Travelling at nearly 200 mph! Kevin Haggarthy takes us on a journey in one of the Worlds fastest Supercars; The Koenigsegg CCR..........
Who cares about pronouncing the name? Somehow, a top speed of 240 mph, 694 bhp, 0-60 mph in 3.2 seconds and a price tag of over £350,000 is enough. Yes, I like many have always had a latent curiosity about driving the Koenigsegg. Sensational looks, sensational sound – the perfect recipe for my mid life crisis. But thankfully there’s a little more substance to my curiosity than that. It all goes back to the year I did the notorious Gumball Rallye. Admittedly, I was driving rather fast (ish) at the time in a lovely silver Porsche 911S – admiring the noise and beauty of a Ferrari Maranello up ahead of me that was pacing a black Lamborghini Murcielago and a red Ferrari F50. Believe me, that sight was better than the opening scene of the original Italian Job. The beauty of those three cars up ahead held me in a trance……. right up until all three were pulled over and arrested. Shame the Police missed the metallic green Koenigsegg that had just caught and passed the lot of them!
Mind you, they caught the Koenigsegg guy eventually too – but by Police helicopter travelling at nearly 230 mph! Someone told me you can only go 55 mph in the States - clearly a silly rumour from someone with a daft sense of humour. As it happens I didn’t see much of the guy behind the wheel of the Koenigsegg either, as he spent every one of the five nights we travelled across America in gaol; his car had to transported to the finish line as he was immediately banned from driving in the States.
Mr ‘Gumball Koenigsegg’ won a bubble gum machine for his efforts. I thus wondered what my prize would be after accepting an invitation from Porsche Carrera Cup racer Sam Hancock of Jota Motorsport to drive Jota’s Koenigsegg up at the Bruntingthorpe Proving Ground. Jota run a special Drivers Club for the well financially heeled who want to become racing drivers, and have both the time and money to do the same. (Anyone interested should look them up on www. Jotasport.com – then sub title ‘Drivers Club’)
I have not the money, but made the time to sample why I never became Lewis Hamilton. I found the answer to the latter in a couple of laps, but what I really wanted to do was to take retrospective revenge on Gumball Koenigsegg. He did 230 mph down the freeway; the challenge for me was to do more than 230 mph at Bruntingthorpe.
The problem was I couldn’t see a thing – it was late afternoon in November, the fog fell both suddenly and heavily; it was dark, and I could barely see past the bonnet! Sam Hancock didn’t think it was a problem though, and told me to just put my foot down. Cool…as he was sitting beside me at the time, we may as well have our evening meal with God together. So that’s what I did – the Koenigsegg spitting flames in anger each and every time we shifted up a gear. On the first run we hit a measly 164 mph (with the bloody top down in the cold by the way). Second time - and with no daylight available now, I was off to either heaven or hell in my pointless pursuit of notoriety. (it’s a male menopausal thing).It was foot-to-the-floor all the way, zero vision, just imagination and a whisper from Sam that he’d tell me when to stop! Maybe he was Uncle Sam with the evil ears,I don’t know, but neither did I care at the time as we sped off into oblivion aiming for the double Century Plus….in no time Sam was shouting ‘brake! …..firmly! “Well Sam did we do it!” I screamed, confident of my overwhelming victory “Sorry Kevin….you weren’t pushing hard enough …we just nudged 197 mph”.
So close yet so far……….- I’m not a poor loser, it’s just such a shame that they can’t make accurate speedometers in Supercars these days.
Kevin Haggarthy
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