in the same car on the same course on an 85 degree afternoon, or a 90 degree summer day. The cool weather makes a huge difference. Sun or shade on the track makes a huge difference.
Having said these things, there are probably enough built in variables in all of this that on a different day, same track, with same driver, the MS3 could just as easily be three seconds faster than the Cobalt SS. Unless they are tested under identical circumstances, we will not know. Example: why did the Subie STI perform well below expectation? Did they happen to get a bad example for the test? Did they happen to get an especially good Cobalt?
So, enjoy the comparisions, but we probably shouldn't take them too literally. C&D probably got as close as they could to keeping conditions equal, but there are just too many variables. C&D did dragstrip testing of the MS3 on at least three different times and reported 14.4 one time, 14.2 another time and 14.0 on another. There's that much variation right there. Driver skill in launch technique and small variations in engine output and temperature at test time easily account for these differences. Driver skill on a road course is even more complicated that getting a dragstrip launch right.
Finally, look at the identities of the cars that ran slower than 3:16. There are some pretty impressive vehicles there, many of which are a good bit more expensive than our Speed 3's.
