Driving the Giro and Going to Monterey

I thought I’d do something different this year and write about Monterey for those who have never gone and have no idea what Monterey is about. I’ll post lots of pictures as the week unfolds. I’m going to write this in real time as much as possible. Hopefully I can then be more interactive through the whole adventure. It’s now a few days before the chaos begins and I can sit down and write some of the background.

First I have to back up and start from the beginning. Once you make the decision to go to Monterey, the first thing you have to do is nail down your accommodations. Hotels go fast. I did my search on Expedia back in March and I was down to two stars before rooms became available. Two stars suck. Two stars means there is an 80% chance you’re going to use a tube TV. Oh, there were the $1,000 a night places, but that’s fine if you don’t plan to do anything but remain sick in your room or something and need the opulent room splendor to feel better. If you’re going to blow beats after ingesting what wasn’t caviar, you may do it in a $1,000 a night room on the finest possible toilet in Monterey. I’ve learned that with Expedia, subtract one star no matter what they tell you. I also cross reference new places on TripAdvisor.com to see what guests had to say. If the word “nasty,” or “rash,” or “killed it with a shoe,” appears anywhere in the review, I move onto the next selection.

When it comes to rooms, it’s the doubles that go first because so many people share rooms to split the cost and want to avoid spooning with their mechanic. Even a Super 8 will go for $200+ a night, which isn’t exactly Super. I digress, but do you ever notice that whatever adjective are in the name of anything it’s the exact opposite of what they really are? Careful Movers = breaks everything, Speedy Glass = can’t get your car done for two days, Minute Lube = is not, Best Western is never best or even all that Western, Burger King = not only is it not king, it’s never made it through the palace gate, and so on? So, Super 8 will never, ever be super or 8 anything. At best, the name is merely a wish.

I’ve got to admit, the hotels at Monterey are one of the biggest turnoffs because they genuinely feel like a rip-off. You just helped pay for the new roof all on your own. Rooms are more than twice the normal going rate so book early! In my case I booked two rooms in anticipation of friends making a last minute decision to come. Turns out, I was able to get that room to someone in no time.

Lots to do in preparation for Monterey: First I had to decide what car to bring. My original plan was to fly in and just rent a car and not deal with one of my own cars. I then decided to go on the Lamborghini Giro, and therefore the Lamborghini would be the tool of choice for the week. This meant I had to make arrangements for a daily driver and get the Lamborghini ready for the trip. This also meant I had to get the front hood clear mask replaced on the SV after hitting either a beetle or humming bird at a very high speed last month. VERY high speed. No, VERY, VERY high speed. I mean really X&#$* high speed. Fast enough to reset my watch. I was far from any other cars and saw something small and black fly from right to left before it was turned to nothing but a slight sickening yet brief noise. Whatever it was didn’t go through to the paint, but it sure left a long mark in the clear mask. I’m glad that stuff was on there. Still it was $736.00 to fix the trunk lid, one square flat section of clear mask! Friends think I was gouged by more than whatever I hit. Ouch! Whatever I hit is probably very pleased.

Friends are driving one of my daily drives down to Monterey while we transport the SV with the other cars and I’ll fly down on Monday morning to receive the cars. The transport will load up around ten and have a full day and a half, almost two days to drive 850 miles with a nice easy arrival at San Jose sometime Monday morning. We’re loading up our cars on Saturday, August 7 right after Exotics at Redmond Town Center. On the transport will be a Ferrari 360, an Ultimate Aero (the one that set the world record) my LP670-4 SV, a Carrera GT, and possibly one other car. After we load our cars on the transport I’ll have another day to get ready before I fly down to San Jose. I’ll spend Monday night at the Fairmont and possibly have dinner along Santana Row. The others will pick up their cars on either Wednesday or Thursday at the Fairmont and head over to Monterey. Me, I’m heading north Tuesday morning to participate in the Giro along with Vic who co-hosts Exotics at RTC with me.

Now for my plug about the Fairmont. There is no finer hotel staff anywhere, period. I’ve never met hotel employees more committed to getting it right and taking absolute pride in their work. They are a terrific bunch of people and a Fairmont is ALWAYS my first choice. It’s the best!

Monterey logistics leading up to this week were a nightmare as usual for this kind of event. There are about twenty friends going, all at different times, all for different reasons, different events, different hotels, some driving cars, some flying, others transporting, etc., some showing, some not, some heading south to LA, then driving north in the Stampede, and all of us had to go on a spreadsheet so we knew where to find each other and when. We needed a wedding planner. We actually had a pre-Monterey meeting with most of the attendees just to coordinate as much as possible also to help first timers get some sense of what to expect. Google Docs was a huge help. It started with a list of events on a spreadsheet with details about the event. We then listed who was going and the contact info. We also have a list of who’s where and how they got there. Everyone entered their own information including various event. It was a terrific tool.

One group of three friends are driving to Monterey from Seattle, directly to the coast, then following 101 all the way to Leggett where they will jump on Highway 1 or “SR 1,” and as another friend put it, “...where they will spend the rest of their lives driving.” SR 1 is a spectacular drive, but extremely slow, and downright tedious after a while. They leave Monday and plan to arrive Wednesday night. If they get stuck behind an RV they can add a few extra days to that estimate. They are taking a 850 mile drive down I5 and turning it into a 1,100 mile drive by hitting the coast, plus they are driving extremely slow roads. Google Maps says it will take them 23 hours and 50 minutes or an average speed, according to Google, of 46 MPH. I seriously doubt they will go that fast. I’m guessing that with typical construction, dreaded chip-seal projects, stoplights, RVs, it’s closer to 30 hours of driving. Birds migrate south in less time. Whales could do it in less time. Worse, if the fog rolls in (its fog season) along SR 1 they will all be blowing chunks every ten miles while dreaming about straight roads. My advices is to skip the sardine snacks on that stretch. I just looked at the weather next week for Fort Brag and fog is in the forecast every morning.

Much of SR 1 is along some of the most spectacular cliffs anywhere in the world and it’s a drive worth doing in your lifetime, but horrible for back seat passengers. The other problem is not all of SR 1 has guardrails. Go off one of those and you’ll beat a Bugatti in acceleration. Grazing lands go straight to the cliff’s edge and I’m wondering how many cows die of sudden yet unexpected cliff rash. Forget that, for anyone riding in the back seat, you feel like you’re riding the dreaded “Mixer” at the county fair. Pass! I’m flying.

The very hub of Monterey is the big Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance classic car show on Sunday, August 15 which brings many of the finest and most valuable cars in the world. This is the focal point to everything. Concourse is a rather formal event with the economic extremes in attendance and all the pretentiousness to go with it. You have to go in with the mindset of people watching as a part of the show, but make no assumptions. Sometimes the scruffy looking dude who was dressed by his blind sister is the billionaire. Arrogant pricks are trucked in by the ton but in most cases, they are only pretending to be important so never mind and keep on enjoying the show. I’m 100% certain that the king of all pricks, the one who’d make it in Guinness if you could somehow measure it, is definitely in the crowd somewhere. Part of the side show fun is picking him out.

In the days and hours leading up to that show on Sunday is a giant list of activities from auto auctions to classic races, brand and club parties, drives, gatherings of all types, all centered around that one event at Pebble Beach. In other words ‘Monterey’ isn’t just one thing, its a giant list of menu items around a single main course. The real fun begins Thursday morning when the Pebble Beach cars are seen driving in a slow parade in Carmel. It’s really a lot of fun. You actually get to see the old classics running on the streets. They all park in the center of town giving you a chance to get close and look inside. Everyone is very respectful and people know better not to touch a damn thing.

This year, I’m participating in two events with my green Lamborghini LP670-4 SV. The first is the two night, two day drive event put on by Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A. called the Giro. This event begins on Tuesday in Calistoga, CA and ends in Monterey on Thursday night at the Monterey Aquarium. The second event is Concorso Italiano which takes place on Friday, August 15. They are the only two formal events that involve my car.

I will be the first to get down to Monterey to meet the cars as they come off the Transport. Most transport companies require someone to check the cars on and off the truck. This sounds simple enough, but it’s actually a process because every little scratch has to be noted somewhere. We’re using Reliable Carriers on this trip and they have a terrific reputation, even though the name has me extremely worried. These trucks are much longer than an average semi because the loads are not all that heavy in semi terms with five cars so they typically have larger living quarters for the drivers who often wait for events from start to finish rather than chase down another load. Reliable has somewhere around 200 trucks in the fleet. Most are owner-operators and I’ll bet most of them are at Monterey. If you’re as thrilled about semis as you are cars, it’s the place to be and they look like they have just as much fun as anyone.

Packing was a pain in the ass this time because of the limited space in the Lamborghini and because I’m doing the Giro first. Duffel bags are definitely the way to go this time. One set of clothes has to go with the car on the Giro, the other has to go in the daily drive for Monterey. This wasn’t that easy because of the limited space in the Lamborghini. Also with Vic Tiscareno joining me on the Giro, we’d both need to pack light for the Giro. Vic is a Ferrari guy and has a beautiful Scuderia so he will be spending a few days on the dark side. Hopefully he survives and nobody tattoos a Lamborghini logo on his ass in the middle of the night.

The Giro is an event that Lamborghini puts on every year and it’s always different and it always ends in Monterey. Looking at the itinerary, I see we’re in for a full couple of days. This event is not cheap and from what I hear Lamborghini goes to the extreme to make it fun.

 

It’s now Saturday morning and the SV is packed and ready to be loaded in the transport. We had a 40% chance of rain and there is only a slight chance they would be right about that. I’ve never read a weather report that was so vague for this morning. We’d normally call off Exotics at Redmond Town Center, but because the Ultimate Aero that set the world speed record will be there, we don’t want to disappoint.

Most people have no concept of how impressive that speed record actually is. It’s not a matter of just throwing a lot of horsepower onto a car and heading down a road. Look at every other speed record anywhere near those speeds and what do they all have in common? They were all achieved on extremely wide surfaces. As you get faster, the roads get narrower and even a slight curve can feel like a wheel-screeching hairpin. The margin for error decreases to the point where if anything goes wrong at all, the debris field would look like a recycling truck just exploded.

To get a car to go in a straight line at those speeds, you’ve got to have very precise aerodynamics and wind tunnel test them to the point where you have some idea that the car will stick and not become airborne from a minor tar snake. So now if you design too much down force into the equation, you could have serious tire problems at those speeds. Bugatti set their speed record on a track and so did the others in recent years. SSC did it on an actual road, complete with irregularities, winds, curves, and the potential for wondering coyotes. While Bugatti may have recently reclaimed the speed record after almost three years, SSC still has the bigger set of nuts by a long shot.

Junus Kahn and Jarrod Shelby dropped off the record setting Ultimate Aero at my house last night and we decided to just leave it in the trailer because there was a forecast for rain in Seattle like that’s something new. We got up at 6:00 AM, checked weather, posted that Exotics at Redmond Town Center was on that morning, offloaded the UA and headed into Redmond with the SV. We had a much larger turnout than expected and as usual, I was wearing my traditional safety vest, helping park cars, as I normally do when someone drives up in a older exotic with lots of attitude because in his eyes, I’m just a parking attendant. It’s kind of true actually, but I do it because I’m having fun.

The Reliable Carriers truck showed up on time and seemed to live up to their name so far. The driver was extremely nice and we were more than eager to help him load up. Their job is not easy. They have to do a lot of hand work just to get ready for the cars and it’s physically demanding. All of the cars went smoothly except for the Ultimate Aero which is wider than the rails on the loading platform. We knew we’d be fine once we were in the truck, but getting it in was a huge undertaking. We had to use stacked boards to raise the tires above the lip to get past a hinge in the lift gate. That took four of us. It was so tight that we decided to change our plans and chase the truck down to San Jose for the offload. I was to fly down on Monday, but instead, the three of us are in the car driving down and have to get ahead of our truck. We raced back to the house and got the last of the packing done and hit the road just three hours behind the truck.

We’re now in central Oregon and no sign of the truck yet. We decided that we’re going to take I5 as far south as Grant’s Pass then head over to 101 and go south from there. We’re spending the night at the highest star rated hotel in Grant’s Pass, the fabulous Holiday Inn Express. It lives up to two of the three words in the name.
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We’re now in Grant’s Pass at the not so fabulous Shilo Inn. Every other place was full by the time we got around to making reservations somewhere. Included in the price of our kennel is a Continental Breakfast, which again is neither. The term now means dry toast, stale cereal, and something that resembles juice and coffee. I’ve not been down to eat yet but I’ll bet there are hard boiled eggs and pastries cut in half. Somehow cutting them in half is supposed to make you eat less and it makes them seem more valuable.

The room was freezing cold this morning and when I turned on the heat there was that all familiar smell of burning dust, hair, and skin flakes. It smells like scorched coffee or burnt animal. Just one of the added features of this wonderful place. Oh yes, it was two stars and had a tube TV.

From here we’re heading over to the Coast as we have to be in San Jose by 8:00 AM tomorrow to receive the cars. Our plan is to hit Mystery of Trees, Eureka Old Town, and Avenue of the Giants on the way down. Should be a good drive.

 

Day 2

We made it to San Jose last night around 10:00 PM. We made only two stops of any length. Once at “Trees of Mystery” which is about as cheezy as it gets and another stop for lunch in the old town section of Eureka. One of the trees on the walk is listed as over 3,000 years old. There is this 50’ Paul Bunyan statue out front along with Babe the Blue Ox. They have hidden microphones and a giant speaker up high on Paul and someone sits in the building and converses with tourists. It’s really cheezy but they do a good job of entertaining people. It’s one of those stops where you could easily pass and never ever really feel like you missed something yet, there is something about it that entertains me.

We made a few other short stops along the way to eat and get gas (old joke I know). One was a stop at a Safeway where I bought every possible nasty thing I could find as a snack for my friends driving Highway 1. I dropped off their snacks at a little store in Leggett along with a note. I then sent them an e-mail and text to make sure they stop to pick up my little gift for the drive. I figure if they are going to blow beats, why not give them something worth blowing.

It was about ten hours of driving from Grant’s Pass to San Jose, but what a great drive. I still think Avenue of the Giants would be an amazing place to take the cars, but there is no margin for error and there are just too many RVs to make it fun in the summer. If you hit one of those trees at high speed it wouldn’t so much a shake a pinecone loose. The largest we saw was 19 feet in diameter and 300’ tall. I can’t imagine running into one. I think when you hit a concrete wall you sort of have this expectation that it will be hard, but with a tree, we feel cheated because we expect it to give a little, to knock something loose. Not here. I doubt you’d scuff up the bark.

We didn’t see any interesting cars along the route and not a single car looking like it had anything to do with Monterey. We thought we’d run into the Pebble Beach contestants that are on a driving trip from my home town of Kirkland, WA down to Pebble Beach. The oldest car driven down is a 1902 Mercedes. They left on Tuesday morning, August 3 and are driving 250 mile a day stretches with no freeway miles anywhere. We never saw them in route.

The driver wants to offload the cars at 8 AM this morning so I’ll have about 24 hours to play around San Jose before heading up to the Giro. I’ll write more after we offload the cars.

 

We just completed day 3 and it’s now early in the morning on day 4. We were up early yesterday morning in preparation for receiving the cars. Waiting across the street from the front drive of the Fairmont was the Reliable Carriers truck ready to offload.

The Ultimate Aero is an extremely tight fit and almost two inches wider than a Murcielago at 82”. The width of the deck to the four inch rails is about 83” so the Murcielago can make it off without too much problem but you have to inch it out. The UA, because it’s so wide has to be lifted over the rail height on both sides using several 2X4s and even then it’s an extremely difficult process because of how the body flairs past the tires. You literally inch the cars out of the truck and it’s not a process undertaken by the carrier and instead he directs you to drive it off and nothing is more unnerving than to back off onto a platform with a 7’ drop. The entire process went very smoothly.

We had to spend about an hour getting the cars cleaned up and ready for the week. Not much else happened during the day but it was nice to not be moving for a day. We did make a quick trip to the mall and that was uneventful. Junus and I both had a lot of e-mail to catch up on and just pin down plans for the week at Monterey.

This is a good time to explain how this all works. I’m fairly active on a handful of forums, some I mostly just read, others I post rather often depending on the topic and the level of discussion. When I wanted to write something in real time, I knew I’d have a very limited amount of time and there are actually three others who work behind the scenes. It starts with my assistant Kim who’s been terrific at coordinating all the schedules, reservations, logistics, and is an overall pleasant person. After working with me for almost thirteen years now, she still make me look good with others around me. Every guy I know wants to marry her and she’s already married and has been for a long time. A typical conversation after first introduction, “Is she...?” “Yea, she’s married...”

Second, we wanted to get as much content on this drive as possible and not just one or two pictures. Christian D and Tyler W are working behind the scenes on this side of it. I upload all photos and soon we will have some video to a central site and they go through all of it and filter out the relevant pictures. This saves me a ton of time so I can focus on writing. This is not easy managing this many forums and without their help this would all be a lot less content. A giant thanks to all three for making this work this week.

Now, back to the story.

As usual, the Fairmont San Jose was extremely professional and knew exactly what cars needed to go where and why. They really know there stuff and can’t do enough for exotic owners. They just can’t do enough for you and this is every Fairmont so if you’re a car guy traveling with that special car, or want to see incredible cars, go to a Fairmont. Within car circles, it’s where I see the most interesting stuff. They didn’t pay me to say this either. It’s just an amazing place when it comes to customer service.

Meanwhile, the wonderful experience at the Fairmont is in sharp contrast to the poorly managed Hotel Valencia on Santana Row who charged us $20.00 to park in front of their hotel for three hours. That’s not terribly unreasonable until we were ready to depart just before our time expired. A bunch of hotel patrons where standing looking at the cars and we were stuck answering the usual car questions. As I walked over to retrieve our keys, the valet captain said it would be another $20.00 for running over the time by less than 15 minutes! They saw is standing in front of our cars and they could easily have said we were going to run over on our time and they would have to charge us. That would have been the professional, courteous thing to do, but no, not at the Hotel Valencia. What a scam. What horrible customer service too. I have no plans to ever stay at the Hotel Valencia. I know if I were manager, I’d fire that guy in a heartbeat for such narrow minded thinking. Even the Fairmont understand that top of the mind awareness is really important to the restaurant and hotel trade and to have that, you’ve got to create positive memorable experiences. Hotel Valencia would rather get the twenty bucks and I’d rather not ever go back so I paid my toll, thank you. Hotel Valencia sucks.

Last night as we pulled into the Fairmont, someone was there with a beautiful balloon white 16M Scuderia. I was parking my SV when they came out to the circle at the Fairmont, got in their car and left. It’s really unusual for exotic owners to not chat for a few minutes, but he just left without saying a word. That actually doesn’t happen very often. I didn’t get a chance to look at or photograph his car. Most exotic owners are extremely nice people and love to chat, especially about cars. The guys who are the real pricks are the ones who borrowed the car or rented it. Somehow, they think they have to act that way or something. I don’t get it.

Today is the first day of the Giro. Vic just flew in and will be my passenger. I’ll write more and respond to more threads when we arrive at the hotel.
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Day 4

The Fairmont was beginning to fill up with serious car guys with large collections who were there taking it easy, getting business done before heading over to Monterey. It was a lot of fun chatting with everyone before we left the hotel around noon. There was a guy wearing a giant wrestling belt and he was carrying a second one. Apparently there was wrestling going on someplace near the hotel so I asked if I could borrow the belts for a picture. I just want to make it clear I didn’t win those belts.

We were running low on gas and there were surprisingly few gas stations on 29. We finally got to one but the pump wasn’t working properly. We managed to pump a whopping $0.30 in the tank. That worked out to 0.087 gallons of gas. Enough to shorten a walk to the next gas station by about 4,582 feet, which was about the distance to the next station. We were very low and the pump would only allow us to add $75.00 in gas. Isn’t that amazing that the gas or credit card companies can’t trust you to buy more than $75.00 in gas? Who picked that number? Did they do some scientific study? Why $75? Seems completely arbitrary and just short of a full tank, just enough to annoy the hell out of me. It’s like going to dinner and finding out that I’m only good for 95% of whatever I want to eat. I then had to add another three bucks just to fill it so it took three tries to fill the car.

We made it up to Solage in Calistoga around 3:00 PM, roughly an hour before check in. When we arrived we were immediately directed to a sectioned off area of the parking lot at the Solage. There were a hand full of cars from Canada, and a few from other parts of the US. There were few from California. I’m guessing they will arrive later. I’d guess there are about fifteen cars here already. I don’t know how many in total. I’ve yet to meet anyone other than the folks checking us in. So far everything has gone smoothly and Lamborghini seems to be doing a terrific job with organizing everyone.

I’m sitting outside in the sun as I write this. I’m going to brulet my own head if I stay outside much longer. More later...
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Day 5

It’s now very early in the morning here on Day 5 of the trip. I’ve had very little sleep from the day we left Seattle and it’s starting to catch up with me. We’ve got to be at breakfast at 7:00 AM and engines start at 8 AM sharp. It will be a full day for sure. Lots to do. I’ll write more as I can and I apologize for not getting responses out. I’m writing this in email form- sending it off to Christian who’s then posting it for me so we can get this all to you as quickly as possible.

Evening at the Giro-
The event kicked off with a welcome from management followed by a terrific dinner. Everything about it was outstanding. It was nice to have the open conversation about the brand and where it’s going. What was interesting about the Giro was the cross section of participants. They come in all shapes, sizes, and types and there is no way to stereotype this group. About the only thing they have in common is they love their cars. Everyone who’s attending this year’s Giro is an enthusiast first. That’s why they are willing to spend the money to attend and Lamborghini takes it seriously. You get the impression that if there is a way to do it better, they will do it. It was the first time I’ve met Wolfgang Hoffmann who took over for Pietro to run US
operations.

I had to roast at least one marshmallow in the fire pit.

Symbolic of San Diego brought up a Rosso Vik Superleggera that was one of the most stunning cars I’ve seen in a long time. I think it’s the combination of the carbon fiber, deep red paint and black accents. It’s unquestionably the event stealer for me. The yellow car is also stunning, but that red in that particular model is really something. Everything about it is gorgeous.

There was no talk about anything in the works, but I don’t think the group was expecting it either. What was also interesting about the Giro is that nobody seems to know each other. Manfred said it was all new faces. This year’s Giro came from the request for less travel from place to place where you have to be up early to check out every morning. Instead they decided to keep the group in one resort location and drive from there making it easy for people to relax a bit more yet still take in the driving time.
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Every car gets their own little cabin. This is the courtyard view. The rooms are actually very nice.
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One of the very few remaining SV's not in some owner's hands.
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Dinner! Perfect!
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I should have them up tonight.

 

Day 5- Morning

I got up at 4:00 AM to get some of the writing done and get caught up on email before breakfast. At 7:00 AM sharp we all met for breakfast in the large meeting room were the four cars were parked the night before. Maurizio Reggiani joined us for breakfast after getting in late last night. Maurizio is head of R&D at Lamborghini and is truly one of the nice guys in the company. He sat at our table and gave us a little time to catch up. I saw him in Seattle just about six weeks ago. Maurizio is really an amazing guy because of his keen understanding of what Lamborghini is all about and his commitment to do something really unique. It’s always a pleasure to sit down with him. It’s similar with Manfred Fitzgerald, Director of Branding and Design, and the two together make an interesting pair. I’ve yet to have much time to sit down and chat with Wolfgang Hoffmann and get to know the guy. It’s hard to tell if he’s the guy to improve things in the US or not. So far I have no impression.

After our morning breakfast buffet, we started our engines at 8:15 AM and drove down to Infineon Raceway to spend some time karting and to take our cars on the track. The drive down was completely random because of traffic and no plans to keep the group together in any way, we just drove.

As we approached a four way stop, an old Bugatti on the tour from Kirkland, WA to Pebble Beach joined our procession along with other cars in the tour. The car is from the Seattle area I believe, and I just saw it in Kirkland last Monday as they were about to start south. What a beauty, but the driver and passenger never waved and I think were glad to see us get out of their way.

I’ve not been in a kart of any kind in years. Prior to that, as a kid I probably got a ride in a shopping cart. I think the last time I went karting was 1994 and those carts were as dangerous as they come, with no safety gear of any kind. Our karting safety orientation made me a little nervous, but once we were out there, it was a great experience. I can see the benefit of skill building. We made go-carts as kids out of lawnmower motors, wood and whatever else we could find.

I’ve got to admit, Lamborghini management has obviously learned a thing or two about driving as I was lapped twice by Winkelmann himself. After getting a stern warning about damage to the carts in our orientation class, I was more concerned about that than keeping up with him. It was a lot of fun and nobody died.

After our time karting, we took a short bus ride back to our cars to have our turn with our cars on the track. It started with a safety session and the groups were broken down into four cars at a time led by a pace car.

Each lap was progressively faster with radio instructions given to us on each turn. There was one short stretch where I could get up to 116, but that was about it.

I shot external video with the GoPro and internal video with the HD camera. It’s taken all night to upload the first 6G of video and I have a lot more so it may take a day or two to get all the video uploaded and some clips edited down. Vic also shot a lot of video, and together we shot over 700 photos.

I got to catch a glimpse of Maurizio running a couple of laps in the new Superleggera and his driving is very impressive. In fact when the car started out, I had no idea who it was and thought it was Balboni running a few laps. It’s now the morning of Day 6, but I’ve got to get moving. Yesterday was a very long day and I’ve got a lot more writing to do.
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Here you go! Car was amazing.
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Judging at the Concorso Italiano today...I didn't realize these were the judges until this moment:
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A short video of us detailing the SV at the Concorso Italiano after a rainstorm the night before (and getting the last of the track day grime off).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jk_V4p0lAyY

 

A little teaser from the Lamborghini Giro track day event at Infineon Raceway. On-board and in-car camera footage coming soon...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdh0BGk5okY

 

Day 5 Part Two

Sorry I couldn’t write more to finish off the events of day 5 but it was a very long day.

I was thinking about ways to describe the people who attended the Giro. First a little context, this is a very expensive event; It’s $5,700 plus the cost of transporting your car to and from the event, the cost of hotels once you’re in Monterey, food and event tickets outside of the event. Some spent more than $3,000 to transport their cars each way so it’s easily a $17,000+ event or more for many of the attendees. By the time you add airfare, etc, it’s just not cheap. I tried to look for some generalizations within the group and couldn’t find any stereotype that fit. There were very few. The group spanned a wide spectrum of ages, backgrounds,\ interests, style of dress, and habits, etc. They all love the Lamborghini brand and love their cars. If you saw this group away from their cars, you’d have a hard time knowing how they were all connected. You’d all pick the oldest guy and guess it was their retirement party from some small company. It’s that diverse. What they almost all have in common is that they are self-reliant, typically business owners and all see to do something really, really well. Some within the group are staggeringly wealthy and others are comfortable enough to own a Lamborghini and spend what it takes to attend. The one thing most have in common is self-reliance and an ability to get out of their own way. You didn’t hear anyone fuss about anything and instead, this same group is most likely to see the positive in just about everything.

On the afternoon of Day 5 people had two choices, one was to go on another drive and others had time to relax at the resort. I needed the time to sit and write and upload pictures and video. Vic who came with me took the time to go drive the new Superleggera and do half the ride as passenger with Balboni. He came back with the biggest possible grin on his face. He kept saying Balboni knows how to drive. That’s like saying Julia Child knows how to cook. While Vic loves his Scuderia, he still very much liked the new Superleggera. I’ll have Vic post something about his drive and ride with Valentino.

That evening was a bus ride to cask room of the Merryvale Vineyards winery. It began with a 30 minute wine tasting followed by dinner in what reminded me of Harry Potter’s dining room. We sat along one very long candle lit table with management standing up to do a little talk about the company. Again the they remained at tight-lipped as ever about what’s next and it’s the one area where you feel the divide between customers and the factory. The dinner conversation was a lot of fun. I was sitting next to someone who frequently rides to various destinations by private rail car. He’s a train fanatic and loves model trains. There were others with large car collections, some were working on interesting business projects, and others were retired, just having fun.
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Day 6

The day began with a morning breakfast buffet followed by packing for Monterey. The attention to detail by Lamborghini at every step was very impressive. Lamborghini luggage tags were nicely laid out for our bags so they could be dropped off at our hotel. No need to try and stuff everything into the front of the car. Now there was room for the antlers you bought at the corner market.

We left for a drive from Calistoga directly to the coast. The drive started out normal enough, however some made the mistake of setting their GPS rather than follow the map which caused some drivers to jump on 101 rather than continue over the freeway to make our way towards Highway 116 and on to Highway 1, spreading us all out. It looked like someone just dumped a bag of skittles, cars went everywhere. I tried to chase Balboni and catch up to him in order to get him turned around, but he was gone. What was I thinking? It’s Balboni driving! I’d be lucky if I could just catch up and that’s only if he had a flat. After some hand waving, we got a big chunk of the group turned around and headed in the right direction, but after a while, many of those in front made one or more wrong turns and we were suddenly by ourselves until we hit the coast and all managed to find the scenic stop for some group photos; and everyone managed to arrive within a few minutes of each other.

The drive in route was spectacular and remains some of the best roads in the world to drive, unless you're in fog... Then you’re looking for a leak proof yet disposable puke receptacle. I had one close call when a large flatbed semi in an oncoming lane cut well into my lane on a hairpin curve. I was waiting for the sound of crunching carbon fiber as he just missed the rear left corner of my car. We left the scenic lookout with all 21 cars and we remained the last car so we could shoot some video with the GoPro. All of that should be uploaded sometime soon, it’s a lot of video!

The procession of 21 cars looked impressive as it headed down Highway 1. As we approached a small town, a Prius jumped in and woven in at the end of the long procession of cars... A PRIUS! Ugh! Once again we reached another main intersection and the group focused on their GPS rather than the map and we were divided up one more time, I was in a group of about ten cars. It all worked out because many were ready to get to our destination and relax rather than take on more curvy roads. The difference in arrival times was very short so which ever route someone took worked out to be about the same.

For those of you doing organized drives, I highly recommend radios. In Seattle, we follow a few simple rules. You have one leader; you never pass the leader, and you always follow their direction. We also pre assign regrouping locations along the way and we make sure the last car knows the route and that everyone has a radio. You can’t believe how much more fun they are because you end up in the group conversation and you actually see more. Your vision actually widens because someone is pointing out all the weird little side shows along the way. If there is a guy running around naked on the freeway, everyone has a chance to see it rather than hear the story when you arrive. It’s not just about keeping a group together, you discover more of everything in route. It also helps to use the handsets with the headsets. They also help keep everyone safe as you don’t have to pull over to discuss anything.


Here is what we use:

http://www.amazon.com/Midland-GXT1000VP4-36-Mile-50-Channel-Two-Way/dp/B001WMFYH4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1281880448&sr=8-1



These are the headsets we use:

www.amazon.com/Midland-AVPH3-Transparent-Security-Headsets/dp/B000CNAEEW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1281880562&sr=8-2



They are cheap, they work, and they pay for themselves in saved fuel, time, tickets, handcuffs and complicated bail arrangements. As for radar detectors, the majority of us use Valentine One. There are expensive jammer installations, etc., but when using radios, the guys with the Valentine Ones always seem to know what’s going on first. Some have both. The only time I ever got a speeding ticket was the one time I didn’t turn on my radar detector while I was in the middle of traffic surrounded by other cars. Don’t think of radar detectors as a method of breaking the law, think of them as a reminder to keep your speed in check or a convenient potential handcuff alarm. Far less painful than a Tazer for “resisting” arrest. Resisting arrest in some small towns requires nothing more than a simple hello.

We were able to get a beautiful line of Lamborghinis when we arrived at Cavallo Point for lunch so those shots will look terrific. What a great location for a car event! It’s the old military base converted into a resort. It’s funny how if you call it a resort, you can actually charge people to do pushups. The US military needs to simply rebrand themselves as a fitness camp. Just think of the colorful enticing brochure.

After lunch it was off for our last drive. Once again it began with complete and total chaos without anyone actually leading the group. Someone in the group finally took charge and got the entire group onto the Golden Gate Bridge for a nice long line of cars into San Francisco. I want to see those shots. Once we got through the toll booth, that was the last time the group was ever seen again. We all stuck with Highway 1, but we were all very scattered by the time we got through San Francisco. Cars had to make fuel stops along the way and we didn’t return as a group until the farewell dinner at the Aquarium. A few of us arrived early and one of the Aquarium tour guides explained that they were about to shut down one of the large tanks and were looking for homes for the remaining fish... I suddenly understood tonight’s menu.

The valets at the Aquarium failed my quiz so I went to dinner a little nervous about my car. I always ask the valets if they know how to put a Lamborghini with E-gear in reverse. Everyone said yes, and as I went down the line, every one gave me the wrong answer and finally one said the right answer (I’m not posting the right answer here in case a valet is reading). When they don’t know the correct answer, I bust them for not truly being familiar with the car. The only valet I’d let drive the car was the one who could also accurately describe how to mange the car when stationary.

The final dinner was very fun. It included a slide show of the event and that was a lot of fun because by now we had actually made friends with many of the Giro participants. By the time we got to our room at the Hilton we were all exhausted and had to start thinking about Concorso Italiano in the morning.
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Day 7

It’s now Concorso Italiano Day at Laguna Seca Golf Ranch just a few miles from our hotel. The name sounds like a place where they raise golf balls. We got up extremely early to try and clean up the car but it was still misting so badly that it was difficult to keep the car dry. I wanted to get an early start to get a better parking spot and to get situated for the day. We immediately began cleaning up the car and it was a real mess from the drive. Vic, Hope and I got to work cleaning up my car and finished the job just as the doors opened.

I was immediately told that I won something and that I should drive my car to the podium. I’ve not been to this show before so I had no idea what to expect. I ran into a lot of forum members who’ve been following this from the day I began. I ran into so many people I know from both Orange County and the Seattle area and it was a lot of fun to catch up. I drove up on stage and was surprised to hear that I won anything. I just assumed they wanted to see the car. I won third in the Lamborghini category. The two more deserving cars were a white Countache and beautiful red Miura. We represented the three Italian flag colors very well. People kept asking me what I won and I kept telling them I won best green SV in the show. Some assumed I was serious and acted all happy and stuff.

The day flew by and I found a clear shot to leave right at 4:00 PM without too much traffic. Departure traffic wasn’t bad until we hit the down slope towards town. We just sat without moving more than 100 feet for almost an hour, but we were so tired that we didn’t really care. It was nice just to be sitting down.

Later that same night I got my first look at the new Ultimate Aero full size model at a private viewing in a large tent outside of a house. After seeing the shape and design of the car, I believe it hits some important points given the car’s mission. I don’t want to say more than that. I was also so tired from the day’s show and a lack of sleep that it was difficult to fully comprehend the model. It made for a strange Friday evening.
I will say this about SSC, they are serious about taking their cars far beyond expectation. As car design moves closer and closer to the 300 MPH mark, different design rules apply. For that reason, one has to reset the expectations they have in automotive design.

By the time we got back to the hotel, I was so tired my eyes were practically touching. I am looking forward to Carmel By the Sea on Day 8.
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