BRracing at Ferrari Challenge - May 1, 2011

As part of our expanding Motorsports program, BRracing is participating (via our supported customers) at the wonderful Ferrari Challenge event April 30 – May 1, 2011, at Infineon raceway. There are 5 different events as part of this weekend, with customers and drivers flying in from all over the world.

The program includes –

– Ferrari Challenge for F458 Challenge and F430 Challenge cars

– Ferrari FXX and Ferrari 599XX event

– Ferrari F1 Clientle program (ex Ferrari F1 cars managed by Ferrari, raced by customers)

– Ferrari Touring and Ferrari Sport driving event / track day

We will have a Ferrari 360 Challenge Stradale and F355 Challenge Race Car (our supported customers program), plus some other Ferrari’s as part of our corral.

The Ferrari F458 and F430 Challenge series is the North America race series, visiting the major race venues across North America, including being a supporting event at the Montreal F1 race in June. These include teams like Level 5 Motorsport (Scott Tuckers team), Risi Competizone, Ferrari of Seattle (ex associates of our friends at Flying Lizards).

And the event is not without drama….on Friday, one of the new (brand new) F458 Challenge cars lost it coming thru the exit of Turn 8, putting him sideways in the dirt, which promptly put him on his lid….flipping the brand new F458….it only had THREE MILES on the odometer before this event. The car got shipped out on the transporter that night, was in Ferrari of Beverly Hills by midnight, worked on all day and night Saturday, a new roof and other body sections installed, and driven back to the event Saturday night, and a new “wrap” put on the car Sunday morning, and was ready for duty for the first practice.

Or, the other F458 Challenge car just got pushed coming out of turn 11, started a spin, got into a “tank slapper”, and nosed it into the wall, totaling the front end. A new, awesome tech from Ferrari North America had to start fabricating a new front end, as Ferrari doesn’t have a full inventory of spare parts yet for the new F458, so they cut the front frame rails, and just started making their own new front end from aluminum tubing….and by 1AM, had the car back together. Same thing, a new wrap put on the car, and it was ready to go that next morning.

We had lunch at the Ferrari VIP tent, and had the chance to meet the F1 Cleintle participants, and these are people who buy older official Ferrari F1 cars (like the one our friend had, who had the 2003 (ex Ruben Barrichello car)). They buy the car, then have Ferrari store the car, manage the car, do all the track support, do all the repairs, software management, data acquisition. The cars are only stored at the factory, and then are flown into each event all over the world. They often are supporting events at many of the F1 races, and this summer, our new friend gets to drive his car at the Montreal F1 race, as well as the F1 race at Spa…..WOW. We chatted with them about what its really like to drive a full fledged F1 car….and at the track in Italy this spring, when they were there for testing, he hit 207mph on the straight, and was able to deep brake into turn 1…and could go ALL THE WAY to the “1” braking marker before hitting the brakes, and when he did so, generated 5 G’s of force…enough that tears are drawn out of his eyes, and splatter on the inside of his helmet visor….THATs NUTS.