Drive Your Dream Car (Briefly)

Last Updated (Saturday, 26 April 2008 16:41) Written by Administrator Saturday, 26 April 2008 16:32

the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana to participate in Supercar Life, the latest  in a growing group of four-wheeled fantasy camps that put drivers behind the wheels of cars that mere mortals cannot afford.

Customers and guests can steer Porsches, Ferrari F430s, Lamborghini Gallardos, Mercedes CLK AMG63 Blacks and Aston Martin DB9s (collective horsepower: 2,439) around the track. Flirted with 140 mph, then staggere out with legs trembling.

Why spend the kids' college money oat the track? Because every little boy of all ages dreams of driving the Porsche and the Ferrari. Few can afford it  The Supercar Life  owner himself owns a Lamborghini Superleggera and a $450,000 Porsche Carrera GT). He founded Supercar Life in 2006 as a kind of exotic car club, where owners of elite machines would pay a fee for track time and the chance to try each others' cars. 

The fleet of imported, insanely overpowered cars drew consumers dropping $2 million in the process. A key element was new technology that allowed for high-performance transmissions that eliminate a clutch and stick shift (thus lowering the risk of spinout), and automatic stability control (which keeps inexperienced drivers roaring around at sub-mach speeds from losing control and ending in a flaming wreck).

The company's waiver includes a provision that the liability coverage won't cover drivers who disengage the stability control. Now the Supercar Life entourage, consisting of professional race car drivers, hostesses and a group of crack mechanics, plus two of each supercar waits for eager customers. This is the cure for the everyday motorists' high-torque big-motor envy.

For just under five grand, clients get breakfast, a brief class in high-speed driving and then buckle in and put pedal to metal. Throughout an eight-hour session, interrupted only by a lunch of beef medallions and chicken Monterrey, they drive each car multiple times, trying 0-60 acceleration and braking, slaloms and open-track acceleration. Most finish sweaty, happy and thoroughly exhausted. To date, only four women have paid to participate. In their defense, the cost of the Supercar Life experience could equal an Hermes Kelly handbag. with a $5,000 resale value.

Supercar Life is hardly the first enterprise attempting to capitalize on the almost primal instinct for velocity in some Homo sapiens. A top competitor, World Class Driving, offers a similar lineup of European bravado at a significantly lower price -- $1,495. But that program is on roads, rather than a track, which means that 140 mph is not on the agenda. Some automakers have their own driving schools, such as the $1,795 Porsche Sport Driving School in Alabama or the $8,900 Ferrari Driving Experience in Quebec. However, participants in those get to drive only one brand of car.

Another option is to rent a supercar. Beverly Hills Rent-A-Car offers Gallardos and F430s for $2,500 a day, for example, while Dreamcars West gets you in a Ferrari F355 Spyder for the bargain rate of $749, including, according to the company's online FAQ, the chance to be supplied with "a hot girl or guy to ride in the car."  But that doesn't offer the fun of switching from one supercar to the next, said Richard Hammon, a proud Saturn driver and marathoner who, at 72, gave himself a day at Supercar Life as a present.

Hammon, like most of the other clients, is a veteran of driving events, having paid for the Richard Petty Driving Experience at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Jim Russell Racing Drivers School. What set Supercar Life apart, he said, was the quality and variety of cars. "I liked the Porsche, but didn't care for the Lambo," he said.

That there is an appetite for this kind of high-octane wish fulfillment isn't all that surprising, perhaps, but the fact that people would pay so much is. David Sercu of Rancho Mirage had been through two driving experiences before Supercar Life, including a two-day Ferrari love affair in Maranello, Italy, that cost $12,000. "What can I say," the Merrill Lynch banker (and owner of a not-so-shabby Audi A8) said. "I'm a car guy."

Best quotes from "The Grand"

Last Updated (Saturday, 26 April 2008 14:31) Written by Administrator Saturday, 26 April 2008 14:27

Robert Blake skates from suit

Last Updated (Saturday, 26 April 2008 15:36) Written by Administrator Tuesday, 10 August 2004 06:30

An appeals court upheld a verdict finding Robert Blake liable for his wife's 2001 death but cut the $30 million jury award in half. The 2nd District Court of Appeal rejected the actor's argument of juror misconduct, including complaints that they discussed the O.J. Simpson and Michael Jackson acquittal cases while considering the amount of damages. The court said the argument intruded on the jurors' method of reaching a verdict. The jury's "references to O.J. Simpson and Michael Jackson as celebrities who purportedly had gotten away with murder or molestation, supporting the need to 'send a message' ... reflected the jurors' mental processes in that regard," the panel said.

A criminal court jury acquitted Blake of murder in 2005. Bonny Lee Bakley's family pursued a wrongful-death lawsuit and Blake was found liable for his wife's death in November 2005. Bakley was sitting in Blake's car in May 2001 when she was shot outside a restaurant where the two had just dined. The "Baretta" actor told police he left her alone to return to the restaurant to retrieve a gun he carried for protection and accidentally left behind.

Blake attorney M. Gerald Schwartzbach said that while some believe celebrities are treated differently in the courts, the ruling shows that sometimes they are treated more harshly. "There are a lot of folks who can't accept that he was acquitted of murder," Schwartzbach said. "They think he got away with murder and they want to exact a price in civil court." Although the court filed its ruling as an unpublished opinion, meaning it cannot be cited as legal precedent, Schwartzbach said he would consider an appeal to the California Supreme Court.

Eric Dubin, the attorney for the Bakley family, said he was pleased with the ruling and believes the $15 million award, with interest, will come to about $24 million. He said he thinks he can collect, although Blake has declared bankruptcy. "I see every reason to accept it and be happy about it," Dubin said. "We are going to start collecting."

Schwartzbach said he knows of no Blake assets that would satisfy such a judgment. "I don't believe Mr. Dubin in good faith can believe what he's saying," Schwartzbach said. "If Robert had money he would be paying me." This news comes when late reports of Christian Brando's estate amounted to roughly $150,000. Bonny Lee Bakley had dated the son of famous actor Marlon Brando before knowing Robert Blake.

Nude Vacations Spring Up

Last Updated (Saturday, 26 April 2008 15:38) Written by Administrator Saturday, 26 April 2008 14:07

Got nakation? Mexico’s popular Mayan Riviera and Southern California could be in line for a new vogue this summer, Nudity.

Sea Mountain Inn, a two-year old nude resort and spa in Desert Hot Springs, with California spa room rates ranging from $269 to $900 a night, features Egyptian bed linens, flat-screen TVs and natural mineral water pumped into the shower.  Caesar’s Palace and the Mirage in Sin City have introduced topless pools in the past couple of years.

In 2007, nude recreation represented a $440 million industry — up from $400 million in 2001 and $200 million in 1992 — and it’s still growing, says the American Association for Nude Recreation, which promotes au natural vacations as “nakations.” According to the association, roughly 20 percent of members have a median household income of $106,000, drive luxury cars and spend $3,000 or more on travel.

Nude vacations have expanded too. All-nude yoga retreats share banana bread with other guests at all-nude bed-and-breakfasts, gear up for nude mountain biking in the California High Desert and saunter around the decks of cruise ships chartered specifically for clothing-free travel. In Germany, a travel operator has arranged for an all-nude charter flight this summer to take customers to a clothing-optional retreat in the Baltics. The naturalists will take off and land fully clothed, but shed their clothes once airborne.  The spate of online spa search engines, recently created a separate category for “nudist spa vacations” after noticing an increase in searches for the term. Since November, searches on SpaFinder.com for such trips have averaged about 720 a month — beating out “pet-friendly spas” (284) and “waxing services” (298).

“It’s no longer just a grass-roots, nuts-and-sweets kind of thing,” said Nancy Tiemann, president of Bare Necessities, which specializes in nude travel and is offering a seven-day Greek cruise in September, along with four others in 2008 and 2009. Four months ago, Ms. Teimann’s company began selling an all-nude 2010 Hawaiian cruise on Celebrity Cruise Line’s Constellation, a 2,000-passenger ship. Already, about 90 percent of the ship is booked.

When the company, which she owns with her husband, Tom, began chartering small ships for all-nude cruises in the early 90s, she said many mainstream cruise operators dismissed them as a joke. “Now,” Ms. Tiemann said, with perhaps a touch of hyperbole, “they’re trampling each other to get our business.” Most nude vacationers say that what they enjoy most is liberation from the typical pretenses of society.

But it wasn’t until the dawn of the 20th century when nudism became organized in America, according to the American Association for Nude Recreation. Kurt Barthel, a German immigrant, is acknowledged as the founder of American nudism. On Labor Day of 1929 he led a small group of individuals to picnic in the buff in upstate New York and organized the first official nudist club, called the American League for Physical Culture, where nudists paid dues to gather to swim, socialize and relax in the nude.

Today, America’s increasing obsession with health and wellness may be contributing to the rise of clothing-optional vacations. “Americans have moralized healthy bodies,” said Dacher Keltner, a professor of psychology at the University of California .”