graeme73s
Active Member
- Joined
- Aug 8, 2005
- Messages
- 328
- Car
- 560SEC, Smart Brabus cabriolet 03, Smart Brabus Cabriolet 08, Porsche 993 C2S Tip
A good friend Danny has a yellow anniversary Countach and was invited to take part in a kids program called "girls not allowed". They wanted to race a Countach against a Testarossa. Danny was up for it but not having any race track experience he asked me if I would drive the car. Don't get me wrong Danny drives the anniversary hard but race track experience is another ball game.
So I arrive at the Rockingham Race Circuit in the UK to find that the Testarossa is driven by a real nice guy that races it in the Ferrari Classic Championship. The cars trailered there, has a roll cage, Pirelli race cut slicks, big 6 pot AP brakes, modified suspension etc.etc. Danny's car is bog standard other than a straight through exhaust. Anyway to cut a long story short the guy in the Testarossa goes first, does eight practise laps neither of us have been to this circuit before and then does the standing start flying timed lap. Then its my go. I drove Danny's car once four years ago for about a mile on a dual carriageway. I only do four practice laps as by lap two I'm already having to pump the brakes to stop for the corners, on Danny's advice I dump the clutch at 4000 rpm and were off. I cross the start finish line lift off and still can't stop for the chicane but no problem just go straight through the cones and turn around. The time for the Testarossa was 1 minute 29.6 seconds, the Countach 1 minute 28.2 seconds. Danny had a grin from ear to ear and so did I. The biggest laugh was with the guy who was there with an Enzo. He'd done about forty laps that day as they did a lot of filming with the car. His best lap was only five seconds quicker than I managed in the Countach.
Danny has often talked about upgrading the brakes on the Countach and if we had some good brakes and I could have done the eight warm up laps before the timed lap we'd have beaten the Enzo time. Ok when all said and done its all down to the nut behind the wheel. For those of you who are interested "girls not allowed" is shown 10.30am on a Saturday morning on channel 5. Our bit will be shown somewhere within the next four weeks. Hope they don't show my spin on lap two when I tried to slow the car down on the gearbox, it did not work and I ended up going backwards. cheers Graeme
So I arrive at the Rockingham Race Circuit in the UK to find that the Testarossa is driven by a real nice guy that races it in the Ferrari Classic Championship. The cars trailered there, has a roll cage, Pirelli race cut slicks, big 6 pot AP brakes, modified suspension etc.etc. Danny's car is bog standard other than a straight through exhaust. Anyway to cut a long story short the guy in the Testarossa goes first, does eight practise laps neither of us have been to this circuit before and then does the standing start flying timed lap. Then its my go. I drove Danny's car once four years ago for about a mile on a dual carriageway. I only do four practice laps as by lap two I'm already having to pump the brakes to stop for the corners, on Danny's advice I dump the clutch at 4000 rpm and were off. I cross the start finish line lift off and still can't stop for the chicane but no problem just go straight through the cones and turn around. The time for the Testarossa was 1 minute 29.6 seconds, the Countach 1 minute 28.2 seconds. Danny had a grin from ear to ear and so did I. The biggest laugh was with the guy who was there with an Enzo. He'd done about forty laps that day as they did a lot of filming with the car. His best lap was only five seconds quicker than I managed in the Countach.
Danny has often talked about upgrading the brakes on the Countach and if we had some good brakes and I could have done the eight warm up laps before the timed lap we'd have beaten the Enzo time. Ok when all said and done its all down to the nut behind the wheel. For those of you who are interested "girls not allowed" is shown 10.30am on a Saturday morning on channel 5. Our bit will be shown somewhere within the next four weeks. Hope they don't show my spin on lap two when I tried to slow the car down on the gearbox, it did not work and I ended up going backwards. cheers Graeme
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Those aren't "stupid faces", they're expressions of emotion - both adoration and disgust - on the face of he who is The Lord of Motoring Journalism, who the people know as Clarkson.
