Of course this never happened but I thought you guys might like to hear about it anyway đ
I mentioned yesterday that we worked with Lamborghini at the Masters in Augusta, Georgia earlier this year. If you have never heard of the Masters, it is one of the biggest events on the PGA Tour every year held at the Augusta National Golf Course.
Augusta has not commercialized this event. It is a small, residential town without many hotels or attractions. That means that when all of these corporate groups come into town for the Masters they have to rent private homes. We were giving press rides and car demonstrations out of someoneâs driveway. Obviously this doesnât lend itself to showing of the performance capabilities of a Lamborghini but letâs just say that we did our best.
Apparently some of the neighbors did not approve of these efforts and didnât enjoy watching Lamborghinis speed around their tight little streets. They decided that we needed to involve the police in all of this. Within about 20 minutes of the commencement of our driving we were graced with the presence of pretty much the entire Richmond County Sheriffâs Department.
Of course the first thing you do when someone pulls you over in a Lamborghini is ask, âWould you like to drive it?â They didnât seem too interested in that but I wouldnât be a car salesman if I couldnât talk my way out of an alleged speeding charge. We got them warmed up to the idea of us being there and assured them there would be no recklessness from then on out.
One of the Sheriffâs deputies had really wanted to take us up on the offer for a ride in a Gallardo. He came back as we were shutting down for the day and asked if I would take him for a ride. I agreed and he told me that he had some great roads very close by where we could test out the car. I obliged. We went out for a ride in a 2011 Lamborghini Gallardo LP550-2 Bicolore.
15 minutes later we were still not to this special road. He assured me that it was a great place to go really fast and that he had once taken a Corvette ZR1 on this road up to 180 miles per hour. That sounded interesting but I had no idea how much further we were going to have to go.
As we continued to drive I asked him about the quality of the road, any seams that might be an issue, or anything else that I should be concerned about. He said that, âLast time I was out here it was perfectly smooth.â Making conversation as we continued to drive I asked how long ago that had been. His response was, â10 years or so.â In disbelief I asked if the car he had been out in was a 1991 ZRI. He said no, that it was a 92. I had assumed that he had meant an 09-10 ZR1 that is quite capable of that kind of speed. Apparently the car he had been in was heavily modified.
When we finally got to the location it was a bridge. Bridges are not usually the best places to speed because they can have significant cross winds. Another thing about bridges is that they are over water and frequently water divides law enforcement jurisdictions. After all of the driving that we had done to get there I assumed that we were in Mexico by now. I asked the officer, âDoes your jurisdiction end halfway over this bridge?â
He responded, âNo, we left my county a while ago but if we need to run I know all of the best roads. Donât worry about it.â That was not comforting but after all this way it seemed ridiculous not to see how fast we could go.
On the first trip across I was trying to feel out the road and see what we were working with. The Gallardo got comfortably up to 160-170 miles per hour and had no issues. There was a little bit of a dip over one of the bridge seams but it didnât seem too bad. There was very little wind so we decided to go for it on the return trip. As we crossed that bridge on the return trip we didnât quite get to 200 mph but we were on the funny of side of 190.
Letâs just say that the deputy was very pleased to have beaten the Corvetteâs speed and satisfied with his experience in a Lamborghini. We didnât have much trouble with the police for the rest of the week!
Of course, none of that ever happened.
