Well, this was to be it. I just decided to hang up my Exotics Racing driving boots, once and for all. I did also decided that if I’m going out, I’m going out with a bang. I decided that for my last drive, I would step into the car that has haunted me all these years: The Lamborghini. The problem with the Lamborghini, is that several years back, I drove the Gallardo for the first time, and it was the one car that seemed too untamed and too wild for me to properly enjoy. Every time I would step on the gas, the back end would want to step out, and I would get shivers from the image of me spinning the car on the track. Yes, I’m more worried about the image of me not being the high-performance Formula One racer that I imagine myself to be, and less about the actual car damage itself.

And now, on the dawn of my retirement, I say to myself, “What’s the car that I want to drive as my farewell.? What’s the white for me to conquer as I say ‘So long’? It would have to be that damn Lamborghini! Vengeance would be mine! As I was browsing the Exotics Racing website to select the car, I see that they now have the new Lamborghini Huracán Performante! Wait, the Performante!?! The Nürburgring record smashing Performante!?! The Lamborghini that lives up to the true Italian heritage of Lamborghini not just some over-the-top, undrivable exotic supercar? Yes indeedy! They’ve got the Lamborghini of Lamborghinis. I see this on the website and have to drive it. Then I looked at the price and thought maybe not. Then I thought if not now. when? If not me, who? So I clicked yes to the Performante.

Approaching the Performante, this Lamborghini is similar enough to the standard Huracán, (is there such a thing as a STANDARD Lamborghini?) with one impressive 6 foot wingspan exception. Whattawing! Actually, the wing is that it’s not as massive as the racing version. By Lamborghini standards, it’s actually quite sublime. Up close, this is a wing unlike anything I’ve seen. It’s obviously not just some plain fiberglass, but you also don’t see the carbon fiber weaving you’d expect. The wing has a polished mosaic finish to it that looks more fiberglass than Carbon Fiber. This material is newly created and patented by Lamborghini, a Carbon Fiber composite that is as strong, and yet, even lighter than Carbon Fiber. Wow! Somebody else can do the research to find out how it’s actually made.

I look at the interior, and it’s classic Lamborghini. Hi-tech switches start button located under the red safety cover, and a healthy dose of Alcantara lining throughout. Finish this off with Performante wording stitched into the seats and a little design pattern along the doors. At start up, the car sounds classic Lamborghini. The v10 roars to life, spitting out Grappa and Vino. We close the door, which is a normal lateral swing, not a swoop up like the Aventador and we head out to the track. I punch it coming to the first turn, and everything feels nice and solid. I think to myself I must be going slower than I thought. Maybe the car does not have the pickup I anticipated, but no this was more an indication of how smooth the car is. I start dropping the hammer closer and closer to the floor, the car starts picking up speed and I’m expecting the understeer to kick in as I exit turn 1. Nope! I turn the wheel slightly to the right to keep me on track and the car obliges. Well that was nice. Now we shoot down the front straight. I short shift as an anticipated reaction to the instructor telling me to do so, but not JD, he lets me know next time, take it all the way to the 8500 rpm limit. Oh boy, I will remember that next time for sure! We hit the first braking zone cone and the car comes to a stop, and yet again,  I’m some 50 feet are so short of the turn-in point, so I have to release and coast through the turn. Good stopping power. The car turns in hits the peak and I’m back on the gas accelerating down the second straight. The car is handling great. The all-wheel drive feels perfectly balanced. We approach the Carousel, off-camber turns five and six, and the Performante just gobbles it up. Oh my! Houston, this is awesome! The car stays planted and I let the car do its thing.

Truth be told, and as JD was told, I just wanted one lap that I can just drive myself with no instruction and nail that 120 mph at the end of the front straight. On lap 7 or 8, at this point they tend to blur into one another, JD obliges and I take the car around the track with minimal input from the instructor, and now I feel comfortable. I brake late break into turn one and get the perfect setup for the front straight, and at last I’ve reached Nirvana. 122mph! The rest of the lap falls into place, and there you have it: 56.34 seconds! My new lap record. Yes!

Now, a sense of calm flows over me. I feel that, yes, this is the retirement I deserve. The Lamborghini has been tamed and I’ve been validated. Thank you Lamborghini for the proper send off. That is it. No more Exotics Racing. No more super car driving. Goodbye. Arrivederci. I walk away. I stop. I look back. Oh who am I kidding! That Ferrari 458 needs me, and I need it. See you in October 🙂

You know the saying, “…and this time… it’s personal.” That’s how I felt about heading out to Exotics Racing in Las Vegas. This time, it was going to be personal, as this may have been the last time I would race here. The last couple cars I’ve taken out have been a little disappointing, de-tuned just a little too much, and not living up to their marketing potential. Why am I paying all this money to go out in cars that don’t even perform as well as my BMW? However, with Formula 1 season ready to start in just a few more weeks, I wanted to treat myself to one last drive, with one last iconic car: the McLaren 570 S. Understand that by the time I’m driving the 570 S, the car is already two years old and two generations behind the current model, the Mclaren 720 S, but what the heck, the overall package of the car is pretty much the same so let’s go give it a shot.

Interestingly enough, after all the times I’ve been to Exotics Racing, I had never actually seen the McLaren on site at Exotics Racing. I thought maybe the car was the thing of myths and legends, an automotive Unicorn eluding me all this time. Well it turns out some myths are based in fact, and walking out to the stable of cars, not only was I able to see the 570 S that I was scheduled to drive, but there were actually two of them there! Wow, sitting there in front of me, viewing both cars there, it suddenly occurred to me, this is same McLaren Orange for their Formula One color scheme. The orange color scheme here reflects back on the original days of Bruce McLaren’s Formula One entries, a rich, bright, orange color scheme with black accent. To be honest, looking at the images of the car on the web and on TV, it looks kind of corny. But as I approach the McLaren here, this Fast Orange as I call it, it occurred to me this McLaren Orange is pretty damn cool!

So we head out to start our drive, I’m join by Hayden, the instructor from Exotics Racing. We head to the car and I notice the drops of rain. Oh boy, not only am I gonna take out this super car, a car known for its lightness, and this is the first time I’m driving it, but it’s raining? Yikes, a little intimidating. Hayden reassures me that the car can handle the rain, so pony up and let’s get going!

The interior of the 570s is sparse. As in sparse. As in nothing much other than a button to start the car, a steering wheel to point it in the right direction and a gas pedal give make it go. It’s cramped but cozy. This feels like a sports car, I could just imagine what this space would be like as a daily driver.  We exit the pit area and pull up to the limit line to check the course and make sure I’m cleared for entry. Hayden gives me the go and I punch it right off the bat. None of this easing into it I figure if I’m driving a McLaren, I want to see what this thing can do, and fortunately, I found out.

Coming off that first turn, I nail it and as I shift into fourth, I can feel the G’s push me back into the seat. Thank God! Finally, this car is living up to my dreams of a supercar.  The car is nimble, but almost to light. As I come to the end of the front straight, I can feel the front end bouncing around. It actually gives me a little chill as I wonder, “Is a wheel out of balance? Or is this the lightness of the front end at high-speed?”  Fortunately, just as the front end starts bouncing, it’s time to slam on the brakes, and slam they do. I apply a couple hundred pounds of pressure and the car jams down to a crawl a good hundred feet short of the turn. Wow! That was fast, and it totally throws off my timing as the tone of the track is set up primarily for softer drivers. The next couple of turns I have to override Hayden‘s commands to brake. He’s probably getting a little upset with me, but I don’t care. The car still takes a little getting used to but I’m actually enjoying it.

I pass a couple of Lamborghini’s, a Ferrari. Then I’m told to slow down and let the ride-along car pass us, a pro driver in a Ferrari taking a passenger out for a run. Racing in mind, I stick to the bumper and I’m determined to get my money’s worth and not let him get too far away. But then he pulls into pit lane so now I’m jamming on my own, feeling like a racer. And just then, as my Nirvana approaches, the back end kicks out and the fish-tail wakes me up! Oh snap! I don’t know what catches me off guard more; the minor little slide out of the rear-end, or the fact that Hayden reaches across to grab the steering wheel so fast? Easy cowboy, I got this. I ease off the gas and the car settles back into the rhythm of the turn. But as quickly as it steps out, I step back on the gas and we punch it down the straight. That shift from 3rd to 4th is as good as it gets. The engine really comes to life, although there is still a slight turbo lag to deal with, the McLaren really gets moving. Oh man, this is fun!

After the run, 10 laps in all, I realize, there’s no way I’m giving this up. So June is my birthday visit, and next up: the Nurburgring record smashing Lamborghini Performante. Oh, and this time, it’s really personal!

As the rumors fly around the F1 world of Bernd Maylander’s retirement as the F1 Safety Car driver, I decided to through my hat into the ring of possible successors.

So I decided get behind the wheel of a Mercedes AMG GT S to get some feel for my new job. I did so by heading over to Exotics Racing in Las Vegas, and signed up for 7 laps in a MAMGGTS. Unfortunately, I had two points of failure: Turns out Maylander is not retiring, and this detuned MAMGSGTS was a bit of a disappointment.

Maybe disappointment is an overstatement, more like, I expected more and it just didn’t quite deliver. And you can tell by the fact that I really didn’t have much to say during the video. The whole time I was thinking, “Where is the real MAMG?” The GT S version is listed at 503hp. Honestly, it felt more like high 3’s or maybe just cracking 400. My GT550 plants me in the seat more than this.

Coming onto the main straight, you roll onto the throttle, and the car limps up to speed. So next lap, you punch the throttle, and it’s the same thing. The turbo lag was huge! The disappointment immense. But I’m not sure if this was a detuned safety feature, or if the real MAMG suffers through this as well. Guess I’ll have to go buy one and find out. I actually found one here in L.A. for $94k. Only 25k miles and gray. Great, cause I did not want a black! A black AMG is so L.A.

The car is, as expected, well balanced, but I probably was not going fast enough to really get a proper feel of under/over steer. But at the same time, that back-end did step out ever so slightly on the off-camber turn 5.  Way too soft for a racer. Also, at the end of the straight, you slam on the brakes, and unlike anything I’ve felt in the $150k+ supercar range, I feel the ABS kicking back and squirming under the pressure. With those huge slotted AND cross-drilled rotors, I figured this thing would stop on a dime. But closer inspection reveals a lack of Brembos or even the home grown Mercedes 6-piston calipers. So again, maybe part of the detuning is to not allow the car to stop on a dime, and thereby keeping novice drivers from overstepping their limits.

The interior of the car was quite nice though. All sorts of chrome knobs to turn and switches to flick. Starting the engine, that rumble is beautiful! The sound is something that, now that I think about it, sounds weird. The car is a front engine, but when you start it, the rumble comes through as if its coming from the rear. Maybe some audio piping? Maybe just the acoustics of the cabin. And why not, since it’s a 2-seater. This gives it a racers edge as if its a mid engine. The V8 sound is low and rumbly, contrary to a Ferrari purr or a Nissan scream. It sounds more NASCAR oval racer than F1 road car.

The steering wheel is a plump handful of suede to grip. I was intrigued as to how full uniformed it was, all the way around the hand grips. No thumb bulge to provide that extra leverage. Guess they never had an issue getting this thing around Monaco. The paddle shifters have interesting inscriptions: Up and Down. Well, if you’re paying $200k for a new MAMGGTS and you need inscriptions telling you which way to shift… then inscriptions you shall have. I just thought this the one of the more weird things I saw on the car. But again, maybe this was for the novices at the track. Something Exotics had inscribed for them. Who knows? Let’s head down tomorrow to confirm if this is on the public cars 🙂

Driving around Milan is unlike anything or anywhere I’ve driven before. Feeling the mighty thrust of the 51hp from our Citroen rental, we hit the town and are met with the world’s bumpiest, lumpiest streets. Yes, the cobblestone streets like great in pictures, but driving across their washboard surface is another matter. Maybe that’s why so many people take the trains or just walk.

True to European standards, the streets are narrow, everyone parks everywhere there’s 3 meters to fit a 3 meter car into, and amazingly enough, the drivers are courteous and polite. Our 30 minute drive through the neighborhoods was interesting, and definitely showed us sights we would have otherwise missed, but boy was I happy to get out of that car!

The one bright spot I can for sure recommend, Google map guided us all the way. Make sure you download the local area, and you’re good to go. No need to pay for the rental GPS, unless you plan on multiple, spontaneous destinations. From our hotel, the Park Hyatt in Centro Milano, we downloaded an area that covered a 1 hour drive out of the city, and Google Map provided satellite support all the way. Awesome!

Here they come, the first lap of an F1 race is always super exciting. Mainly, due to the unknown circumstances that may bode a competitor. And there lies the conundrum of modern F1 racing: Take the most technologically advanced cars in the world…and hope they crash into one another. If yes, exciting and thrilling…and expensive for the teams. If not, well, just another parade of cars going by.

So the Italian Grand Prix is known as the fastest race in F1. The Monza circuit is a throw back to the original F1 series, officially started in 1950, but the cars had been running the basic track since 1922. Monza was the third race-purpose track built in the world. Yes, the world. Meaning as purposely designed and paved for racing. Unlike the circuits of Spa, Belgium and Nurburg, Germany, whose tracks where loops through the country side running between towns at lengths of 10 and 20 kilometers respectively, Monza was the Italian contribution to the desire for speed within a purpose built raceway. The original Monza track, still visible today, had corners banked at some 30 degrees, was an inspiration to NASCAR high speed banked tracks such as Daytona, Darlington and Talladega. Today, those once mighty banks are crumbling to history and neglect.

What we thought would be awesome seats at the first chicane, turned out to be only partially true. Although Turn One is always action packed, check out Palmer into the Barrier at Monaco, since it’s the first braking point after hitting maximum speeds down the main straight, it’s main straight view was unfortunately blocked by trees. What!?! Why??? Oh, so this is how they separate the desirable main grandstand views and offer these seats at a much more discounted price. So everyone thinks, great, I’ll see them coming down the straight, I’ll get to see brake dust flying out as they slam the calipers, but no! You hear them, and then…wait for it…wait for it, they come poking out from behind the trees and into the Turn 1. So when Daniel Ricciardo dives down the inside of Kimi Raikkonen for the pass, you basically see just the tail end of the move. A little anit-climatic in my opinion. But one thing you do get to see, are the cars accelerating out of the turn as they head towards Curva Grande. Seeing an F1 car accelerate in race mode is pretty awesome. Like watching paint dry really, really, really fast. It may not look like much to the untrained eye, but if you’ve been watching racing as long as I have, you see it, and it’s awesome!

This was shot on the over pass of the pedestrian tunnel leading from Bruxelles to Rivage. The cars are coming out of Malmedy corner down the straight towards Rivage. I would have loved to just stay here all day, just a few feet away from the cars. But security would come by every 10-15 minutes to clear the area.

Imagine driving your dream car. Nice! The sound, the drive, the looks from the pedestrians. Now imagine that drive happening in the streets of Paris! OMG! Could it get any better!?! Answer: No.

But it could get worse. Imagine your dream drive of your dream car in your dream city…in a light mist 🙁 I mean, had it been raining, I never would have even thunk it. But a little sprinkle is doable.

So you strap in, fire her up, and head down tiny narrow little cobblestone streets in a slippery mist, and the attendant tells you to nail it! So what do you do? PANIC!!!

Now, you want me to floor it in a $200k Ferrari, in a light mist.The kind of light mist where Felipe Masa spun his Ferrari 5 times in a single race. Yeah, that kind of mist. Oh brother. But I did it. Fortunately for me, the Ferrari was de-tuned, (I mean come on! Did you see the motorcycle giving me a run?) and the streets were packed with traffic, so that encouraged me to take it easy.

We started at the Louis Vuitton store on the Champs d’ Elysee. I see these guys with “drive a supercar” signs and inquire. “100 euros,” he responds. “Wait…I think” OK, I’ve been down this path before, 100 euros will probably get me some parking lot and 3 laps. “No man. You can do a Ferrari and we take you through Paris for about 15 mins. And we take you down some streets and you can floor it!” Oh hellz yeah, I’m in!

I grab Nancy from the store and we run back out to go for a drive. But since now there are 3 of us, and yes, there was a slight moment when I thought, “Just make it 2 of us”, we pass on the 458, and instead, hop in the California. We put the top down and drive up a back street, hit a main street, possibly Avenue George V, and I punch it! I couldn’t believe it. It’s one thing to hit a Ferrari for top speed at Exotics Racing in the Vegas desert, but this was Paris. Downtown Paris…downtown rush hour Paris…in the rain! And then the most chilling part of the ride, there are several section of the road that go under ground. This keeps us away from police cameras and allows us to nail it! As as we enter the tunnel, and if my heart wasn’t pounding enough, my wife points out, this is the under pass where Princess Diana crashed! Oh crap! Are you serious!?! The panic sets in and I lift. And from that moment on, all I could think is rain…slide…crash! But I keep my composure, and try to drive as fast as I feel comfortable. It was actually a relief to just sit there in traffic and see the lights change and not move.

So we get through the traffic and make it to the Eiffel Tower, take a couple of pics, have some people take pictures of us (us, really!) and then we head back. Seeing the Eiffel Tower like that reminded me of the double win of this drive. Not only did I get to drive the Ferrari, but I get to see another side of Paris I would have otherwise missed. We head, but no more under passes, just moderate driving…wait here’s a spot, punch it! Ok, now we’re back on Champs and headed to the pits. But still, an exhilarating drive, taking for granted that this was a Ferrari…in Paris…in the rain. Eat your heart out Fred Astaire!

Not to brag about my race track prowesss, but come on man… passing 3 cars in the span of 2 laps!?! That’s Lewis Hamilton stuff!

That was some serious Hammer Time! @LewisHamilton ya feel me? Too bad I didn’t get the in-car this time, but that was one car that I’ll need to do again. Not the actual Gallardo, but I see now that Exotics Racing has the new Lamborghini Huracán Performante! What!?! Yes, the Performante. The Lamborghini that broke the production car speed record at Nurburing with a time 6:52:01. A whopping 48 seconds faster than my fastest time of 7:40:14 in my McLaren 570S. Of course, my McLaren was on my Xbox One. So again, to be able to get behind the wheel of one on a race track!?! Count me in!!! Anyway, that should be this June, as for our March visit to Vegas, I promised myself the McLaren 570S that ER has ready. The McLaren meets my definition of a supercar, the 3-2’s: Faster than 200mph. More the $200k, and less than 200 delivered to any one country market. So it’s on the bucket list.

But back to the Lamborghini. Wow, what a ride. Scary to say the least. The Ferrari 430 Scud was my first car to drive at Exotics Racing. Since then, the Audi R8, Aston Martin, Nissan GT-R, Porsche GTS. But the Gallardo was the only one that truly scared me. Turn 3 on the track is an off camber horseshoe, and jumping on the gas at the right moment means you’ll be facing the wrong direction. Wicked fast, the car intimidated me from the moment I sat in it. It feels like a super car. It feels out of this world. It feels like it’s ready to start up and head out with or without you. I could actually see this car turning into a Transformer. Damn! Twice the backend felt like it was stepping over the limit. By the time I got a hold of it, we were pulling into the pits. Damnit! OK, then the Performante will be my sweet revenge.

Lamborghini has always been the evil twin to Ferrari. Ferraris are the sleek and sensuous Yin, Lambos are the maschismo, bad ass Yang. (Actually the Yin is the more evil of the two. Sorry ladies.)  But now Lamborghini has decided enough with the trash talk that they are all looks, and stepped it up with the Perfomante. After years of success with the Super Trefeo racing series, they finally picked up enough track knowledge to get back into the ring with a serious performance driving machine. I can’t wait! But since the LHP is also one of the more expensive rides, I’ll need to save up a couple of pennies first. But rest assured, after some serious practice in the McLaren in March, by the time June rolls around, I’m going to drive the hell out of that thing, come hell or high water. Plus, they have insurance, right? Oh well, as long as I can drive it home, I’ll pay for it. “Mom, dad, I’m moving back home.”