It rained yesterday, but the wife and I didn't let that stop us from loading a truck full of lumber in the downpour. When the skies cleared, I figured that maybe I should build at least part of my new backyard fence, rather than letting the crew do the whole thing. I had a garage full of soggy redwood, after all. So I dusted off the compressor, found a medium-sized nail gun after a brief search, cleared off the workbench to free up the chop saw, and away I went. The whole time I was working, however, I was thinking about Ferraris and wondering what the FXX sounds like at full throttle.
Impressed my with fence building and appreciative of my help with her upcoming benefit for the Junior Center for Arts and Science, the wife approved a return to Ferrari land. Woot! I headed back to the track at 8 this morning, feeling rather like this kid:
The FXX looks like a super-sexy street car, but when they started warming up for their first half-hour track session, that illusion ended. If they weren’t so loud, you might find yourself able to hear O Fortuna playing as the FXX’s theme music and wondering if Carl Orff had glimpsed the FXX in some terrible dream the night before composing that music. The car sounds vicious. The FXX looks vicious, too, full of sharp wind-cheating angles, sensuous curves and huge air ducts. Standing in front of a running FXX you get the feeling that it consumes human flesh rather than gasoline and that just at this moment it’s feeling particularly hungry. It’s loud, of course, its idle a harsh, screamish growl, but when the mechanic warming it up starts revving it in that quick staccato way they do, it seems to be barking at you in the hateful, greedy way that only 800 horsepower can. I suppose the mechanics grow accustomed to the sound, but being around a car like this when you’re used to passenger cars is rather like I imagine it feels to meet the President, except that in this case you feel the creature you’re looking at possesses a keen intelligence in addition to great power. There’s something deceptive about the FXX: it looks like a really cool car you might climb into and drive if you had the kind of luck it takes to find yourself dating Elizabeth Hurley, but as soon as it fires up you realize that its soul is sizzling like an isotope and that you are simply not the man to tame this particular beast. It is, in a word or two, freakin’ AWESOME. I’d never wished so badly that I had a spare $2 million burning a hole in my pocket.
As the cars made their way to the track I hustled up to one of the few places I could get close enough to make good use of my 24-70mm lens. The cars left pit lane like screaming banshees even as they moved slowly on cold tires. They climbed up to Turn 2 at a leisurely pace, and I waited patiently to see some speed from these monsters as the half-hour session unfolded. But then something strange happened. Only one of the cars seemed to be making any use of all that power and handling. Pictures like the one below make it look like the cars were going faster than they seeemed in person.
There was one section of the track that was straight as an arrow, and I could hear the cars going full throttle there, but Sears Point is a fairly challenging track with considerable elevation changes and some tricky turns. I got the distinct feeling that the wealthy men driving these cars were more concerned with not crashing them than with getting $2 million worth of fun out of them. Except for that one straight section, these guys seemed extremely nervous. So while it was great to see the cars on track and hear them running, it was a bit anti-climactic to watch them tip-toe around the track. When the F430 practice session started just after the FXXs returned to the paddock, the F430s seemed to be going much faster. I don’t know what the lap times were, but to the credit of the F430 drivers, they were there to race and were trying to go fast.
When I retuned to the paddock, I noticed that the FXX drivers are easy to spot: they get red driving suits with the FXX Programme logo on the back. I think there were six or seven FXXs there today. I saw several of the drivers and the man pictured above was the only one I saw who didn’t appear to be, shall we say, in the autumn of his years, which I decided explained to some extent the delicate way most of the cars were moving around the track. Two of the men in FXX duds looked at least 70, and I was impressed that at their time in life they were brave enough to climb into these machines and go anywhere at all in them.
I guess it takes a long time to make enough money to afford this opportunity. And maybe, no matter how old you are or how rich, you don’t want to be the next youtube clip of some jackass totaling a very rare Ferrari.
Even though I was disappointed in the pace of the FXXs on track, seeing and hearing them in person was fantastic. If you like cars and you ever have the chance to sees these amazing machines, I highly recommend it.
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