Ferrari Trackday - F430 passenger ride!
 

I’ve been waiting for the day to get in an F430 and finally it arrived – I knew in August it will happen anyway but its bonus to get a taste beforehand.

There was an invite-only trackday for customers of the local exotic car dealer, and the owner of the 328 was kind enough to invite me along as his passenger.

It didn’t take long for the owner of the F430 F1 Spider to offer me a ride and I obviously jumped at it! This one came with the ceramic brakes and do they stop or what…..I nearly headbutted the dash the first time he stomped on them. :shock: The acceleration was obviously brutal, but since I’ve experienced quite a few supercars (F50, CS, Murci, GT2 etc) already I’m kinda used to it – but hard braking on a race track is just a whole new feeling.

Here is a video I took from on-board showing two of my laps:

:arrow: http://www.ozcarsightings.com/F430_onboard.WMV (10Mb)

And a short one of the Gallardo flooring it down the pits – awesome sound!!!

:arrow: http://www.ozcarsightings.com/Barbagallo_Gallardo.WMV (1.6Mb)

Now for some pics:

All 57 high-res pics can be viewed on my website :arrow: www.ozcarsightings.com


The 328 that I made the journey to and from the track in….

http://www.ozcarsightings.com/preview/barbagallo1.jpg


THE F430 Spider, my first – now I need a 348 to complete the list of V8 Ferraris as passenger. :P

http://www.ozcarsightings.com/preview/barbagallo3.jpg
http://www.ozcarsightings.com/preview/barbagallo4.jpg

Lambo Gallardo, hopefully I’ll get a ride in this at the next trackday….

http://www.ozcarsightings.com/preview/barbagallo2.jpg

A tuned GT2 with about 600hp….. :shock: How cool is the colour?

http://www.ozcarsightings.com/preview/barbagallo5.jpg

A few 360's also turned up....

http://www.ozcarsightings.com/preview/barbagallo6.jpg

The Superamerica made an appearance, but didn’t hit the track. :bah:

http://www.ozcarsightings.com/preview/barbagallo7.jpg

Another F430 Spider, this one is from the UK – the guy just moved here and took the car with him.

http://www.ozcarsightings.com/preview/barbagallo8a.jpg

Lastly a Gransport that could do with some lowering...

http://www.ozcarsightings.com/preview/barbagallo9.jpg


All 57 high-res pics can be viewed on my website :arrow: www.ozcarsightings.com

Very nice pics as usual! The vid is awesome, makes me wish I had a video camera. 8)

Thanks dingo! :D

Great turnout there, some very nice machines. Good to see them on the track 8)

Downloadin the vid now, cant wait to check it out :mrgreen:

All those cars look terrific in the shining sun, really bring their paint shine out. 8)

Nice pics and vids. I have only been luckly enough to sight them :bah:

Thanks for sharing mate, pics and vids are great :D What are your feelings/impressions on the F430 and 328 ?

WOW! Congrats! Must have been one hell of an experience!!! :D

That GT2 looks mean :twisted: I'm guessing it was the fastest of the bunch :?: Did they take lap times?

Thanks for the vids + pics... downloading now! :D

good stuff dingo the cars are all delicous, i cant say that one pic is rubbish :D

Thanks for the pics and vids they rock 8)

But i would love to hear you passenger experience :P

My impressions on the car.....well I'm not so good at putting it into words (like TT manages), but here are a few points.

The sound is the first thing that gets you, even at idle or just rolling around the pits you can sense something special lies beneath. Then once the bypass valves open (4000rpm or whatever it is) it gets more menacing, and in the Spider you can hear it all so well. Once you get up above 200kmh or so the wind noise gets a bit irritating (we had the roof down) but who am I to complain. :D

The F1 box seemed an improvement (over the 360), obviously hard to tell as passenger but they sure felt quick and alot smoother than in the CS/360 Spider.

The brakes - I think I made my point on them already, definately the standout feature of the ride! :shock:

One thing I would be doing if I had an F430 and tracked it is buy some proper seat belts, as in the corners I was flung all over the place - not held into my seat at all. :bah:

The owner also wanted to practice lauch control but unfortunately we discovered the LC button was broken so no playing around with that unfortunately.....maybe next time.

Its obviously hard to get a true impression of the driving experience from the passenger seat, so in August (when I've been promised a drive of an F430 in Alice Springs) I'll give you guys a better insight. ;)

No, but from the video I timed the F430 at about 68-69secs.....I would say the GT2 was about the same, I don't think it would get around the corners as well as the F430.

thanks for pics and videos dingo

Well, respect dude! The list of cars you experienced is growing quite quickly! Very well done :D

Private trackdays are a PITA when you are not allowed in, but when you managed to be there, they are just 100 times better than regular "public" events! And indeed we see it in your pics: nobody around!

Thanks for pics and vids, some pretty nice cars! I have to admit I don't think red cars with red interior.. tan is so much better. But still :D

And the GT2 is a stunner :shock:

They run these trackdays every 2 months or so, and hopefully from now on I can attend most of them. :D It seems a great place/time to get rides, as firstly there are only maybe 20 people there and alot of cars turn up without a passenger. :D

I assume you mean the F430? Well he actually had red satin sheets (with the Ferrari logo) over the seats, underneath is the tan interior. ;) I assume it was to keep the seats clean, or free of sweat.

Ah LOL okok :D I admit they looked like normal seats in the thumb, that I clicked and just saved the high-res w/o paying attention ;)

great!!!

You're on a roll, dude :D
Great experience again, it shows how everything starts, you just have to meet a kind owner and who knows, soon you'll be the photographer for an online webzine (asphalte.au) :P

Nice pictures, I wish it was summer over here :wink:

BTW, is the GT2 guard red ?

No the GT2 isn't Guards Red, its some sort of burnt orange colour - custom order apparently. He has the seat belts and instrument cluster colour-coded in the same orange. ;)

very nice...track days with higher end cars are always a lot of fun. i'm lucky enough to live about 45 minutes away from gingerman raceway in south haven, mi and theres always some good times in the summer...

Wow Dingo your sunny pictures are so bright for a Nordic fellow like me, than I must to put my sunglasses to see them. 8)

Thanks mate for those awesome GT2 pix. http://www.rs6.com/smilies/thumbsup.gif

For sure they seem to come from another planet because last time I saw the sun was probably in 2005 :D

well the sun can be nice I suppose, but it also is the PITA - today I played golf and beach volleyball and got sunburnt (despite cream and a hat) and soaked with sweat. :bah: So there are negatives to it also....

It seems like a red day that day :D About the brakes, I still remember my first trackday passenger experience. It may have only been in a Scooby, but it had some decent track oriented brakes and the driver's favourite thing was braking late and hard :D What impressed me the most was the braking.

As for the pics, you did a great job again. I really love this pics:

http://www.ozcarsightings.com/update...kday%20(2).jpg


And if you photoshop spinning wheels and some tyre smoke on this one, it looks like a superb drift :P

http://www.ozcarsightings.com/update...day%20(53).jpg

Scooby's rule!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :P

I wouldn't sell mine for an F430....

*Some of the above might be a lie*

Haha, I'll ask dani if we can use it in the next PS contest and I'm sure someone will do as you say. ;)

great event and pics dingo, for sure that was another great opportunity for you, i hope you'll have the chance also to ride with the gallardo. btw the sound of the little gallardo movie is great.... :P

thx for you work

wow
dingo,, i just saw the video
the sound of the 430 is awsome

Nice picks and vids Dingo...

Living the dream as usual I see .....

I guess you have the next best thing to owning a Ferrari ... passengering one :)

LOL schwalbe, i totally agree with ya! even tho i have had some sun out here in Halifax, i cant wait for the warmer weather to get here, we had one day last saturday where it reached 12 C and was sunny, today it is -7 with -16 windchill... o canada! haha
great pics as usual dingo, u are one lucky dude thats for sure, i am envious!

Yes, I've decided I'm not going to buy my own - its cheaper just being passenger in somebody elses. :P

Lucky guy!!!

The pictures are great :o

Grey, definitely isn't a good color for a Gallardo :roll: but the red Elise looks really nice with black wheels.

:arrow: Don't know why but everytime I visit you're site using FireFox, when I click in a picture, instead of opening another window, it goes to the top of the page. It doesn't happens with IE.


This has nothing to do with your site. It's an Offtopic and maybe this is not the right place to put this. :arrow: When I open some pictures, they appear all fucked up. This happens with firefox and IE, and even when I refresh the page it appears exactly the same way. Does anybody knows what could be the problem ??? It's really frustrating when I want to save a picture :x

awesome :shock: !!!!

I love the pics!

That 430 is literary jumping out of the pics 8)

Thx for a great coverage :D

And about the passenger vid, man, that engine doesn't know how to stop reving 8)

Thx 8)

I've had a couple of people mention this before. The last guy (from another forum) went through my html code with me and we found something which fixed the problem for him - seems it hasn't done the same for you. :(

Not sure what the prob is really.....

yeah it was amazing, 8500rpm is insane for a V8. :D

WOW :shock: , awesome trackday you had !

the sound is gorgeous! thanks for the incar-video :D

as chest3r said, IMO grey isn't the best color for a Gallardo, although I saw a 2006Gallardo in silver-grey recently, this one was quite nice :?

a very nice set of pictures, no peole around, :good:

I like the red GT2, and the picture thru the fence with the white baloon-tyres in the back :wink:
The front pics, where the cars are waiting in the "box", with the nose in the sun, are cool,- i.e. the Lotus

I hope you 'll have more rides soon!

Great pics mate,some great cars there and i bet you loved that F430 ride,im gonna download the vid in a min :D

Thanks mate, I'll catch up with you on MSN soon (I know its been ages since I even logged on) - I'll have something for you on Thurs/Fri. ;)

Ah Dingo...

Ya lucky bastard :lol:

Hope you enjoyed the F430. I have never been in a Ferrari of any kind so I envy these kind of topics.

Great pics too 8)

How's that for a nice experience? :D Must be heaven I guess (haven't had a ride of drive in a Ferrari yet myself). The drive up there in the 328 couldn't have been bad either!

As usual the pics are of very high quality. The colours are amazing. Like Schwalbe already said, they're blinding me.

it wasn't bad until he took a corner too fast (on the road this is) and got two wheels in the dirt and barely missed scraping a post! :shock:

The pace definately slowed after that little "incident"..... :)

Sounds like a narrow escape. That would really have ruined the day if the car had been damaged.