Beat a Ferrari! Humorous

txswimdad · 07-08-2007, 05:42 PM

This happened back during the holidays and C&P'ed from the LXForums that I posted then.

This was totally funny and honestly... it really did happen!

So my teenage car girl & I had a Dad & daughter night out for dinner and shopping.

As the evening was closing I roll up to a stop light next to a red Ferrari 355 Spyder. Very sweet $120,000 creation. It is a bit beyond my means, though if you can, I highly recommend it. Our windows are down in both cars and my daughter is begging me to get him to rev his motor. She loves to have people rev. So as a laugh, I rev mine and he slowly turns towards us... grins & revs

We all just laugh outloud. There are empty lanes on each side of us going the same direction and the road ahead is wide open.

The light turns green and he leaves the light pretty strong. I leave a bit stronger than my usual driving and hang with my front bumper even with his rear. This really is not a hard launch session. Soon he short-shifts into second and looks over at me with a sly grin. Instantly, I realize he just dropped waaaaayyyy below his powerband by the tone of his exhaust with its low RPM gutteral growl. I quickly slapped down to 1st to keep it there and stomped on it. He responds and the growl gets deeper under load as I blast past him getting about 2 links ahead of him. I am mashing my loud peddle for all it is worth, knowing that when he hits his RPM's he will fly by. I stay in it up until we get to 65-70ish, where I let off. It was funny how he stayed in it and definitely ran well beyond a reasonable speeds and blew by just as expected and disappeared into the night. "You beat a Ferrari" hollers my daughter. Now that made me laugh! This is where I briefly explained a horsepower curve to her and how the only reason we were ahead for that long was because we caught him at the lowest horsepower after his shift to 2nd and we were near our highest power area, otherwise my Magnum would have been left in the dust.

I have to be honest, I will remember the sight of a station wagon ahead of a Ferrari for a very very long time...and chuckle about it. Yes, I also repeated the talk about no real street racing. I give her that one whenever we see it on the crowded roadways at rediculous speeds. For some reason, the drivers around here going like that usually seem to be in little cars with big wings and stickers. I don't consider what happened last night a race or dangerous.

Happy holidays all & be safe in these encounters.