Yahoo Autos Learning High-HP Car Control in a McLaren 600LT at Team O’Neil Rally School
Big power used to be hard to come by. Four-hundred-plus horsepower under the hood meant spending six figures, or making significant modifications to your car. But these days, power is abundant. Innovative engine tech and the public’s lust for performance means you can get a 460-horsepower Mustang for less than $30,000, or choose from five different Hellcat-engined FCA models, all priced under a hundred grand.
Learning how to manage that kind of power isn’t easy. With many new supercars, you can't use a fraction of their performance on the road. You have to go to a closed course to safely find the limits. One option is a race track. At most high-performance driver education (HPDE) events, you’ll have access to professional instruction, and plenty of opportunities to explore. But if you exceed those high limits, you’re likely to be going very quick, and if something goes wrong, you could be faced with a big repair bill. Or worse.
We thought there might be a better way. One that doesn’t involve ultra-high speeds, but that could still put a smile on our faces. Then it hit us: Why not dirt? Countless racers get their start on low-grip surfaces. Muddy circle tracks, gravel rally stages, and frozen lakes are ideal places to learn car control. We had to test the theory.
And what better place than the Team O’Neil Rally School? Located in Dalton, New Hampshire, the school was founded by rally champion Tim O’Neil in the late Nineties with the sole purpose of teaching drivers how to improve their skills on dirt. Spanning nearly 600 acres, the property hosts rally stages, skid pads, off-road courses, and anything else you may run into driving through a forest. It’s the perfect venue for testing something like a modern supercar, since there’s professional instruction on site, and not much to hit in case something goes wrong. All we needed was a car.
Enter the McLaren 600LT Spider. A limited production, hardcore version of the company’s already quick 570S Spider, it’s as super as supercars get. Underneath the svelte bodywork is a carbon fiber monocoque, and a 592-hp 3.8-liter twin-turbo V-8. Power is sent to the rear wheels via an ultra-quick seven-speed dual-clutch and, interestingly, an open differential. It was the ideal weapon for the job.
The drive up to Team O’Neil from New York City reinforced my thoughts on the stratospheric limits of today’s supercars. A trip down a twisty backroad is too easy for the 600LT. You can triple the speed limit with just a few seconds of full-throttle acceleration and corners are dealt with ruthlessly, thanks to the car’s impeccable brakes and fantastic steering. It’s so quick, you end up spending more time worrying about getting pulled over than enjoying your time behind the wheel.
