#41 - The Thrill of Driving

It is all too easy to be consumed by the tsunami of gloom-ridden headlines currently pulsating around the world. Whether it is the news, social media or even your next door neighbour…..pessimistic propaganda seems unavoidable. So much so that psychologists have now coined the phrase “doomscrolling” in reference to the act of obsessively reading and listening to bad news despite the consequential anxiety and depression it causes due our "intolerance of uncertainty"….fun times.

In fact now more than ever, it is important….scrap that essential, to find ways of momentarily closing out the noise and finding a bit of inner peace. For me this week, that came in the form of 640 horses of Sant'Agata Bolognese’s finest.

A short conversation with a great customer and friend on a Thursday afternoon resulted in an invitation to drive his latest purchase….the Huracan STO. Now this is a car that I have followed with intrigued ever since its launch….. especially given how good the “standard” EVO RWD is.

Anyway, the plan was simple; a dawn raid down to Goodwood for the Breakfast Club. Make the most of the stunning and quiet South Down roads on a Sunday morning, ingest multiple breakfast rolls, several cups of coffees, ogle over a beautifully eclectic mix of automobiles and then be back to base before the Mrs even knows you were MIA…. heck the weather even looked half decent.

So Sunday morning comes and with it, a biblical amount of rain which even Carol Kirkwood would struggle to comprehend. As eternal optimists, we both agreed the weather could only get better and in the words of the RAF, "Per Ardua Ad Astra" or “through adversity to the stars” if your Latin is a bit rusty.

I heard the STO long before putting eyes on it. The early dawn and monsoon rains hiding all but the vague silhouette of its GTE-esque aero. Amusingly, it has an even angrier cold start than the other V12 Bull we would be convoying down in…. a real f**k you to any neighbour within a half mile vicinity. Climbing into the beautiful carbon sports seats, you are greeted by a cockpit which showcases all the benefits of the Italian manufacturer having VW balance sheet in their arsenal……voluptuous design with Germanic build quality. In fact, looking at this car from the outside versus sitting in it is quite the oxymoron. While the carbon fibre bodywork and aero suggests it is ready to take on Spa 6 hours, inside, it is beautifully adorned with all the creature comforts you could need and want on a wet winter morning. That said make no mistake, this is a car built for performance over anything else and once the harnesses were fastened and the somewhat futile rear mirror adjusted to take in the half cage and intricate carbon fibre engine bay, we rolled out.

Pioggia mode engaged to prevent an overzealous right foot landing me in a hedge before I had even got the engine warm, it becomes apparent early on this is special car. The steering rack is race car responsive and the ride is incredibly pliable given the quality of the British tarmac it is traversing. Fortuitously the car is sporting Bridgestone Potenza Sport tyres as opposed to the Potenza Race option which have been specially developed for the STO and boy oh boy are they good.

30 minutes in and it becomes apparent that the weather has no plans of letting up…. in fact as we head further south the rain becomes bigger and wetter (if that’s even possible). The drainage systems of the UK roads are being put to the test and we find ourselves zig zagging the road dodging standing water through the bleak dawn light and Italian windscreen wipers working overtime.

Sat behind the wheel of the STO however you feel utterly at peace. Unlike what the race car exterior would have you believe, she doesn’t want to kill you…..in fact quite the opposite. The feedback from the tyres is bountiful even with very little heat in them and the car feels incredibly planted. Even through the deeper standing water, any brief break of traction is predictable and uneventful.

Road works and closures mean the planned route is frequently diverted and we soon find ourselves south of Liphook in unchartered territory on single track roads. I say roads; at this juncture they were closer to small streams with a mixture of debris collecting neatly along the freshly formed banks. Again, the “ZenTO” is doing its thing. I am at peace and one with the car as we traverse and descend the Downs. We pull over to squeeze pass a couple of farm trucks whose incumbents look at us like we have 2 heads. Then finally and predictably at the bottom of one hill, we find a puddle…..a big one…..a small lake!

At this stage our options were limited and fruitless. With no space to turn around and a long uphill retreat not particularly viable (especially for the big single clutch V12), several minutes of radio chatter deduced that our best and only option was to plough straight through the big puddle. I stared out of the rain strewn windscreen of the STO as its sonorous V10 contently purred along at idle. In front of me, the Aventador Ultimae begins plotting its course across the Fjord. It was deep there is no doubt and sensually it was compounded by the fact that the drivers bottom was literally skimming the waterline but the big girl made it across with no issues. Unremarkably, the STO follows suit and soon the single track gives way to a B road and we slowly work our way back to civilisation.

The final miles to Goodwood were relatively harmless with rain and standing water putting a stop to any kind of meaningful progress. If either car could verbalise their journey it would probably be to highlight their frustration that we had got them out of bed so early on the weekend to go off roading…..but in a weird way, I wouldn’t have changed it for the world.

People too easily synonymise driving sports and supercars with speed, power and aggression….after all that is what their makers fundamentally build them to do. I am even guilty of too frequently making the same generalisation. That said, on the drive down to Goodwood on that wet Sunday morning, I didn’t care that we were struggling to average 30mph or contending with flooded roads and using a tenth of the cars performance. It was about being out with a mate in cars that we both loved having a laugh and forgetting about all the other crap in the world….the true, simple elucidation of the Thrill of Driving.

Needless to say, the Goodwood Breakfast Club turnout was exemplary as always. Food was eaten, Coffees were drunk, Cars were ogled and then we fired up both the Italian’s and took them home…. sticking to the more beaten track this time around.

Happy Motoring,

Greg