A Super Day with Supercars: Riding a Prancing Horse, a Bull, a Jaguar and Four Rings

With only a week left before my visit to the US - my first ever travel for the sake of travel - the burden of planning seemed to be a more challenging overhead than I'd imagined. In any case, I was sitting on my bunk bed in a backpackers in Vancouver and with the click of a button made one of my biggest online purchases ever: a driving experience of a few exotic supercars in the Nevada desert which would include the likes of Ferrari, Lamborghini, Audi and Jaguar. My heart beat stronger from the thought, the excitement it brought about and also the financial hole that I'd just burnt in my pocket. However, I knew that it would undoubtedly be worth it.

Here's how the day went down:



The Office & the Dealership
The sleep during the previous night was relaxing as I was tired from the having been to the speedway and driven muscle cars on the track (see previous post). It was a bit of a commute and quite the experience.
Thankfully, today's experience required a meet-up in the vicinity of civilisation itself. I got ready, hopped on the Deuce bus and got off at the Bellagio. The rest of the trip was to be on foot and included going through an underground belly of the hotel. I made it just in time to the fancy office of World Class Driving and realised they'd all been waiting for me to get started.

World Class Driving office.

I got my name tag, completed registration and decided to get away from the boring starting info that was being disseminated. I headed to the washrooms at the back and saw a real sweet Mustang being washed by its rather young owner. We struck up a chat and kept at it for a while. He then agreed to show me his ride's custom exhaust note which nearly gave me an orgasmic heart attack.
I then headed back in and joined the briefing, typical boring stuff that went on longer than I would've preferred. Apparently, none of the cars were at the location itself and we all had to leave the city and head to the Audi/Lambo dealership where the cars would assemble.

The Audi dealership was a fancy one, with an R8 for sale. The Lamborghini dealership was just next door and housed a couple of Gallardos, Aventadors and a single 2008 Bugatti Veyron selling for USD 1.3M. Quite a beauty.

Colourful Gallardos flaunting the Lambo dealership.

A Bugatti Veyron for sale in the middle of a desert.

Providing a sense of scale next to a black Gallardo.

The First: Audi R8 V10
The entourage arrived with the cars that were to be driven by our group; this included 4 exotics and 4 muscle cars for another group of people. When it came to the muscles, I could gladly say 'been there, done that'.

I jetted it for the Audi R8 V10 as my first drive and took a seat on the mid-engined throne. It was a comfortable place to be in and I took my sweet time settling in and getting a feel for the controls. However, I soon became impatient as the process was taking too long to get the wheels moving. I was the third car in the formation, in front of me was the white Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder Performante and the blue Jaguar XJL Supercharged behind.

Gauges reflecting the mood of 525 horses of the 5.2L V10.

The semi-automatic R-tronic transmission. Notice the exciting 'Sport' button beneath.

The walkie talkies were all fired up and we were to follow the formation and instructions of the lead and chase cars. The cars set off and I let off the brake in the R8. It didn't move. I rechecked the handbrake and realised it was off. Nobody told me that the R-tronic transmission doesn't creep with an idle engine - one has to push.





I pushed on the accelerator pedal and the engine came to life, the car moved forward and we were off. We turned right onto the 'correct' side of the road and for a moment right after that I gave myself one of the biggest scares by momentarily burying the pedal to the metal: the transmission downshifted and the 530 torques kicked me in the back of the head. Scary stuff and I'd learnt my lesson to play civil while still on busy roads and didn't try anything risky for some time following that. For a while it was just rather plain driving, no dramas as we made our way to the Red Rock canyon where we would get to really open up the taps. It was also a useful opportunity to get a feel for these cars.

While the Audi is a breeze to drive if you're not in a suicidal mood, hit the 'Sport' button and the transmission downshifts, the V10 starts howling and the gear shifts become very aggressive - enough to scare the shit out of the driver. Couple that with manual driving and the revs climb like there's no tomorrow.
One just has to remember and keep chanting: someone else's supercar, keep the revs low; someone else's supercar, no redlining!

The R8 felt so balanced around the corners, never a touch of under or over-steer and the nose always pointing in the direction one wanted it to. Admittedly, I didn't get to get as frisky with the car as I did with some of the others - I was just getting acclimatised to the situation that I was in as a whole, but there were a few moments, especially after a red light, where I got to bury the gas pedal and experience a few moments of torque-filled pleasurable terror akin to something a sado-masochist in a love-hate relationship with a mechanical being would experience.

The Second: Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder
Less than half an hour later, it was time for a switch. We pulled over in an empty parking lot in the Red Rock Canyon. The lot wasn't completely empty thanks to a random parked helicopter.
I didn't get enough time in the Audi while in the canyon. It was a bit disappointing because Red Rock was where the formation was starting to get naughty with the cars. Apparently, the driving company has a deal with the rangers at the area's entrance: the authorities turn a blind eye to our speed limits as long as we behave ourselves and don't cause any damage. We were specifically reminded that if we get pulled over, it was the temperature gauge that read '100', not the speedometer (mph).

I jumped out of the R8 and took a seat in the belly of the Spyder - the Lamborghini Gallardo LP-570 Spyder Performante - the only convertible that I'd get to drive on that day.
I could tell that I'd just come out of a road car into a track-focused one. The only possible seat adjustment was moving it back and forth, nothing else; this bull meant business.

Sitting inches in front of a loud bull.

We set off and immediately I could notice the change in engine sound - it was louder, meaner and typical of a Gallardo as I'd come to know and love from Need for Speed: Most Wanted.

We followed typical formation driving but there were few moments when I could unleash the beast. In one instance, I started slowing down to gain some gap between me and the car ahead so I could later close it in more exciting ways. Soon, the gap was big enough, the single lane road was turning, ascending up a hill with a cliff on either side and I floored the Lambo. The bulls roared and the speedo climbed at a terrifying rate along with the g-forces because of the bend. That was perhaps the most scary moment of the trip as the car was accelerating around a bend and if it lost traction it would've been a long way down. But, I knew I could trust the grip in those Pirelli tyres and the downforce of an exotic with a rear carbon-fibre spoiler so I kept the pedal to the metal while simultaneously getting closer and closer to soiling myself from one end.
Turns out the lead instructor didn't like my stint too much and the radio chatter soared following it. Fortunately, driving with the top-down doesn't allow for much hearing. :)

The Third: Ferrari 458 Italia
Almost everyone was waiting to drive this baby and I could sense this desperation in the discussion before, and satisfaction in the ones that followed. I wasn't much different.

They didn't have one in black.

The Ferrari seemed to be a track-focused car too: there was no radio, the doors were simple and light, interior wasn't made to be visually appealing and the steering wheel had knobs and buttons on it. There was no turn indicator stick behind the steering wheel like on almost every other car out there, but a set of buttons shaped like arrows on the wheel itself. I made it a point to find the button that switches between auto and manual shifting the first thing I got in.

My sister insists that it looks like a peanut. A 325 km/h, quarter million dollar peanut.

We set off. Immediately, I noticed the very sharp throttle and steering response. This thing was a hyper go-kart with the nose feeling as if it was telepathically connected to my brain and my foot controlling the reins of over 550 horses with the precision of an ophthalmic surgeon.

As someone who hadn't driven anything like this before, it was natural for me to assume that driving these cars would be hard and something that would keep one on their toes all the time. But it's not. These cars are rather gentle docile creatures if you want them to be, and drive like a regular car on a regular road with no dramas. In the case of this Ferrari, at one point I was just cruising along at about 60-80 kph and I noticed that it was in 6th gear at about a 1000 revs - silent and comfortable. However, it's these cars' ability to transform into a beast upon command - like Dr. Banner's new found and unexplained ability in the Avengers movie - that set them apart from the rest of them. I put my foot down hard against the floor and the transmission shifted from 6th all the way to 3rd! The revs came alive to about 6k and I felt like I had just been shot out of a cannon as my back got buried in the seat.

After gaining some confidence with the rest of the car, I switched it to manual shifting. One of the best things about driving the 458 is the set of red LEDs on the steering wheel that come alive when the revs get closer to redlining indicating it's time to upshift. Also, impressively, the shifting is smooth and almost instantaneous, faster than the blink of an eye! I might as well be in a video game but without a 'restart' button. If only...

The Fourth: Jaguar XJL Supercharged
It was time to drive the last car of the day and for me to make the most dramatic shift in exotic driving that I could've imagined. The blue Jag was the only supercharged car amongst the four delivering 470 horses and likely the cheapest of the lot with a price tag of 'only' ~$100k.

When sitting in every new car, the first thing a driver, including myself, would do is adjust the mirrors, the seat, get comfortable with all the controls and learn where all the necessary buttons/sticks were. This was an interesting experience in the Jag: the seat controls were on the driver's door which included not just the two simple tasks of moving it back & forth and adjusting the back angle, but about half a dozen of them which included things like adjusting the width of the chair, extending side support, changing position of the airbags that provide lumbar support and the ability to change their inflation level. It offered an insane level of customization.

It's the least pretty, but most comfortable, of them all.

Everything else in the car felt to be of superior quality as well: the leather, the stitching, the magnesium and alloy finishing, the buttons, the veneer finishing, the control knob that would pop out of the center console upon ignition and the premium feel of the steering wheel.
The drive was the smoothest and most comfortable I'd had the entire day and possibly in any car ever! This car could keep up with all the exotics around and yet feel very comfortable and undramatic. I could've had high tea with an elderly woman in the car while doing a 180 kph without giving her a heart attack - that's how comfortable this Grand Touring car was. Unfortunately, this very luxury of the car was also the reason I didn't like it so much: it was too comfortable, it didn't have the pantomime drama that I'd come to expect and love from the Audi, the Ferrari and the Lamborghini. Don't get me wrong, the car still packed a lot of punch. I put my foot down and the signature Jaguar engine sound would fill the dome and the animal would leap forward keeping true to its name. However, it sounded old and wise in its loudness, not rash and loud like the young and crazy naive teenagers that seemed to spiritually possess the other supercars around.

Because we were the last group of the day, we had the pleasure of driving the cars back to the garage in the city. For me, this meant an extra half an hour in Jag, driving it on the busy highways of Vegas and revving past young latino kids who would drool at it in excitement and attempt to share it with their uninterested parents. It also meant that I would have to take extra care in rolling it down 4-lane highways, changing lanes, being alert enough to take the right exits and remembering how long of a car it was. Even a scratch could've meant some rather undesirable financial consequences for me to bear.

We all then got out of the cars and got dropped off back to our hotels (hostel, in my case) like being dumped after a one-night stand. All well and fun while it lasts but once the reality hits and you realise the possibility (or lack thereof) of reliving those moments, you just shatter.
I came back to my bed, and shattered.

Luckily, I was to put myself back together the following day to go on a fun road-trip with a bunch of Brazilian girls that I'd just met. While that would turn out to be fun too, it was only a drop in the ocean of awesomeness, exhilaration, surrealism, geek-gasm and driving nirvana that I'd experienced on the last day of 2013.