A round-up of what the Daytona has been up to over the summer.
With the summer drawing to a close, it's time for an update of what the Daytona has been up to over the summer months. The mild weather has meant that the car has had a reasonable amount of use, and not just for driving to events but also just for getting out and about.
The most memorable drive of the summer happened on Father’s Day when I went out for a long drive with my Dad. I was in the Daytona and Dad took his Daytona Spyder. The weather was dry but very overcast as we headed out onto the A3 at Godalming and then down the A283 towards Petworth. This is the typical route used to get to Goodwood and it's a very picturesque drive. Normally there's plenty of traffic even on a Sunday but on this occasion it was unusually quiet, the reason for which became clear as we headed further on. A triathlon event meant the road was closed in the opposite direction, but fortunately the closure actually worked in our favour and we made good time.
At Petworth we turned left onto what is perhaps my favourite road in the area, the A272. It's is one of the best driving roads in the south east of England and this section to Billingshurst has some nice sweeping curves and elevation changes that suit the Daytona perfectly.
We pulled off the A272 into the village of Wisborough Green and had an excellent Father’s Day lunch at the Old Mill Café. If you’re heading down to Goodwood, the Old Mill makes a very good coffee stop - it serves real Italian coffee - and the food is very good too.
Leaving Wisborough Green I took the opportunity to try out my GoPro camera, and the results are shown below. I’m not sure that I had the camera on the optimum settings and I forgot I was on film so apologies for the random commentary about VW Campers half way through!
A few weeks later, the Daytona was out again for the MacMillan Cancer Classic Car Show held at Clandon Park near Guildford. This well-supported event drew out a wide range of classics and a few modern Ferraris too. There are a few pictures from the event in the gallery below.
More recently, I pulled the Daytona out of the garage for the short run down to the Shere Hill Climb. This event is in its second year, and is run as a non-competitive hill climb on a closed road near the village of Shere. I found about it rather too late to actually enter the Daytona in the run itself but will look to get an entry next year. Still, the Daytona joined a number of classics at the front of the car park.
One week later I ventured a little further afield as I took the Daytona to the concrete jungle that is Silverstone for the Ferrari Racing Days event. We joined a large group of mainly modern Ferraris parked outside the Silverstone Wing. Unfortunately the Racing Days events no longer features races for classic Ferraris (and they would most likely have been at the clashing Goodwood Revival anyway), but the one-make 458 Challenge races are exciting to watch and hearing the parade of 2.4 V8 and 3.0 V10 Formula One Ferraris was a reminder that the current V6 turbo F1 engines are still lacking on the noise front.
Back in the garage, one small change I have made to the car is to stop using an additive in the fuel for lead replacement. A few years ago Ferrari issued a confirmation that any of their cars built after 1970 are fine to run on unleaded petrol, although they recommend that Shell V-Power is used, which luckily is what I run the car on anyway. Since dropping the additive, I’ve not noticed any tangible change in performance and no signs of pinking either.
A recent journey out also showed the recurrence of a niggle that first occurred on the trip with Octane Magazine back in 2012, when the near side light pod failed to deploy when I twisted the stalk. It wasn't much of a problem as I only really needed the side lights at the time and the light pod did eventually deploy before we reached home. However, I will need this resolved quickly though, as once again I will be taking the Daytona to the Journées d’Automne in France’s Champagne region. The schedule of the event includes a significant amount of night driving so I will need the full complement of headlights. My mechanic Vince suspects that the problem is merely a corroded contact so hopfeully it should be an easy fix. I'm very much looking forward to the event - the 2013 event was excellent - and a full report on the trip will follow in a couple of weeks.
Gallery
