Monterey 2011 - will P25 find a McLaren F1?

[Sami Aaltonen]

Erik:

Target has been come true!
Fantastic!

[hurstg01]

Cool, and congrats

Balboni is far too chilled for what he has done in his life - he is a top top man!

[F1GTRUeno]

Great to hear of your adventures Erik, must be absolute heaven to be there with all the exotica, and especially to get up close and personal with one of the nicest F1's around.

Keep the pics coming!

[Sami Aaltonen]

Originally Posted by hurstg01

Cool, and congrats

Balboni is far too chilled for what he has done in his life - he is a top top man!

Agreed 100%.

[BlueEdge]

Fantastic photos of #036, and great to hear you got to see an F50 GT1

Have you seen the Huayra yet? I've seen a couple of pictures of a red one on FlickR hanging around.

Very jealous I'm not there, but fingers crossed for next year.

[Peloton25]

I so wish you all could share in this. I'll try to have some additional photos tonight but will need sleep at some point.

>8^)
ER

[PatrickT82]

please also post pics of the F50 GT !

[Peloton25]

Originally Posted by BlueEdge

Have you seen the Huayra yet? I've seen a couple of pictures of a red one on FlickR hanging around.

The Pagani Hurray is on display at The Quail today. At $700 a ticket it was not in the budget, but they were sold out months ago anyway. We did wander over there last night while they were setting things up and I saw the Pagani booth and also a display for the Porcelain Veyron, but neither car had arrived yet.

The Hurray was also at the Jet Center party on Wednesday evening but I was still in San Jose. Alongside it was the grey carbon Zonda R which is another car I would love to see. One or both may be at Pebble Beach on Sunday on the concept lawn. That's my last hope I think.

>8^)
ER

[Peloton25]

Originally Posted by PatrickT82

please also post pics of the F50 GT !

For sure, but the bulk of my photos will have to wait until I get back home Tuesday.

>8^)
ER

[Peloton25]

Sitting next to Antony Sheriff for the presentation. Unreal - Amazing day.

EDIT: Was called upon twice to answer questions that exceeded the knowledge base of the McLaren staff in the room.

>8^)
ER

[BlueEdge]

Originally Posted by Peloton25

The Hurray was also at the Jet Center party on Wednesday evening but I was still in San Jose. Alongside it was the grey carbon Zonda R which is another car I would love to see. One or both may be at Pebble Beach on Sunday on the concept lawn. That's my last hope I think.

Hopefully both will be there, I'm assuming they'd be trying to give the Hurray in particular as much exposure as possible whilst it's in Monterey.

Originally Posted by Peloton25

EDIT: Was called upon twice to answer questions that exceeded the knowledge base of the McLaren staff in the room.

I can think of few higher compliments for your knowledge of McLaren than this!

[svxit]

Originally Posted by Peloton25

Sitting next to Antony Sheriff for the presentation. Unreal - Amazing day.

EDIT: Was called upon twice to answer questions that exceeded the knowledge base of the McLaren staff in the room.

>8^)
ER

McLaren needs to just get it overwith and hire you. Really!

[Peloton25]

I was in the McLaren tent from 12:30 pm until 8:30 pm staying all the way through the VIP event. Managed to meet one former owner and two other current owners.

The real bombshell is that Professor Gordon Murray is in town. He was spotted today at The Quail. I hope to see him on Sunday at Pebble Beach. If I do that will cap off the most amazing weekend I ever could have imagined.

>8^)
ER

[Paulthagerous]

Originally Posted by Peloton25

EDIT: Was called upon twice to answer questions that exceeded the knowledge base of the McLaren staff in the room.

>8^)
ER

Did you know the answers?

Either way, must have been quite something to have them require your expertise

[Peloton25]

The focus of the discussion I signed up to attend was on past and future values of the McLaren F1 and their place in the market, as well as the factors that brought them there. It was led by McLaren Automotive Programme Director, Paul Mackenzie, and also participating was Katie Hellwig from the Gooding & Co auction house. Questions came after the presentation was finished and while Paul was probably kidding, he twice mentioned that he was nervous giving a presentation on the F1 with me in the room for fear he would mess something up.

The first question they turned to me on was when someone asked how many F1s remain out of the original 106 cars. I gave the answer that I believed is correct, which is an even 100 cars. The six I believe that are no longer around are XP1, XP2, #004 or #005, #010, #017 and finally #033.

The other question that came up related to XP5s top speed run in 1998 and the fact that Andy Wallace had done 391 kph which converts to 244 mph, yet the F1s top speed is quoted as 240.1 mph. I believe there was either some recalculating done by Volkswagen with their more sophisticated timing equipment versus the on-board measuring device that Andy was reading from or they did a two-way average. The speed on KMs that VW certified was 386.7 kph. I gave the latter answer then second guessed myself on it but the discussion had moved on already.

The other point where I added some audience participation was when Frank Stephenson asked a question. Part of the presentation had included them showing the video of the final run at Ehra Lessien in that begins with "...on the banking at the far end..." Frank asked if Andy Wallace had made any comments about how the car performed at those speeds so I basically quoted what was written in The McLaren magazine RacingLine where he stated the nose had gotten a little light in the 370 kph range but that he decides to press on and it lasted just very briefly before settling back down again for the run to 391.

I certainly didn't go in there expecting to be a part of the show. I don't take myself all that seriously and try to remain grounded most of the time but was truly honored to be looked upon as a resource in those moments.

I also didn't intend to spend the whole day there either - didn't have plans to be anywhere else really - but I figured they would ask me to leave before the second discussion event started. That never happened - during the break I was bounced from one McLaren employee to another who seemed to want to know how a kid from California had come to know so much about the McLaren F1. Each person I met from the team was really great to talk with and while only two of them really work closely with the F1s, all were interested in hearing about the cars. I also had my laptop with me and shared a bit of content from the archive. It's hard to do more than scratch the surface with things though unless someone wants to spend a lot of time. As they were all there to work and speak with prospective MP4-12C customers they were constantly excusing themselves to go and handle that which I totally understood.

The second presentation was put on by McLaren Automotive's Technical Director, Dick Glover. He is in charge of all the different chassis dynamics groups and spoke about technologies that have been banned in Formula One over the years which McLaren are now able to integrate into their road cars. Dick has been with McLaren for a lifetime and I was a bit thrilled to have met him and spoke with him earlier in the day, but was totally wowed by the chat he gave. He did it with a slide presentation but had no notes prepared and just spoke the whole time covering very intricate technologies but in fashion that was still valuable for someone who isn't familiar with all the jargon. He's a wealth of McLaren knowledge, coming from the racing team previously. Antony Sheriff had referred to Dick as McLaren's chief rocket scientist when he introduced him and that was certainly the case it seemed.

After that discussion ended I continued to chat with different people who were in the room. Earlier in the day I'd met the General Manager of the Beverly Hills McLaren dealership which will be closest to my house. He was one of a handful who already knew of me and was excited when he discovered I was there. At one point prior to the VIP event getting going I did ask if I should leave and was told not to worry about that. I was asked not to take any photos during it which was understandable because I'd been told the day before that no 'media' was being invited to this. I had no problem respecting that.

Staying through the VIP event worked in my favor considerably because when the event got going I noticed Dan Watkins, the former owner of #068 until mid-2010, and was able to go over and say hello to him. He was very pleased to see me, and along with his wife, and Paul from McLaren we all had a very nice chat.

Then the GM from the BH dealer mentioned to me he'd seen another owner in the room who he was told had two F1s and his last name was something like... I said "Schaevitz?" and he said yes. I said can you point him out to me as he is one that I'd love to say hello to as well. We've had chats over the years via email on different topics and he's posted a handful of times here. When I walked up and introduced myself you'd have thought he was meeting his favorite celebrity or something. He grabbed his wife and said "This guy knows everything there is to know about every McLaren F1." Her eyes got a little wide and the three of us had a very nice conversation about how this all started and why the cars were so special to me. Then we talked about the two cars he has now (#024 and #045) and also discussed the third car he'd purchased originally (#014). They were both great to chat with too - I have yet to meet an owner that hasn't been really. At one point Gary told me something he'd mentioned before - he lives next to Ralph Lauren who has three, and around the corner is Peter Sachs who has one, so altogether (when Ralph's cars are in NY) there are 6 McLaren F1s within 5 miles of each other. Craziness!

Then Gary goes "You have to meet Peter" and we shuffle across the room to where Peter Sachs was standing with his wife and a similar discussion was repeated. I told Peter it was a pleasure to meet him and that I knew he had #038 which he said was "...the former Kennedy car". I mentioned it had two owners in between, Brener and then Weiner and that he'd purchased the car through Lamborghini of Atlanta. He said "Actually, I bought it on Ebay - "Buy It Now" with a big smile" and of course we all laughed. Probably the only F1 ever purchased through that site. He said it has somewhere in the range of 20,000 miles on it still - I forgot what the mileage was when he picked it up but I guess like many it does not get out too often.

Through all of this I couldn't help but think 'How is this happening?' as I never expected that kind of reception from so many people - both owners and the McLaren employees. In fact if I am being honest I was slightly concerned going into it about the reactions from the McLaren folks. It was just a wonderful couple of hours. I also saw #036's owner in the room again and said hello but didn't recognize any others unfortunately. I found out before I left that I had missed meeting Tom Price who has #028 and will own the McLaren San Francisco franchise. Oh well - can't have everything go my way so maybe another time.

What a day! No pics tonight unfortunately - I need to get some sleep now. I am going to Laguna Seca tomorrow which will mean a lot of walking. Hoping to find another F1 in the paddock there but no guarantees of course. I know a few people that have been out to the track already and they would have probably alerted me to the presence of an F1 if they saw one. I know that none of the other owners I spoke to tonight had brought along their cars so no luck there.

>8^)
ER