I went to a rally that I underestimated with the car that stole my heart.
The title says it all. I fell in love with the LP640. I’m still very much theSLRgirl, but the Murci is phenomenal. If you're on the market for one, don’t think twice.
We drove over 3000km for 5 days straight and I can’t wait to re-do the whole thing. Yes, our lower backs did hurt a little on the last day, but that’s 3000km in a supercar. I can’t really think of another supercar that can be this comfortable for more than 250km, maybe the 720S. It’s impressive and unexpected how spacious and relaxed you can be in a V12 Lambo while going with 315km/h. Yes, we did 315km/h, not going to say where for obvious reasons. You do feel the speed, but it’s not scary, because there’s only engine sound. In comparison, when you do over 240km/h in a McLaren you can hear all sorts of scary noises and you feel the speed in a more realistic manner - maybe for the better. Speed came natural for the Murci, it was planted.
Some things worth mentioning: the LP640 had a RWD conversion 2 weeks before the rally, which made it more manoeuvrable and responsive and also added 1-2 cm of ground clearance, which is great since it’s a daily. We took the front bumper to a carbon-fibre specialist to fix some holes (from the previous owner) and later for a full repaint in the OEM color + PPF and skid plates. About the drama with the tires - well, we found Hoosier slicks in Germany for the track day, but we missed the delivery with 1 day. Very unfortunate, because if we had them, we would have recorded at least 10s quicker time on the F1 track. The only solution is custom wheels - from 18 inch to 19 inch, which will allow greater brand choices. The current size is 335/30-18 - again, this is a problem only in Europe. If you’re buying a Murci in Europe, prepare for going through this, if you’re planning on driving it of course.
The rally started with a briefing at the most popular hotel in Sofia - Marinela with the first challenge - we had to get to an airport for exactly 40mins to receive the first points. We calculated the average speed and everything plus some 3-4 mins of buffer time in case we mess something up and I'm glad we did. All good, we were 2km away from the finish line in a village and then the app told us to go through a dirt road. Without any consideration and with all the competitiveness we had ("maybe it'll be faster"), we decided to listen to it. On the right side we had hen houses and on the left - the shocked locals. Just imagine - you live in a calm village, you go to collect some eggs - normal day like any other - and then you see a Murciélago LP640 blasting through a dirt road. Their expressions said it all.
We finished on time, with only 1 scrape in the paint. Then we had the drag race, where we did our best, but with these tires we could only do so much. The Murci was spinning tires for 80m at the start. And this was the moment when we realised people take this rally seriously. In my head "It's a rally with supercars, exotics and expensive cars, no one will push them to the limit. We'll just have some fun with the cars." - never been more wrong. Now is the time to play Scarface's Push It To The Limit.
After the drag race, we drove to a city, which is in a close proximity to the Greek and the Turkish borders - Svilengrad. This was our first stop.
Day 2 started with a "hidden locations" challenge. We received a list of 8 locations (4 of which were GPS coordinates) within Svilengrad. 3 were related to the city's past and the other 5 weren’t. We had 1 hour to find the 3 locations and to send photos of the car in front of them as a proof. The rain made this one a real fun. Later, we headed to Istanbul.
On day 3, we took our cars to the Formula 1 track - Intercity Istanbul Park. We had the track for ourselves the whole day. We started our journey from the hotel to the track and on the way we got pulled over by the police. They weren’t speaking English and we were wearing matching VINwiki t-shirts with a huge crossed 55mph print- basically saying "no speed limits". We told them we're racing drivers while smiling and that we race at the track today. The police made us rev up the Murci and then told us we have fines and let us go. We made it to the track. After some brief safety instructions, the lights were on and we were competing against each other for the fastest lap. I have been to a lot of Formula 1 tracks, this one is extremely physically demanding and the heat took it to another level. Here was the moment if you had racing tires to put them on. The favourites - the 911s were so preppy, even started changing the rotors in the box. I asked the driver of an RS what's taking them so long and he replied "Once we do all of this, we turn every system on and we just press it. Nothing can go wrong.". Boring. I prefer our Murci with tires from 2018 and without any safety systems. Not the fastest, it spun off the track 3 times - one of which with 180km/h, but it was gorgeous doing it. No damage was done to the car, besides we almost destroyed the clutch and this was only day 3 out of 5. The fastest car was AMG GTR with Cup 2R tires, it was a huge surprise for the Porsches. In the evening - a yacht took us to a restaurant on the Bosphorus.
On the last day of the rally, we headed back to Bulgaria. The finish line was in Sveti Vlas, but before that we had to pay our fines. In Turkey you pay the fines at the border - pretty convenient.
Immediately after we crossed the border our last challenge started. We had to calculate how long it'll take us to get from A to B (10km), if our average speed was 55km/h. We were second on this challenge, only 0,1s behind the 1st. Very happy and proud with this result.
We crossed the finish line together - 40 exotics, supercars and sports cars and we spent the evening celebrating the cars and the newfound friendships.
Sign us up for the next one!