π
2011-06-08 01:01
in Cars, Ncars
So I'm not quite ready to buy a F458, but when I got an offer to drive one at the track, it was difficult to pass up :) (Ferrari has a program for its owners that allows you to learn to drive their latest car at speed on a nice racetrack).
Ok, so it wasn't cheap, but considering that changing tires is around $2000, and changing ceramic brakes is in the $10k range (not sure how many track days they last), once you add that you can drive a car you won't have to buy and can't otherwise rent for track use, the cost becomes more acceptable :) They use a track in French speaking Canada @ Mt Tremblant which is one of the best ski resorts on the east coast during the winter (although they all suck compared to the Rockies and Sierras). I liked the track layout, it was challenging. The 2 day advanced course had a mix of:skid pad in a Ferrari California, where you were actually supposed to do full powerslides through an figure 8 at the end (I was one of the least sucky students, but still not good at it, because it's hard).
autocross around a section of track to see who got the best lap time (boy was that hard, especially since I've never been that good at Auto-X).
driving around the north and sourth sides of the track first.
Of course, we then got to drive the whole track, although we were always "tethered" in a lead follow pattern where the instructor would only drive as fast as he thought you should (based on whether you looked safe or not, and then it felt capped around 2:02 per lap kind of regardless).
A few pictures of the F458:
We also had to drive with the traction control in street mode, which wasn't as aggressive in cutting me off as I was fearing it would be, but I'm sure it slowed us down a bit compared to race mode which I use on my car at the track (but eh, I was willing to live with that tradeoff for being able to drive those nice cars on a real racetrack). So even if I don't feel I got to improve much on the second day due to being held back, it was still a hell of a lot of fun :)
Thankfully, trusting person that I am, I took a few of the laps with my GoPro (yes, the camera isn't straight, I was trying not to block the main camera that never worked). Longish session following an instructor as close as I could :) (yes, the camera was sideways, it had to be where I put it)
Another session where I was following a slower F598 (it has a lot more horsepower, but has a hard time putting that power down and has a harder time turning and breaking with its extra 1000lbs of weight). Of course, the instructor was still faster than me, but I had to brake to early in places because of him :)
One of the last sessions, which were getting shorter by then, and where I hopefully did better :)
Ok, so it wasn't cheap, but considering that changing tires is around $2000, and changing ceramic brakes is in the $10k range (not sure how many track days they last), once you add that you can drive a car you won't have to buy and can't otherwise rent for track use, the cost becomes more acceptable :) They use a track in French speaking Canada @ Mt Tremblant which is one of the best ski resorts on the east coast during the winter (although they all suck compared to the Rockies and Sierras). I liked the track layout, it was challenging. The 2 day advanced course had a mix of:
the LCD rendered speedo is cute
Ok, let's go, let's lap this baby :)
Ferrari California in the simulated rain, ironic :)
We also had to drive with the traction control in street mode, which wasn't as aggressive in cutting me off as I was fearing it would be, but I'm sure it slowed us down a bit compared to race mode which I use on my car at the track (but eh, I was willing to live with that tradeoff for being able to drive those nice cars on a real racetrack). So even if I don't feel I got to improve much on the second day due to being held back, it was still a hell of a lot of fun :)
Thankfully, trusting person that I am, I took a few of the laps with my GoPro (yes, the camera isn't straight, I was trying not to block the main camera that never worked). Longish session following an instructor as close as I could :) (yes, the camera was sideways, it had to be where I put it)
See more images for Ferrari Experience Advanced Course at Mt Tremblant