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| 07-28-2006, 02:12 PM | #1 |
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Major General
 
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Bedford Autodrome / Evo Magazine / 330i
For some reason I bought EVO magazine for the 2nd time ever today.
They do a 'top gear' type lap test for cars they review. I hadn't noticed before, but their reference circuit is the West Circuit at Bedford Autodrome. Funnily enough  I was there recently on a corporate trackday - so I was really interested in the magazines test times: I got to drive 2 cars on the west circuit - the Palmer Jaguar JP1: http://www.palmersport.com/cars_jaguar.htm and the Formula Palmer Audi: http://www.palmersport.com/cars_audi.htm Given that many of us mere mortals have never driven anything like a lamborghini gallardo or ferrari F430 (and probably never will) I always wondered what driving a car that fast would feel like. Well interestingly my fairly poor time in the JP1 was 83 secs - as fast as the Mosler. The best driver on the day managed 79.3 - faster than the quickest time posted by EVO. They don't time the FPA, but at the end of the day you get a 'trace' against a time posted by an FPA driver (Justin Wilson). Most people managed times of around 82 secs (mine was a lot worse but I had some slower drivers in the way - honest) - that's faster than the Gallardo. I think the fastest time on the day was also around 79 secs and from memory Justin Wilsons time was way lower - 70 secs or so ! This doesn't mean an awful lot probably, but for me it's puts into perspective the relative performance of these supercars - I have a benchmark from which to judge them. The FPA and JP1 felt incredibly quick - interestingly the 330i didn't disgrace itself in this test either - besting the 350z quite impressively. For those who are interested - this is EVO's review of the 330i http://www.evo.co.uk/carreviews/evoc.../bmw_330i.html |
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