Reply to "Concorso Italiano 2009"

I met Valentino at the Le Belle Macchine d'Italia Pocono event a few years ago. (FWIW, the people who run the Pocono event are the same ones running the La Dolce Vita.)

The follow is an excerpt from my trip report at http://www.realbig.com/piperma...-October/089039.html


Just before lunch, I hopped into (well, folded myself into) a Lamborghini Murciélago for some hot laps with Valentino Balboni at the wheel. Just before I got in, Valentino expressed some concerns about the tires but decided to go out anyway. Despite visions of the Space Shuttle o-rings and heat tiles in the back of my mind, I got in, after all this was the Valentino Balboni.

www.portata.com/panteraadventu...ges/balboni_tire.jpg

Valentino does not like to wear a helmet despite his wild, high-speed driving style, so they had his head examined. If you look closely, you can see a blue inspection sticker on the side of his face, which he actually wore all day. He also sported red, white, and blue arm bands -- he knows his audience.

Even with a helmet, I was able to squeeze into the Murciélago then buckle up with the center-mounted seatbelts with not too much trouble.

While we were waiting for the hand signal to go, Valentino checked out the curves ahead as any good Italian driver would.

www.portata.com/panteraadventu...s/balboni_curves.jpg

We rolled through the pits and queued up in a long line to get on the track. This gave us a chance to talk about the Murciélago and about Panteras (Ah, they are ah nice ah car.)

When we got the signal, we effortlessly rollout onto the track at 100 mph and into a high banked turn. While other cars got high up on the bank, Valentino actually just apexed the turn as is if were a gentle sweeper. After hitting 170 on the back straight, we unexpectedly (at least to me) came to a chicane with a 90-degree turn that abruptly took us from the very wide oval track onto what looked like a golf cart road in the infield.

If you have seen Balboni in person or on the Top Gear episode, you know that he likes to drift the corners. The scary part is not the drifting. It's not the drifting at insane speeds. It's the passing cars in the corner at insane speeds with all four tires disconnected from the pavement.