Exotic Car Driving Experience... My experience.

[Jims5543]

Go look at their site first then read my review.

http://www.miamiexoticautoracing.com/

My wife purchased 3 laps in a Ferrari F430 for our anniversary last year, after two cancelled appointments by them, one for the car breaking down the other for bad weather, I finally was able to do an event today.

This is me driving said Ferrari:


The venue was the Miami Homestead Speedway, the track layout was bullshit they cut out a few turns to shorten the track down a lot and to be honest was a buzz kill.


First, if you never have done a track day, this is a great way to be introduced to one, if you are a track tard. Then this is not for you unless you want to try to piss off the staff as you push to explore the real boundaries of the car you are driving.

I have video, both from them and one of my own (I had a helmet mounted cam) that I will post once I am home.  I know this track well, I have participated in 3 track days on this track in my 400RWHP  RX7 that weighed 2650 lbs and ran on 10" wide Hoosier Slicks. It had ZERO electronic nannies and was a handful.

This F430 as it was set up, was like driving a Toyota Camry and I am not joking.


I am pretty sure they had it set up for street and not track, this means VERY intrusive electronic Nannies.  Through the last couple of turns, which are very tight 2nd gear turns, I felt like I had no control over the accelerator. There was nothing there, it would take a good 2 seconds for the throttle to catch up with me. It was very frustrating to say the least.

So back to my 3 laps...

During the out lap I took it easy, tried to get a feel for the car, and re-introduce myself to the track, it had been a few years but it was right where I left it.  Easy to pick back up except for their cutting out 4 turns to shorten the experience... which was obvious and sucked. One thing I noticed was that the driving instructor was telling me to brake a lot earlier than I was accustomed to. We were braking 350' out from the turn in point.

For reference, in my RX7 I could brake 200' and even 150' from the turn in trail braking as needed to rotate the car. This F430 is supposed to be superior to my RX7 in the braking category (I would argue with this because of the driving instructor and what I have experienced at track days versus them) and I tried to brake later on the second lap and this caused problems...

I hit the start / finish line with my foot plastered into the floor, to be honest, compared to what I am used to on the track, this F430 is just slow... I come up on the first kink leading to turn one, I want to keep my foot in it, only to hear the instructor yelling to lift, I ignore him, lifting now would not end well, better to keep the back end planted as we round this turn and the second we straighten out, boom! hard on the brakes for a second gear turn, sweeping through the turn, I hit it hard towards the next turn, I hit the paddle shifter forcing this pathetic Ferrari to rotate into turn 3 while in second gear and just fucking hit the apex perfect, car is rotating just the way I want, and drop the hammer into turn 3, it is at this point I have the Driving Instructor yelling in protest, I have no idea why, we just witnessed perfection, I ignore him again and blast through turn 4 onto a 1/4 mile straight.  He then tells me that was amazing but he cannot let me drive like that.... WTF!!! Is this not a performance driving experience, is this not a race track, is this not a Ferrari F430? Seriously. WTF?

So I back it off, I just cruise the last lap with the TC kicking in to no end and just finish my last lap sedately.  He then asks me on the cool down lap what my driving experience is because he says I can handle a car well. I tell him about my old RX7 and he makes some sort of exclamation about it. 


In the end, this was fun because I got to tear ut up with a F430, it confirmed my opinion, it is much slower than my old RX7.  (Makes me want to buy it back) It was a nice car, but I prefer my old RX7 over it, I am about to send an email to the owner of it and offer to buy it back.

The experience itself was frustrating, it was obvious there was no organization within the staff, the experience they are peddling online is not what they do when you are there.

They say they want you to go as fast as they feel you can handle, well, that is not true, because I was bored and could handle a lot more and was not allowed to push to it.

Homestead is a tricky track, a couple of turns can catch you out, you have to be careful, they look faster than they actually are and what you think is a 3rd gear turn is really a 2nd gear one. I already know this and demonstrated it to the instructor.  He was programmed to keep you going slow.

So in the end, the car was cool, my RX7 was better, and the venue is good for people that have never driven a fast car before.

I am in Miami right now for the evening, staying in Brickel Village for the night. Once I get home tomorrow I will hopefully upload some vids.

Views from my hotel room:

[94touring]

That's cool, yet sucky.   I want my 7 back too.  Nothing compares.

[Jims5543]

Here is my helmet cam video, the $75 video package my poor wife bought is not even worth uploading, completely out of focus and just terrible.

http://youtu.be/mCkdw5YnZ-w

It will be about 2 hours before it will be done uploading and live.  You will just love the never ending barking of orders.  Watching it now, it was probably the most frustrated I have ever been in a car with a driving instructor.

I love good instruction, I love constructive input to make me a better driver, I do not like when I am being told to slow down just because...

This is a lie on their website:

We have NO Restrictions on how fast you are allowed to drive our cars.  As a matter of fact, our instructors' main objective is to get you driving around the race track as fast as you can while keeping you safe.  SAFETY is our number one priorty at all times!  Keeping that in mind, our instructors will make sure that you get to push each car to its limits.

There is not a single moment when I made him feel unsafe, as a matter of fact the moment when he tells me this is not a racing school, was a 2nd gear corner. 50MPH... tops.. He backing me off the car was contrary to what is advertised. They want timid people who have never driven a fast car to go there, someone with some seat time and knows the track will be frustrated.

I was frustrated because I could feel the brakes on this car was amazing and I could not use them, instead I had to drag them an extra 200 feet which, anyone who knows track racing, is more abusive on the brakes than going deep and hard.. yeah I typed that.. the brakes prefer it that way, this dragging them along heats them up too much and causes more wear.

This is the track layout. After turn 6 we made a u-turn into turn 13 essentially taking away a good portion of the track, turns 7-10 are all really different and fun turns, 6 normally flows into 7 and now it was very awkward and I was told to slow way down for it because we were driving over curbing.

Here is an entire lap on the proper layout, this video was probably my 4th or 5th lap ever on this track with an instructor in the car.
http://www.streetfire.net/video/side-view-cam-and-smoke-cam-on-1987-rx7-at-chin_33504.htm

This was at the end of the second day that weekend after 40-50 laps and knowing where I could push. Ignore the company BS, it was something I was going to get off the ground with my brother it was a long story..
http://www.streetfire.net/video/cesirofilmscomfront-bumper-mount-camera-on-a-ma_33308.htm

[94touring]

deep and hard