My first ride in an F40

I got my first passenger ride in a F40 last month. This was at the Texas World Speedway race track at College Station.

The F40 is a phenomenal car. I was driven by a racing driver with lots of junior Formula experience and he drove the car superbly - apexing corners correctly, braking at the right moments. It was heaven.

Despite having street Michelin PS2s, the car seemed to have tremendous traction. The car was really fast in the straight line as well hitting something like 160 mph on the front straight!

I read here on fchat about owners complaining about the stock F40 brakes being poor but Steve (the driver) said that he had no issues with the stock brakes. Even the owner of the car said it braked poorly compared to his RUFs and other beasts. I think this more a litmus test of the driver than the car. He said you really need to use press hard with your foot but it gets the job done. The car had done several laps at 9/20ths and had no fade to speak of.

The car accelerated pretty smoothly till about 4000 rpm or so and then it just accelerated like a rocket when the turbos kicked in. A thrill ride indeed!!!

Steve said the F40 was his favorite car to drive on the track (and he has driven a lot of exotics and race cars) - fantastically direct steering, very responsive handling with no slack or slop anywhere. I can see how this car can scare the s**t out of a ham fisted or booted driver but in the hands of the gifted it is like a bloody video game.

I loved my 10 minutes in the F40 - it was better than the feeling I got driving my Ferrari 348 all day long on the track.

To all those of you that have F40s - you lucky dogs.
To all those of you with F40s and haven't taken it to a track - Shame on you! You are missing the best part of owning one.
To all those of you with F40s and keeping it as garage queens - I'm calling the SPCF40 (Society for Prevention of Cruelty to F40s).
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Exactly!