An Unforgettable Day of Driving Exotic Supercars

ne of my oldest friends, Scott, had his 40th birthday this year and his wife, Maura, went all-out to make his big day special. Anyone that knows Scott knows that he is a huge gear head and loves anything with a motor and 4 wheels. The more exotic, the better.

Scott's automotive collection started moestly way back in college when he drove a "Vette". No, not a Corvette, but a Chevette. Later as Scott become more successful, he was able to trade up. Now he owns a rare BMW M-Coupe, a car designed by Chip Foose and a sweet customtized Mercedes.

For his birthday present, his wife gave him a chance to spend a day in supercars that very few people have the chance to see, much less drive. Here's where it gets good for me. Maura gets motion sickness and cannot stand to be in fast cars. I was asked to make the ultimate sacrifice and take a day off to go with him. It took me about 1/2 a second to make up my mind. It was one of the coolest things I have ever experienced.

The tour is unique in the fact that you drive ultra-exotic machines on public roads for at least 30 minutes per car. There were 5 cars and 8 drivers so there were 3 instances where each driver had to be a passenger, but I don't think anyone minded this because it let you expereince the car from a different perspective.

My whole day was spent as a passenger, and there is a very good reason these cars are named supercars. They accellerate faster and stop harder than anything on the road. I come from a motorcycling background and they are on par or exceed the performance of those. I had to recalibrate my mind with the compressed stopping distances, the "stick-like-glue" grip and pure grunt of 400-500+ horsepowered vehicles.

And even though we were warned to obey all traffic rules and that the driver would be responsible for speeding tickets or car damage, the cars were put through their paces. I rolled video of the several people driving and I noticed that I was laughing nervously in some of the turns. I am glad that I had something to occupy my mind from the terror.

The cars were mind-boggling expensive with the priciest one topping $500,000. The cheapest one of the bunch was a measly $237,000. So, next time you think you want to buy a house, skip that and see if the bank will give you a loan for a car.

If you want to schedule your own supercar tour, visit World Class Driving.