Imagine this. You’re at the Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville, enjoying a track day in your lovely mid-engine supercar. A limited edition, to be more precise, but the fun turns to fright on the last corner's exit.
“Driver had disabled the traction control and got on the throttle before straightening up,” said Bluurie about the video he uploaded on YouTube, depicting a spectacular spin of a McLaren 600LT plus an incredible save.
If you slow down the clip to 0.25 playback speed, it becomes crystal clear what happened there. The Macca powerslides out of Whites Corner near the outside curb, and the moment the driver feels that rear end is much looser than expected, he either takes his foot off the accelerator or dabs the brake pedal for a split second. That’s enough to unsettle the British exotic even more that it was, and too little countersteer is an issue in its own right.
The laws of physics, ladies and gentlemen, are also to blame for the 600LT spinning out and getting so close to the inside wall. That moment of deceleration on corner exit translates to less weight over the rear axle, and reaccelerating does little to correct the driver’s error. The car is approaching the wall once again with the rear bumper, but as fate would have it, the brakes thankfully work their magic before any expensive damage is done.
The uploader took to Reddit to explain that “the car was fine after a review, tires didn't seem to have any flat marks on them.” When asked if the 600LT owner needed some new underwear, Bluurie jokingly replied “absolutely.”
It’s hard not to clench twice while watching this clip, but there’s something to be learned from it. First and foremost, honing one’s driving skills takes practice regardless of the car’s price of rarity. Secondly, track insurance may cost a lot of money but it definitely makes sense if a McLaren is at stake.
As a brief refresher, the fixed-head coupe and open-top spider 600LT are no longer in production. When it was new, the limited edition used to cost $240,000 and came with a free day of driver training to ensure that owners don’t take chances in the twisties.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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