My girlfriend bought me the 6 lap package for the Exotic Dream Car Experience in the Lamborghini Gallardo for my birthday back in September and I just completed my driving experience this past weekend on Sat Oct 20th 2018.
Let me start off my saying that I am a huge car guy and I have always toyed around with the idea of ponying up the money for this experience, well I guess my girlfriend got sick of hearing me talk about and decided to get it for me.
The weather was atrocious, wet as hell and cold!! Of course I do not blame the track or EDC staff for the weather but the fact that they advertised rain or shine with no option of rescheduling already had me in a foul mood as I would have much preferred to reschedule to the following Spring when the weather was better.
The next negative part, which I do pass blame on to the staff was the orientation. We were told the orientation would be starting at 1pm and were told that the drivers were to sit in the front so that could see and hear the instructor and the loved ones were to sit in the back. The orientation ended up being delayed 45min while both myself and my girlfriend were sitting by ourselves awkwardly twiddling our thumbs in the front and back of the room, respectively. A simple update that they were delayed would have been appreciated.
The discovery laps were great, very much enjoyed the instruction. The instructor was sure to repeat many times the challenge of driving in the wet and how much more difficult it was to do well. He essentially was trying to get us to overlook the fact that the weather was garbage and that we would be driving like snails out there...I certainly appreciated the effort on his part but it did not make me feel any better. They should openly offer the chance for people to reschedule.
The 2008 or 2009 Gallarado I ended up getting was stunning from the outside, an absolutely gorgeous vehicle to behold in person. The inside of it on the other hand was a different story. The first thing I noticed was the door trim on the inside of the door was an absolute mess, the dash had a shoddy aftermarket head unit with missing trim and exposed insulation. In addition, the vehicle was making a loud clicking noise while just sitting there idling. When I asked the instructor about it he basically said to ignore it. The very first straight away when up-shifting to 2nd under WOT the transmission clunked hard into 2nd gear, not the smooth seamless transition I would expect a Lamborghini in good mechanical condition to do. Good thing they absolutely forbid you from revving the car beyond 5k RPM and actually getting into the vehicles power band, not sure the vehicle would have lasted the 6 laps; oh ya that was another restriction that was not openly advertised.
The only thing that could have saved the experience for me at this point was a fun and positive instructor. Sadly this was not the case as the guy was overly cautious and extremely serious, I have never driven on a track before but even I knew the guy had me on the brakes hundreds of feet before the braking zone. The couple times I did lose a bit of traction I was essentially scolded for fluttering the throttle and attempting to correct via power over steer. At this point I was all but deflated and had had enough, I am pretty sure I only ended up doing 5 of my 6 paid laps and drove back to the pits anyways.
Conclusion: The track itself was nice and the place had high hopes. Somebody going on another day, with nicer weather in a different vehicle with a different instructor has the potential to have a completely different experience. Unfortunately with all the unknowns at the time of booking and their inflexible policies for rescheduling I cannot, in my heart, recommend this experience to a fellow...
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