How fast was I going?

firefly08

I recently had the chance to drive a bunch of supercars on a small road course in Vegas (yes I know I'm a jammy bastard etc. )

Anyway, people keep asking me, "how fast did you go?", but the thing is, I never once glanced at the speedometer, and it's hard to tell when you're not on a road, everything looks different...

So, can anyone take a guess - here are 2 videos; first my fastest laps which were in a Lamborghini Gallardo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtUWL5n955g

...and also going a bit slower in a Ferrari Scuderia (this was before the Gallardo and I was only getting used to the track, otherwise it's a faster car though):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnIKe20UUig


How fast did I go on the straight?

rccaulfield

relative to what?

firefly08

relative to what?

Eh?

Relative to...some stationary object, like, I dunno...the road?

White_Wolf

It would be very hard to judge as we dont know any of the figures such as how far objects are from the car, angle of the camera.

Henry Ford III

Fast enough on the straight. 100mph maybe?

Slow elsewhere, braking early - instructor was pretty good.

Alanstrainor

instructor sounded awesome.

E39MSport

... about this fast. :P

robtri

not fast enough......

Cuddlesworth

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*warning, may not be to scale

djimi

You drove cars like that on a track and never once thought to look at the speedo to see how fast you were going...?

Cuddlesworth

djimi wrote: »

You drove cars like that on a track and never once thought to look at the speedo to see how fast you were going...?

You don't look at the speedo going around the track. Most track cars have them blacked out.

CarMuppet

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

You don't look at the speedo going around the track. Most track cars have them blacked out.

True.. and I wonder if the revs were limited too?

Looks like you have a good day out on the track! It really puts it in perspective what a real performance car is like to drive compared to a run of the mill road car doesn't it?? Life will never be the same again.



Out of interest, what kind of money were they charging for that course?


In answer to your first question, I'm guessing 90 to 110 mph.

Ghost Train

you can measure track distance using this google maps tool
http://www.daftlogic.com/projects-google-maps-distance-calculator.htm

distance from gap in lines on track to cones before braking looks like 30m, time looks like 0.75sec (or 20 frames at 25 f/s =0.8sec)

so about 40m/s or 145kmph

firefly08

instructor sounded awesome.

The instructors were good, especially the guy I had in the Gallardo, he was fantastic.

You drove cars like that on a track and never once thought to look at the speedo to see how fast you were going...?

Not once, in fact I didn't look far enough away from it! You really have to look at the road, and even then you have to look a step ahead!

True.. and I wonder if the revs were limited too?

Nope, I don't think so...but unfortunately I was following the instructors...instructions to the letter as best I could, and the guy I had in the Ferrari didn't get me working the gears much...I didn't realize at the time but in hindsight watching the video there were plenty of opportunities for 2nd gear.

Looks like you have a good day out on the track! It really puts it in perspective what a real performance car is like to drive compared to a run of the mill road car doesn't it??

Fact! These cars are incredible. The Porsche was just like a really really really good road car, but he Ferrari and Lamborghini were in a class of their own.

Out of interest, what kind of money were they charging for that course?

Crazy money man...I did 5 laps each in a Ferrari F430, Lamborghini Gallardo 560 and a Porsche 911 Carrera 2...including the in-car video (which they charge 80 bucks for) it came to 830 USD (about 650 euro). I know it's a ton of money to spend for a couple of hours entertainment, but I had to do it. They also have an Audi R8 and as Aston Martin Vantage, and you can also get a ride along in a Corvette with Romain Thieven (Bourne Identify stunt driver) but it's 100 bucks for 1 or 2 laps.

Here's the company I went with:
http://www.exoticsracing.com/

Overall I'd highly recommend it, but try to get some time on a track in something slower and cheaper, to get used to racing lines etc. before you blow your chance in a supercar!

firefly08

you can measure track distance using this google maps tool
http://www.daftlogic.com/projects-go...calculator.htm

Thanks, gave that tool a try with my first lap in the Gallardo (not the fastest I went at all actually but it's hard to count fractions of a second anyway)

The long straight is 0.275 miles, and I timed it at roughly 12 seconds from the video, giving an average speed of around 82.5 (but I started slow as you can see, so the top speed must have been considerably higher than this)

The length of each of the groups of lines on the straight looks to be about 360 feet and going past the 3rd one is where I was at my fastest..it looks like around 2 seconds on the video - that would make 122 MPH (could be 2.5 seconds, putting it closer to 100MPH)

Anyway thanks for the input everyone, I really had no idea what the ballpark was, like if it was 70-80 or over 100. Definitely looks to be over 100 based on those calculations anyway, especially considering my calculations are not even the fastest lap.