You’re on the starting line, revs up, ready to launch. The flag drops and you let fly, when suddenly your weekend goes for a giant dump. Check out this wicked start from the Elise Trophy race at Brands Hatch in June.

Via AC at the Axis of Oversteer

Never one to mince words, Jonny Lieberman declares the Lotus Elise a Fat Pig! Wait a minute here, what the hell is that boy smoking?

Well, he’s just hi on the power of Se7en! You see, Jonny just had the time of his life traipsing up and down the legendary Tail of the Dragon in an assortment of creations based on the vision of Colin Chapman. The fat pig comment was the way the Elise felt in comparison to bright orange, Miata powered Westfield built by Autopro Motorsports.

Be sure to read the full story over at Jalopnik, where Jonny’s story may even bring a tear to your eye. Now how can I get invited down to Deal’s Gap myself?

In response to my post asking where the pocket rockets have gone, Boston Listed a handful of cars currently for sale that fit the bill of Pocket Rocket. What struck me as odd was the prices he qouted for these cars, so I thought it might be fitting to do some cross border shopping. Often, vehicle pricing varies greatly from North of the border to South of the border. What may be an affordable car in the United States may not be such a great deal up here in The Great White North.

Pocket Rocket North South Price Comparo

Cooper S USA $21,900

Canada $30,600

RSX USA $20,325

Canada $27,100

WRX USA $24,495

Canada $35,495

Civic Si USA $20,290

Canada $26,080

Just for fun, as we have a couple of Elise owners as regular readers, I thought I’d throw out the numbers for it as well.

Elise USA $42,990

Canada $58,550

Now that we see the full break down, you can see that some cars that are a great deal down south are not so cheap up here. The Elise, while still a great car for the money, is $15,500 more in Canada than it is in the States! Given current currency exchange rates, where the Canadian dollar is about 92 cents on the US dollar, that certainly doesn’t account for the giant price increase.

There is no question that there are some great little cars running around out there. The Garage definition of a Pocket Rocket includes the word VALUE. Perhaps I’ll change my previous comments a bit to say that there are no real budget concious pocket rockets available in Canada, rather than in North America.

At the risk of beginning to look like a single marque blog, here I go showing off more Elise shots. Mark Vicuna from OZ pointed me towards his blog, where he’s got pics and videos of his Elise race car. Very cool. I just wish he was in Canada so I could hit him up for some seat time!