[Buzz]

That Cobra was rock solid. HP was in the 700 range and with the freshly prepped track just for that race, the Ferrari never had a chance. It was an easy beat down with a mild launch and easy shifts. I felt that the Cobra could've gone even faster with a more experienced and aggressive driver.

As for Dan - he is a bit of a character all right, but like most celeb types, there's the public persona and a far more "normal" person behind the scenes. After the practice session before the day of the actual race, we left the speedway, dropped the Cobra off at Shelby to be cleaned and detailed and three of us hung out at Dan's apartment for a while before going to the airport to collect his girlfriend flying in from the Playboy mansion. We had some time to kill and were tossing out some ideas - Blitz's suggestion was to buy an old car and go out into the desert and shoot it up. Hardly what would've been expected from the infamous wild man of Las Vegas.

The really interesting thing was how the presence of the Cobra stacked up against the still relatively fresh (then) wow-factor of the all-black, jewel-like 458 Italia. Predictably, the 458 drew appreciative oohs and aahs from the decent sized throng of onlookers; but once the Cobra fired up and rumbled into the parking area there was a tangible, ominous silence for a while. It was like the horsemen of the apocalypse just rode in. People stared quietly at the Cobra forgetting Tommy and his Ferrari - much like when a real nasty looking SOB walks into a bar and everyone knows something really bad is about to happen.