The ground shook in Sonoma this weekend. Every automaker tries to create a distinctive and memorable experience for us when it comes to early test drives. Bentley, through only its choice of location, seems to have taken the cake.
Invited to climb behind the wheel of the $337,000, roadgoing 2015 Bentley Continental GT3-R—pictured above in less fractured environs—and watch the Continental GT3 compete in the Pirelli World Challenge at Sonoma Raceway, we thought last weekend would be business as usual.
On Saturday, we hammered the only GT3-R currently in existence on the open roads surrounding Sonoma, and we watched a Bentley Continental GT3 take the pole position in qualifying. On the outset, the trip seemed fun but not extraordinary.
All that changed, however, at approximately 3:20 a.m. Sunday morning when a 6.0 magnitude earthquake rocked northern California, its epicenter located just a few short miles from where we were staying.
Thankfully, we all were unscathed, and so were the vast majority of the region's residents. (If it matters to anyone outside of the Bentley accounting office, the GT3-R was unharmed as well.) As we drove back to the track that morning, we found the rest of the countryside wasn't as lucky. Between our hotel and the Sonoma circuit, we crossed torn strips of tarmac and saw fractured building facades. We've embedded some photos at the bottom of the post from our sister publication, the San Francisco Chronicle, to give you an idea of the sort of damage we saw.
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This is the point in the story at which where we'd normally liken the performance or driving dynamics of the GT3-R to the earth-shattering force of the quake. And we wish we could. However, we're not allowed to talk about our experiences with the car just yet. Suffice it to say that, while the Bentley is immensely impressive, it can't compete with the awe-inspiring forces of Mother Nature herself.
from Car and Driver Blog http://ift.tt/nSHy27
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