Centurion
Apex Apex Predator
Thanks to the Royal Wedding on Friday and a public bank holiday this coming Monday, the UK has been treated to a four day long weekend. Conveniently “Supercars and Breakfast” in Goodwood was slated for this Sunday. About a 90min drive from London a Garmin GPS guided us, me and fellow GCF member James to Goodwood. We arrived about 08:15am somewhat bleary-eyed from waking up at the anti-social hours of 05:30am this morning. However the sight of high octane guzzling machines did ignite us to into spirit rather quickly.
Arriving at the parking lot we were greeted with a cavalcade of cars arriving to park at a grass field the size of three football pitches. We were amazed by the diversity of cars arriving ranging from your average daily driver hatchback and VW Passat to race legal cars and vintage British cars – whoever unequal and different the cars were, the drivers and passengers were united by one thing, an unhealthy obsession with cars. This wasn’t your average crowd at on public days at car shows, these were hordes of people who subconsciously know so much about cars that they could author a 300 page encyclopaedia about their favourite manufacturers, tuners and brake suppliers.
It was a mental overload to be lingering amongst several hundreds of cylinders, but we badly needed to eat breakfast and got cracking on buying the “good English breakfast”. Observe the quotation marks as some continental Europeans might consider that phrase to be an oxymoron. Nevertheless I gobbled down my oversized mushroom, twin sausages, scrambled eggs and baked beans faster than a Murcielago Roaster owner can mount down the roof of his car. Satisfaction achieved!
Again, this was an event for petrol head but most importantly people bewildered by the engineering or racing cars, so any sports car worth its salt was there, and everywhere you walked you could hear human twitter and mutter about engines, latest GT3 RS 4.0 and engine configurations. The arsenal of supercars at the event certainly reflected the interest of the visitors. Poser cars like Range Rovers, Bentleys, Rollers or Merc AMGs, Cayenne were underrepresented both in the parking lots and at the actually venue. Lotus, Morgan, Noble and AC Cobras were aplenty and I really mean aplenty. There is a huge community of people loving light weight two seater cars. Every other 996 GT3 had stickers from racing circuits. Quite a few cars have stickers from multiple tracks.
Star of the show? Surprisingly the LF-A showed up in its best paint job and it was one hell of a crowd pleaser with. A constant group of people orbiting around body shell concealing one of the best engines on the market today. It’s an absolute stunner in the metal. Ferraris were near unlimited in numbers. Whatever Ferrari you can think off was there in multiple numbers with drivers dressed in Scuderia red t-shirts or jumpers with the prancing horse. Here and there Mclaren and Renault F1 fans could be spotted rocking official team gear.
The climax of the event was when cars were departing from the venue onto the main country road. Aligned at the T-shaped intersection were several visitors with an insatiable pregnancy of lust for engine roars, burnt rubber and civilized hoonage. Quite a few drivers put on a show pushing their engines hard to the pleasure of the cheering spectators. Expectedly the Maseratis sounded spectacular and so did the V12 Ferraris as well as the Astons. Most extra-terrestrial were two Tesla Roadsters which rolled up in silent boredom but they floored it an in no time they were no longer in sight. People were absolutely gob smacked at how a car could be lightning fast without any audible feedback. Don’t forget that the Tesla Roadster has a flat torque curve so the power deliver is instant. What car! Eventually all cars had almost left but a few of us simply refused to leave until we had seen the big 16 cylinder daddy, the uber bug, Bugatti Veyron. Before it rolled out from around the corner it was fronted by a group of running people demanding to a percentage of its power potential. The retractable spoiler was tall as a kite in the air ready for take-off. Rolled onto the main road, it briefly stopped. I gasped for a deep breath in anticipation for something amazing. The car floored it and drove off in blistering speed even giving us a tiny slide of action and then it was gone. After that point the 10 year old in me was peaked and I headed back to the parking lot with James and we drove back to London happy about the positive emotional value we had left with.
Arriving at the parking lot we were greeted with a cavalcade of cars arriving to park at a grass field the size of three football pitches. We were amazed by the diversity of cars arriving ranging from your average daily driver hatchback and VW Passat to race legal cars and vintage British cars – whoever unequal and different the cars were, the drivers and passengers were united by one thing, an unhealthy obsession with cars. This wasn’t your average crowd at on public days at car shows, these were hordes of people who subconsciously know so much about cars that they could author a 300 page encyclopaedia about their favourite manufacturers, tuners and brake suppliers.
It was a mental overload to be lingering amongst several hundreds of cylinders, but we badly needed to eat breakfast and got cracking on buying the “good English breakfast”. Observe the quotation marks as some continental Europeans might consider that phrase to be an oxymoron. Nevertheless I gobbled down my oversized mushroom, twin sausages, scrambled eggs and baked beans faster than a Murcielago Roaster owner can mount down the roof of his car. Satisfaction achieved!
Again, this was an event for petrol head but most importantly people bewildered by the engineering or racing cars, so any sports car worth its salt was there, and everywhere you walked you could hear human twitter and mutter about engines, latest GT3 RS 4.0 and engine configurations. The arsenal of supercars at the event certainly reflected the interest of the visitors. Poser cars like Range Rovers, Bentleys, Rollers or Merc AMGs, Cayenne were underrepresented both in the parking lots and at the actually venue. Lotus, Morgan, Noble and AC Cobras were aplenty and I really mean aplenty. There is a huge community of people loving light weight two seater cars. Every other 996 GT3 had stickers from racing circuits. Quite a few cars have stickers from multiple tracks.
Star of the show? Surprisingly the LF-A showed up in its best paint job and it was one hell of a crowd pleaser with. A constant group of people orbiting around body shell concealing one of the best engines on the market today. It’s an absolute stunner in the metal. Ferraris were near unlimited in numbers. Whatever Ferrari you can think off was there in multiple numbers with drivers dressed in Scuderia red t-shirts or jumpers with the prancing horse. Here and there Mclaren and Renault F1 fans could be spotted rocking official team gear.
The climax of the event was when cars were departing from the venue onto the main country road. Aligned at the T-shaped intersection were several visitors with an insatiable pregnancy of lust for engine roars, burnt rubber and civilized hoonage. Quite a few drivers put on a show pushing their engines hard to the pleasure of the cheering spectators. Expectedly the Maseratis sounded spectacular and so did the V12 Ferraris as well as the Astons. Most extra-terrestrial were two Tesla Roadsters which rolled up in silent boredom but they floored it an in no time they were no longer in sight. People were absolutely gob smacked at how a car could be lightning fast without any audible feedback. Don’t forget that the Tesla Roadster has a flat torque curve so the power deliver is instant. What car! Eventually all cars had almost left but a few of us simply refused to leave until we had seen the big 16 cylinder daddy, the uber bug, Bugatti Veyron. Before it rolled out from around the corner it was fronted by a group of running people demanding to a percentage of its power potential. The retractable spoiler was tall as a kite in the air ready for take-off. Rolled onto the main road, it briefly stopped. I gasped for a deep breath in anticipation for something amazing. The car floored it and drove off in blistering speed even giving us a tiny slide of action and then it was gone. After that point the 10 year old in me was peaked and I headed back to the parking lot with James and we drove back to London happy about the positive emotional value we had left with.
