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Blacktop Rally Day 1-3
May 2, 2012
I have never seen so much death and destruction. Thousands died yesterday, perhaps tens of thousands, I’ve never been exposed to such a violent melee – thankfully a free hand was all that was needed to wipe my visor clean of the accumulated bug graveyard that had formed on the visor of my helmet.
If you’re a biker, even behind a massive fairing, you’ll be familiar with this sort of thing but for a typical motorist this was a grotesque new experience. Everything is a projectile. Birds, once so pretty, now dangerous darts capable of penetrating my neck. Loose stones and gravel are like scatter shot from a ten gauge. I’m currently sitting shot gun, occasionally sharing driving duty with topCar’s test engineer Peter Henkel, in this, a KTM Xbow, which is a car in many ways. The fact that it has no roof, no doors nor windows nor a windscreen means its not dissimilar to a motorbike either, what it is however is drop dead sexy.
Every participant of the Blacktop Rally has been vocal in their admiration for the Xbow. Ditto have they been sympathetic for us its drivers. We are at the halfway mark in East London after having completed 2500km, consisting of drag racing, circuit carving and the commute between them, including a harrowing night stint sans GPS. The driving has been immense. The parties, mega. And the camaraderie at an all time high no doubt helped by constant run ins with the law. Threes days to go, two circuits and hell knows how many kilometres. Its not a race, its a rally… But with a car line up including supercharged M3s and RS4s, Aston Martins, Mahindra trucks and more, anything could happen.
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