40 years of Porsches now, since 18. Thousands of miles on track--DE, Time Trial, Wheel-To-Wheel. Yeah, kept me in the poor house to the extent I could retire at 55. (Two stints owning Porsche repair shops.) Kind of guessing here, but a minimally prepped 986 is probably a 2:12 Thunderhill (full)/1:50 Laguna car, with decent tires and not much else--Spec Boxster is down to around 2:01 (bypass). What, exactly, is the prep level of the Neon???? Ultimately, I'll side with your ex-car's owner--sounds like she is having fun with the car. And that what it's all about. (Finally, there's always anecdotal observations of slow exotic/fast nothing car. Out here, a GT3 or C6 Z06 is a ~1:35 car at Laguna--but in either case you find them being lapped in the 1:45+ range, passed by a Neon/whatever.)
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