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Just_me · **Cool race story -** 12-07-2005, 05:04 PM

Had one of the best driving experiences of my life late last night...

I was driving my E60 casually through Sloane Square (London) at about 12:50am. As I approached the road that heads upto Chelsea Bridge, I noticed a black lambo Gallardo and a silver SL55 AMG at the lights, one behind the other. The Gallardo had blacked out windows and looked mean as hell. I joined the queue as the third car. Whenever I pull up to cars like these I always lower the windows a tad just to enjoy that beautiful guttaral roar I know is about to reverberate around me....

When the lights turned green then I realised these guys were racing....did I need an invitation....hell no!!

The next 400 yards was covered in less than what felt like 2 - 3 seconds. The Gallardo driver pulled away so hard that he had to slam the anchors on at the next set of lights almost immedietly. The SL driver being a little sneaky held back about 50 yards and then floored it as the lights turned green - he was on a rolling start and overtook the gallardo on the inside lane and then cut in across him - there was obviously some history to this!

The noise coming from both cars was totally incredible. There was virtually no street noise around at that time of the early hours. London on a Tuesday night is dead, especially when the streets are cold.

At this point I decided I didn't need an invitation and pulled up behind the Gallardo who was by this time next to the SL at the lights facing Chelsea Bridge.

As if by conditioned reflex, the M button was depressed....

The lights turned green and both cars took off. I was right up there behind them, all the way across the bridge and down towards Queenstown road. There is probably close to a mile of road here. We all reached close to 140mph and came into a sharp left turn dipping down to 45pmh, what happened next was more funny than anything else. The lambo continued around the roundabout and went back up towards Chelsea Bridge, I followed, but the SL continued left. I assumed he was heading home.

I continued following the Gallardo again reaching 135mph before reaching the middle of the bridge. We slowed down and caught the lights at green and turned violently left onto the Embankment - all I could see ahead was an empty road stretching out for at least a mile and a half. As we pulled hard I felt as though I was in a film. The Embankment is great at night - all the lights and the sheer stillness of what is normally such a congested area. Ofcourse they could have a F1 GP in London I thought...

As we raced down the embankment, the engines were both screaming for more gearing and in no time at all we were once agin at 140 mph....I kept thinking what the hell am I doing?!?! I'm going to lose my license for this. But the vision of that Lamborghini trying it's hardest to pull away from me and the noise from both sets of tailpipes was filling my veins with an adrenaline that must have had nitrous mixed in!!

In the distance the lights had turned to red. We both slowed down and pulled up side by side. As we waited I kept glancing over to see who was driving the Gallardo, I couldn't see a thing through the tints. As we waited, I heard more engine roar and glanced up at the rear view mirror...the SL 55 was back behind us. It arrived as the lights turned green, instead of tucking in behind either of us, the guy just screamed past on the wrong side of the road and shot ahead with a gap of at least 100 yards. We all turned left onto Albert Bridge and came to a virtual standstill as the SL guy sensibly ambled through the 7'7' width restriction bollards. I could smell the wonderful aroma of hot brakes. We all then turned right towards Battersea. The 'race' continued catching green lights all the way through to Wandsworth roundabout. We reached speeds of upto 120mph all the way to the big wandswoth roundabout. As we waited at the lights other cars that we had overtaken caught up and drivers started taking photos with their mobile phones...

The lights turned and we tore away around the roundabout and down through a great right to left towards the wandswoth one way system . My M5 was keeping up without any problem....okay I didn't manage to overtake, but I didn't get slaughtered either. As we came through the big swinging, bend the lambo drifted with tail out and coasted through with sheer driving class, it was sublime to watch....even though I was tempted, I didn't swith the DSC off......

We all pulled up at the next set of lights and looked across at each other. I was in the middle, and as I turned to my right I saw a beaming smile from a gentleman in his mid 50's - he was the driver of the SL55. Obviously a guy that lives on the edge...

I looked to my left and saw the window of the Lambo begin to lower....

The driver was easily at least 65 and was wearing driving gloves and a four point harness. He smiled at me and simply shouted out, " Same time next week?"

I drove home at 25mph, my hands slightly shaking and a smile from ear to ear. I got home and began to change into my pj's, when my wife woke and asked if i'd had a good evening..... 'yes', I calmy replied.....

Before getting into my bed, I had to go back to the front door and take another glance at my beautiful, black, beast sitting in my drive ready for the school run in the morning.

It was a great drive, and now I'm just waiting for the photographic evidence from the police to land on my door mat......

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