We had a vendor put on an event today at the Corvette Museum Motorsports Track. There were couple of different Ferraris, Lambos, GT-Rs, Porsches and Audi R8s. My "instructor" wasn't the greatest. Kept telling me the brakes on the Ferrari were pretty hard. He told me to brake hard going into a curve and I would basically have to accelerate to go through the curve. After one lap I started doing my own thing, marginally paying attention to him and did better. If you have an opportunity to drive one of these, the guy that drove the GT-R said it was more solid than the Ferrari 488GTB. So, been there, done that and crossed it off my bucket list. Price if I'd had to pay for it was $395 for 3 laps.
It certainly is a beautiful shade of red, no doubt. Not $350K worth but pretty nice. They weren't interested in letting me look it over. It was an assembly line, in and out. They even had cheap seat covers on the car. Three laps but only two down the front straight. First was 120MPH and the second one was 125MPH on the 2000ft straight away. Lag was pretty sad on the turbo car. I matted it in the straights. They kept telling us how touchy the throttle was on these cars are and how the brakes were hard. These guys have never driven an old car! I did manage to get the tires to squeal in the hairpin with the instructor telling me to slow down. LOL They wouldn't let me roll the windows up, can't adjust the mirrors and they wouldn't turn off the A/C. So, I drove a Ferrari but I didn't DRIVE a Ferrari like I stole it. I'm pretty sure my GS would do well over 140MPH on a 2000ft straight if I hit it with a 40MPH running start. That's 680ft more than a 1/4 mile and I've run mid 12s at 114 with the old motor.
I received the Xtreme Xperience 3-Lap package at Road American from my family for Christmas this year. It was scheduled for this past April 13th but was canceled due to bad weather with the possibility of snow. The new date is this October 8th. I am Scheduled to drive the Ferrari 488GTB also. I drove the #43 Richard Petty car at the Milwaukee Mile "Petty Experience" about 15 years ago and that was a blast. Looking forward to the 650HP rear wheel drive. Larry
Awesome! The 488 isn't the fastest one of their cars and has some lag. I suspect that I'd have done better manually shifting to get the RPMs up as we were coming out of the curves. I also found the lift and braking cones could have been a fair bit later than where the cones they placed. You'll enjoy it.
Great experience for sure! When I drove it, my instructor told me to drive it by braking late and hard and the gas earlier than you think because the aero helps. The turbo lag isnt bad once you keep the engine where the turbo wants to be. IOW, you either have to be in a low gear in a slow turn or at a faster speed. I found that if I relied on the aero to grip, the turbo was in boost and the rear wanted to step out. It's a quick car IMHO. The f1 drivers have been sending a lot input to the latest exotics. They drive like a video game... punch brakes, nail throttle essentially. The gtr has awd... enough said...
Yes, familiar with the GT-R. I figure I'll get to drive one of those eventually on my own. If I'd had a better instructor or had 2-3 more laps, I'd have the Ferrari down cold. They only had it in sport mode so it wouldn't downshift nearly as quick as I'd have liked and they discouraged manually shifting. I got it to step out on the last lap and howl those big, expensive tires in the curves. My instructor told me to ease off. Geez, give me a little credit. LOL
I need to try a new GT-R sometime, drove an 83 308 GTS for years and would be fun to compare how far they have come
Sounds like you had fun Greg! I had a vendor do the World Class Driving experience for us a few years ago, lots of fun. We drove out in the rural areas here, five different cars and you switch off every half hour. Highly recommended and not something you get to do everyday.
