Only Love Can Break Your Heart

Before reading any further, take a good, long, hard look at the picture below. Notice how the car has settled on the left rear. Notice the tire marbles swept out to the edge. Notice the wedge of daylight on the outside of the right tires. Notice how flat the front of the car rides.

***

This is not my car. I was not driving. I have never been on that track. But I can close my eyes and tell you EXACTLY how the next five seconds went. I can FEEL the rear settle. I can FEEL the front lift, ever so slightly. I can HEAR the motor rev as the pedal gets romped in third gear. I can SEE the car as it does a lazy “S” to set up for the upcoming left hander. I can FEEL the ABS do the cha-cha-cha as the car turns in. I can HEAR the front tires start singing as it swings down toward the apex. I can FEEL the center of gravity move from the front of the car to the rear.

(I can also see the Lambo spin after the apex because the driver lifts at the wrong time, but I digress.)

I can do all this because of love. Ferraris have always been motors with four wheels attached. I can feel all of this because of decades of DNA. If you get a chance, look at those old pictures of those idiots racing at Torrey Pines or Riverside. Sure it looks like fun, but more than one or two them died. But all the lessons learned, many the hard way, are in the DNA of that Maranello.

I am old enough to know better. I am old enough to have a lot of responsibilities. I am old enough to have many people count on me. But I am still young enough to feel the love. I’m young enough to get sucked in. I’m driving a street car. I don’t have a NASCAR cage. I don’t have a HANS. But I can’t help myself. It feels so good I keep going incrementally faster and faster, and le Shark keeps getting better and better. I can feel the love. I can really feel the love.

Those of you who have never tracked your Ferrari are the smart ones. The hood on a Maranello is 12 grand. You can buy a full-on race car for 12 grand, but you will never feel the love. Krasnavian in other posts has talked about his mis-spent youth driving a 250 GTO around the LA hills. That car today is worth a jillion dollars. But he has a billion/jillion dollars worth of memories because he felt the love.

Those of you who have never tracked your Ferrari; Those of you who have your Ferrari hooked up to life support; Those of you who only drive your Ferrari to titty bars; You are the smart ones, but you will NEVER feel the love. Oh, you’ll have fun. You will fondly remember your days of Ferrari ownership. But you will never feel the love until you get close to that ragged edge. That thin line between love and hate.

But, again, those of you who do not drive your cars are the smart ones. The maddening thing about these cars is how cheap Ferrari can get when there is no reason to be so damn cheap. Why use a 50 cent hose, when you can get Shuttle quality hoses for $1.50? Why continue to build single-wall manifolds when you KNOW they are going to break? Why continue to locate O2 sensors in places where you KNOW they will fail? Why use cheap-ass gaskets to seal gas tanks when you KNOW they are going to leak. Why use cheapo electrical connectors when you KNOW they will fail. Why? Why? Why?

If you don’t believe me, check out Ernie’s “I have had it” thread in the 348 forum. Driving a Ferrari as it demands to be driving will turn the love into hate. You will eventually reach the point where you have had it. THAT’S IT. THAT’S IT. THE ******* THING HAS F***** ME FOR THE LAST TIME.

And don’t give me this crap about owning a lemon. If you drive your Ferrari hard, it will break, regardless of how good a driver you think you might be. If you drive your grandmother to church in your Ferrari, it will break. Hell, if you just look at the damn thing out of the corner of your eye, it will break. These cars are rolling IEDs.

But still. It has been almost three years. But when I look at that picture, I can feel the love. I can really feel the love.

Damn, damn, damn.

Only love can break your heart.

Dale


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOl01vKXv6I[/ame]
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I want to thank all of you for the kind words.

I kept looking at the picture of Barry's car (the black Maranello). I would then look at the picture I had on file of guy racing the Monza at Riverside. I'd go back and forth, and then it hit me. Hard. Pushing a Ferrari hard on the track is a rush. You really feel the love. The love of man and machine at speed. If I knew how to write, maybe I could express this better. Maybe it is better if I don't.

And yes, absence makes the heart grow fonder. You remember the good times, and forget the broken 50 cent hoses.

Will I buy another Ferrari?

I dunno. I dunno. A wise man once wrote that you can't go home again. Sometimes it is best to hang onto memories rather than to try and relive them.

But, I do know this. If I buy another Ferrari, you betcha I'll take it to the track!

Dale

 

Nah, not really. I'm just an academic hack. For me, writing is hard work. I have to edit, re-edit, re-edit and re-edit. But I am proud of this piece, it is one of the few posts I don't feel the need to edit (well, there are a few changes I'd make, but can't). The funny thing is I wrote it in a straight shot. I musta been channeling Hunter S. Thompson. (If you can find it, he once wrote a "road test" on a Ducati. It has to be one of the best reviews ever written. He was a better writer rip roaring drunk that I'll ever be stone sober.) Anyway, thanks, but it was the picture of you driving your car that was the real story. Keep it up.

That was just a loner car while my P-Bug is in the shop.

Dale

 

After bad mouthing 550s, I got reminded of this. Once upon a time, in another place, far, far away...

 

11,000 track miles! Barry, you are my hero. Think about the number of Ferraris that don't have 11,000 miles total, sad.

The message here is if you really want to understand the Ferrari driving experience, you need to take your car to the track. You don't have to 10/10s. Going 7/10s to 8/10s (sliding on a few turns, but not all) works fine. Modern Ferraris have so much power, you should not be driving them aggressively on the street. In my old Maranello, I would find myself hitting 90 in third as I pulled out of my residential neighborhood, and I wasn't hitting it that hard. Try explaining to Officer Not-So-Friendly as he carts you off to the pokey, you were just shifting by ear.

But, once you get on the track, it becomes clear why you came this way. Look at the picture of Barry's car. If you have been there, you will be able to feel the car as it hunkers down. A Maranello is a big, powerful car. Unlike a momentum car where you run as flat out as much as possible, hustling a Maranello takes a different kind of skill. You gotta know when to hold and when to fold. Chicanes are not much fun, but big long sweepers; damn, I miss it.

And yet, people still advertise their cars as "never been in the rain" (are Ferraris made of sugar?) or "been on the track" (driving fast on the street is safer?). Oh well.

 

Of the the jillions of posts I have made on this site, this is the one I'm most proud of. After all these years, I have never meet Barry. But I know Barry. I know his car. This my friend, is what Ferraris are all about. Valet parking in front of titty bars doesn't count. Going out to your garage with a cigar and whiskey doesn't count. You have got to drive these damn cars to understand what they are all about. Yes, only love...