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The Bugatti Veyron Grand-Sport

There has been a great deal of conversation regarding the new topless Veyron.

There have been endless photo galleries showing it at Pebble Beach and Calais, yet no one seems to have caught sight of one of these precious hyper cars. Until now. The first two production models showed up in front of me, walking down a back street in the Wine Country town of St. Helena, California. I walked around the town waiting for my uncle to show up for dinner, and stumbled on not one, but two Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand-Sports.

One in pearl white, one in silver, both sitting undisturbed just for my eyes to feast on, enough car to render me speechless. At first, I had to turn away, then turn back to be sure it wasn't a dream.

Turns out, Bugatti decided that the Napa Valley Wine Country would be a nice place to do a photo shoot. At that moment, that never-ending feeling of awe and surprise at seeing truly exotic cars in the flesh took over, sending a shiver up my spine. In true supercar style, the Veyrons drew a croud of drooling bystanders, people of all ages came to gaze in awe, some just to look, and some to stand around and prattle about about how they have 4 turbos and 16 cylinders, and they do 253 mph (which is not true because the Grand-Sport is limited to 230). Nonetheless, the Veyrons sat proudly attracting every teenage boy within 100 miles, including myself. As it happened, 1001 Horse-Power, 2 Million Dollars worth of the world's most beautiful form of excess was enough to make me late for dinner. Find the rest of the photos of the Veyron Grand-Sports and more at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30494374@N07/

Heaven on Earth: The Ferrari Challenge

I woke up Sunday morning to find that throughout the northern half of California, the heavens had opened their floodgates, just to ruin the greatest day of every year. After many phone calls and much coercion from Spencer, friend and fellow Car Fanatic, I decided to go but only after hearing him say, "It'll be like LeMans; the rain will just make it all the better". We arrived at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, CA, greeted by sunshine and what can only be described as a corral of race-prepped Ferraris, old and new, all itching to flex their Italian muscles, and destroy a few eardrums in the process. The first sign from heaven was this car (at left), being chased by another of it's kind, who had previously decided to rev for about half an hour in the pits just to shout at everyone about it's greatness. And you can see why... The 512 BB LM may very well be the sound of angels having arguments about whose halo is the shiniest, but nontheless, it's all the better seeing two of them duke it out at Infineon Raceway. Next in all the excitement, came the "Owners Lap", which meant only one thing: A car lot full of 200+ Ferrari's ranging from F430 Scuderia's to the Enzo, emptiying onto the track and strutting their stuff as loudly as they could.

 The next bit of fun began while we were perusing the 1954 Maserati 250F near the pits when the owner invited us, a couple of teenage car-nuts, to have a seat. Little did we know that 250F #4 was formerly driven by the great Sir Stirling Moss, who famously won the 1955 Mille Miglia and set the course record in a Mercedes 300SL. We left feeling that our hind-ends had been blessed in some way by the former presence of one of our greatest racing heroes. Maybe that is the essence of the Ferrari Challenge; to expose enthusiasts to three days of seeing their most cherished race cars, old and new, up close, on the track, and driven the way they were meant to be. Maybe the point is to give us all a taste of the driving glory associated with the legendary Prancing Horse. There is something to be said for the wealthy people who don't just let their old racecars sit in temperature controlled garages but take them out and not just drive them, but thrash them, to stuff their foot into the car of their childhood dreams and remind themselves and the car, how great they really are. If the car is built to go fast, it should go fast, as long as it stands on four wheels. For people like me, a 16 year-old, absolutely yearning to hear the sweet sounds of Italian Exotics and to get his hands on such driving magic, the Ferrari Challenge really is Heaven on Earth.

Highway Survival At Infineon Part 1: Drifting in a Dodge Intrepid

Who knew. Your parents sign you up for a course annoingly entitled "Highway Survival", and what's the first thing that comes to mind, endless hours of watching severed heads roll across the open roads, and the instructor saying "This could happen to you" about 10,000 times. But no, this vision is wrong, because the way the Jim Russell School of Racing interprets "Highway Survival" is figuratively teaching young gearheads like myself how to drive fast... Safely... Thats not to say that the techniques of "Skid Control" better known as "Drifting" aren't useful in the real world, but lets be honest, it is a laugh when they show you to a car that looks like shopping cart wheels have been attached and the only rubber touching the ground that actually belongs to the car are the ones in front. All these things add up to a Dodge Intrepid, very, very sideways in a drift at 15 mph, and a lot of very, very hysterical 16 year old boys in the back seat. It was very exciting indeed. Especially when it was my turn. Getting behind the wheel, I did not feel particularly ecstatic about drifting a plasticky front-wheel drive econobox, but at the first turn, uncontrollable laughter overtook the car as we slid sideways in figure-eights or spun round and round when the driver didn't give it enough gas coming out of the turn. And of course, in typical Car Fanatic style, I took out a cone after getting over-zealous with the gas pedal. Stay tuned for Part 2, when we test out some hard braking techniques... in a Ford Focus WITHOUT Anti-Lock brakes...