So here’s a video of the Ariel Atom pootling about on Harris Hill Road in San Marcos – just south of Austin, Texas. This is my first time driving a somewhat fast car on a racetrack (aside from the Z06 I had just driven, which was the first car I’d ever driven on the track). So I’m pretty new to all this. And so I’m pleased that I managed to stay on the track for so long.
The footage is a little wonky, as the GoPro Hero2 was strapped to my helmet (bad idea – see this GoPro Hero2 driving Fail video from later in the day), and my helmet was strapped to my head which was on my body and in a car with girders for suspension on a bumpy track. The funny thing is that the footage is perhaps hard to watch if I’m going above, say, 50mph. And that’s exactly the feeling you get driving the car. That your vertical hold is going, and that you’re skidding across the tarmac like a stone being skimmed. See the part where I spin off into the grass when the car concurs that I have all the control of a rotating stone.
Thanks to Justin from Lone Star Exotic Rentals for his eternal patience, and for being quite calm when I span his $80,000 car off the track. I didn’t suggest that he add a mulch bag to the side of his beautiful car, though I did collect more grass in it than I anticipated.
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