Living Laguna Seca

It's difficult to describe the smell of boiling brake fluid and barbecued brake discs. Or the sound of a BMW M6 being flogged to within an inch of its life, squealing for mercy as it hangs on to traction by the skin of its Z-rated rubber. We just got back from a day of track testing at California's Laguna Seca raceway, courtesy of the Western Automotive Journalist association, and can report it was by far the most enjoyable day's work we've done for a long time.

Among the cars up for grabs were many of the models we've reviewed at CNET Car Tech over the past year, including the Jaguar XK, the BMW 335i, the Mercedes-Benz E550, and the Ford Shelby GT500. When you add to that kind of lineup a bunch of road-repressed auto journalists, the result is somewhere between kids in a candy store and bulls in a china shop. Otherwise known as pure, unfettered joy.