[s-cars] Carrera GT (a bit long)

[alexander witham]

Hi All,

Some time ago, I believe it was Spring of 2005, a
discussion surrounding the various cars we'd had
occasion to drive evolved. At that time I was
anticipating a drive in a Carrera GT for late in the
Summer. Some of you had requested I let you know how
it went and I said I would gladly oblige.

Well, needless to say, late Summer came and went, but
there was no drive to be had. Fall passed as did
Winter and so would Spring of 2006 and alas no drive.
But then one miraculous morning the car gods were
shining down upon me. 

I'd sat in the GT on a number of occasions even
started and revved it up a few times all the while
only imagining what it must be like to have that
glorious cacaphony of valves and cylinders going at
full bore sitting right behind my head. But nothing
could have prepared me for what was about to ensue. 

Now, I've had the pleasure of riding and driving in
Testa Rossa's, F355's, F360's (best sounding car I've
ever experienced), a '73 Carrera RS (way cool, btw),
just about every iteration of the 911 and the 911
Turbo ever made (including some seriously modified
versions), supercharged M3 race cars, turbocharged
(500+hp) old generation 5 series Bimmers, C5 & C6
Z06's, ridden in a Copper Head Viper, Lambo Gallardo,
modded Ur S6's, RS4's, and had actually been given a
brief ride in the GT previously, but I can
catergorically tell you that there is nothing, simply
nothing that could have even come close to making me
understand what I was going to feel that beasutiful
Summer morning. 

So there I was on a Saturday at about 9am as the
carrier waited to take the car to its new destination.
The truck was a little ealier than I was expecting so
I hadn't yet pulled the car out of its storage area. I
climbed in and fired up the engine in order to pull it
out to then hand the keys over to the trucker, but I
was a little put off by the seriously copious amounts
of smoke bellowing out of the two exhausts. Whoa,
that's not good! Okay, so I cut the engine and we
proceeded to push the car outside which in itself is
not as easy a task as you might imagine as the car is
excessively low and ridiculously wide. Moreover
there's a slight decent as you exit the storage area
that means you have to have the car at a very tight
angle in relationship to the doors on the building to
be sure that the front lip spoiler won't scrape as you
pull the car in or out. Very annoying and time
consuming to get in and out. 

Anyway, I digress. 

With the car now outside, I fired it back up again and
there was, of course, still large amounts of smoke
coming from the rear. I gently depressed the clutch
and slid the shifter into first gear then ever so
carefully got the car rolling so that I could move it
from where it was blocking things. I took it round the
back of the building where there was much suspicion as
to what the cause of the problem was. We decided to
leave the car and let it idle for a little while.
After perhaps 10 or 15 minutes I returned to the car
hoping that the sole problem might have dissipated and
although it was certainly less than when I first
started it up it was by no means gone. Perhaps a
little jab of the throttle might expedite the smoke
clearing, but that would have no effect either.

It was decided that what this bad boy needed was a
run. It had been sitting for a while and been started
a couple times to be moved, but never actually driven.
Now as enthusiasts this crowd would all know that a
thoroughbred of this caliber simply doesn't like to
sit around and not get run. Actually, it hates it. It
despises not being driven perhaps more so than any car
in recent years. Okay, well, perhaps that's an
exageration, but it's definitely not happy sitting
around or for that matter even being pussy footed
around. It likes to go and that's what I decided was
what was best for it. Truthfully, it wasn't my call,
but I'll be glad to take the credit. 

So since the smoke wasn't clearing I called my boss
and aksed him how he wanted me to handle the
situation. He said "well, I think you're going to have
to drive it. It probably just needs to be blown out"!
I responded saying that I really didn't feel
comforatble driving it incase something were to
happen. His response was simply "don't worry about it,
it's insured". With that I buckled my seatbelt and my
buddy Rob hopped in the passenger seat.

Having heard and read horror stories about the clutch,
I was frankly terrified that I was going to screw it
up and end up with a $40,000 repair job on my hands.
Fortunately, I either engaged and disengaged the
clutch properly or was lucky enough to not have
anything catastrophic happen where that was concerned.
I pulled out onto the road which is a 4 lane
commercial highway with a speed limit that alternates
between 35 and 50 mph and once I was certain that the
clutch was fully engaged I applied what turned out to
be way too much power for the cold tires. PSM
instantly grabbed the throttle before things got too
ugly and kept the back end in check.

I shifted to second and with a little more prudence
squeezed the throttle. Tha cars that I had pulled out
in front of were rapidly approaching me in the rear
view mirror and I was starting to get a little
concerned that I wasn't going to get out of their way
before they barelled down upon me. Well, what the hell
was I thinking? As I continued to gingerly apply the
throttle I again had the tires break loose. Trying to
modualte the throttle controling this much power was
proving to be a little more challenging than I'd
bargained for. Okay, so I suck as a driver, but to be
fair I'm used to my Ur S6, which by comparison feels
like, well, an Ur S6 which is to say reasonable, but a
little sloppy. Plus, at this point I'm horribly
nervous given that I'm driving somebody else's
$450,000 super car and I've just arguably pulled out
into traffic sooner than I should have under the
circumstances.

But once I engaged 3rd, perhaps the two previous tires
revolutions had heated them up enough, the tires just
gripped and we rocketed forward at a velocity that I
would imagine is not disimilar from sitting in a space
ship being sent to the moon! I backed off the throttle
for traffic, down shifted to second, blipped the
throttle and bang we were off again. I looked over at
my buddy's face to see him smiling from ear to ear as
I swear the g-forces pushed the skin on his jowles
backwards. As I redlined it in second I heard him
giggle like a little school girl. I pulled off the
throttle, depressed the clutch, grabbed third,
released teh clutch, and depressed teh throttle and
boom, we're off again. Wholly Christ, this thing is
insane. The speedo climbs like the the pennies counter
on the gas pump when you're filling up. It's almost
mesmerizing in itself, but you really can't keep your
eyes off the road becasue everything's approaching so
quickly that you have to be careful. Plus no one's
expecting this silver bullet to approach any where
near the speeds it's capable of let alone approching
those speeds on a lazy weekedn morning. 

I pulled over into a neighborhood to turn the car
around in order to head back. I again carefully
accelerated away, but once I was sure everything was a
go, I floored it. 8200 RPM in 1st, 8200 RPM in 2nd,
8200 RPM in 3rd. Shift into 4th and I have no idea how
fast we're going. All I know is that at some point as
I approached this long sweeping corner I was traveling
at 130. By no means an extraordinary speed, but it's
all but impossible to express in words the speed with
wich we attained that velocity. Never before and never
since have I experienced anything that felt so
incredible (at least not in a car).
 




 
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