Home

2010 Land Rover Discovery 4 / LR4 Off Road [HD]

The fourth generation Discovery 4 was launched in 2009, and went on sale in the United Kingdom on 1 September. Compared with the 2.7 litre TDV6 ...

SkiddMark joins Team BMW Rahal Letterman at the Sebring 12Hrs

Not being a Florida regular I sought advice on scenic routes, posting the question on a well known US-based BMW web forum. Scenic routes from Miami to Sebring? Oh, how they laughed.

Plan B stumbled into action. Take the M3 down to the Florida Keys, because that will be scenic, for sure. So, I head south from Miami, thinking “It can’t be that far, then I’ll just turn round and head north to Sebring”.

It is that far, actually. This then, of course, means that the journey north to Sebring is that far, plus quite a lot.

Fortunately, the M3 is a surprisingly relaxing companion for the cruise south. Comfortable, very quiet, effortlessly quick, soothing. DCT removes a large chunk of the stress of driving on the wrong side of the car/road, and I just slot it into D and let it get on with the job.

But, be in no doubt, getting all the way to Key West for a symbolic shot of the last naturally aspirated M-car (as it almost certainly will be) takes a long time, thanks to the distance involved and the interminable speed limits and road works.

So long a time, that once I do finally get to the very end of Highway 1, the most southerly point of the USA, I barely have time to take some shots and then hit the road back north to Sebring.

The views are superb in places, with some impressively long bridges, separating the Caribbean on one side from the Gulf of Mexico on the other side. The pelicans do alarmingly good impersonations of low flying aircraft, causing me to duck several times in anticipation of a major strike. But most of the time all I see is commercialised USA.

The usual brands you see everywhere, spread along a narrow ribbon of land on each side of the road. It looks good on Google Earth, though.

So, it is well over 400 miles now, to get to Sebring. Time to start exercising those 420 Bavarian horses. The run back north (back to Miami, in fact, such was the quality of Plan B) is pretty mundane, but once to the north of the city, the interstate all of a sudden gets very, very quiet, as the sun sets over my left shoulder. And very straight. I take advantage of the circumstances and distances seem to shrink as the M3 plays the GT to perfection.

Read more...