A version of this story first appeared in Revolution Magazine USA, Issue 74

At about the 150-mile-per-hour mark speeding down Phantom Hill, I realized that I had never actually made a will. It’s funny what you think about when the earth next to you is flying backwards at seemingly Mach-level ground speed. At 60, 70, 80mph, you don’t really think about the little dips in the road. They just don’t feel like much of an issue, but at 150, 160, 170mph, they feel like craters.

To say there was a lot swirling around my head as I hurtled to the braking zone at the end of this three-mile closed road would be an understatement. My thoughts ranged from, “This is insanely awesome!” to “Which watch will they bury me with if this is the last thing I do?” and everything in between.

A few days before the above existential moment, a group of adventure-seeking car nuts and myself landed in Sun Valley, Idaho. We were there for a charity event called Tour de Force that a friend of mine, Dave Stone, puts on every year to benefit The Hunger Coalition, with last year’s donation from the event cresting the one-million-dollar mark. Unlike most charity events, though, this one is more of a charity adventure.

Through a unique set of circumstances, Dave and the local sheriff were able to convince the governor of Idaho to shut down three miles of highway encompassing Phantom Hill on route 75, around 13 miles north of a picturesque mountain town called Ketchum. Dave then proceeded to invite every one of his petrol-for-blood, extreme- experience-seeking, car-guy friends to take runs over this stretch of road in search of their cars’ top speeds.

The other participants sent a wide variety of cars over: Bugattis, Ferraris, Porsches, Lamborghinis and McLarens all participated in the first year I took part in the event. My car of choice for the first time at Tour de Force was my McLaren 600LT coupe. The McLaren 600LT is a (conservative) 600 horsepower, approximately 3,000 pound supercar with a 205mph top speed and a carbon monocoque chassis that was built to be piloted at every last mph of its speed rating.

One of the few cars worthy of the “handles like a go-kart” saying, my flame-shooting 600LT was already a personal favorite and one in which I had already participated in many fun drives and outings. But never anything quite like this.

Even back when I was racing in Grand-Am or tracking for pleasure, we’d “only” hit 180mph on a long track with a higher top-speed gearbox generally used for Daytona and its long, banked straights. The track surface was glass- smooth most of the time. Here, we were talking about supercars capable of 200-plus mph at their maximum velocity on a public road. It’s a feat you don’t realize how big of a deal it really is until you’re hurling your car down the pavement, questioning your sanity and exercising your adrenal glands to the max.

First came multiple safety checks and a rather sobering drivers’ meeting outlining the risk that comes with an event like this, as well as the amount of organization it takes the Tour de Force people to keep our shiny sides up on the road. Then, after a couple days, we headed off to Phantom Hill to stage for our high-speed runs.

First attempt

A quadruple espresso and three bathroom runs later, I was already going 100mph standing still. I look over at my friend Steve sitting in my passenger seat who had, for some reason, the will to potentially perish alongside me should this thing go awry. I pointed to the Richard Mille RM 67-02 Ogier and said, “it’s time!” I had brought it with me specifically for this event as it seemed the perfect carbon companion for the high-speed shenanigans we were engaging in, hoping we wouldn’t have to test its impact resistance.

We inch up to the starting line in the 600LT, helmets on, radios in-ear, and await our “go” radio signal as the organizers checked for wildlife near the road. Then we get the “all clear.” I press the loud pedal to the backstop and the McLaren rockets forward, clearing 60mph in right around three seconds, even with a little wheel-spin from my enthusiastic start.

With a couple of right gear shift pulls, creating loud gunshot-sounding backfires from the exhaust into third followed shortly by fourth gear, the 600LT comes into its own. It gets nice and grippy as we enter the slight left-hand corner at something around 120mph. The road straightens out after this slight left and then points downhill with the 600LT gaining speed, fast.

Around 150mph, the road becomes way bumpier than I had anticipated, and I got an instant pit-of-the-stomach feeling, accompanied by the thought that I didn’t have a will in place. It wasn’t quite as simple of a task to run this car up to its 205mph top speed as I had thought it would be.

Steve, sitting next to me, is about as white as the creamer I used in my previously mentioned espresso shots at this time as well. Every mph above 150 felt nerve-wracking and the car was not really happy, almost skipping over some of these bumpy sections. Moving a foot over and back on the road, I felt myself slow down as a result. I think I managed 168mph, at best.

At this point, I was actually a bit upset at myself. Until then, I thought I had no fear in a car. I started thinking that maybe 200mph wasn’t going to happen, and that I wouldn’t get to add that story to my connection with the RM 67-02 and 600LT.

Breaking the barrier

Another friend of mine, Seamus, could see it in my face as he walked towards us in the staging area. He asked if something was wrong with the car, and I mentioned that above 140mph it becomes stiff and unstable on this road. Taking a tyre gauge, he sees that the tyres are a little high and suggests that we lower them and try again. He lowers the pressures by a good few psi (pound force per square inch) — the opposite thing most manufactures have you do for higher speed runs, mind you — and we head back to the start line.

I take off, with Seamus now goading me on, and I hit the left hander even faster than before. Now leaving the left hander at around 140mph, the car feels so much more settled, though the pavement is still not ideal. Next, 150mph comes, feels better, but not great … 160, 170, and my palms are absolutely first-date-in-high-school-level sweaty.

Then, 180 comes and the most wild sensation happens in the 600LT. The McLaren now doesn’t feel like it’s fighting against the road or the air: it just starts sailing through it, completely stable. It hits 190, then 200 … 201, 202, 203, 204, and then it’s time to hit the brakes and slow the silver British bullet back down to a “normal” silver-car speed and head back to the pits.

What a feeling that was! Every second at 200mph and over felt like an eternity of perfect calm, with nothing else existing of greater importance than being focused on each passing moment. Talk about putting normal (static) meditation to shame! My body was vibrating and I was definitely shouting “holy $#!%” over and over again. For a car guy, 200mph is pretty rarefied air. I could now faithfully say that the 600LT, my RM 67-02 and myself had successfully existed at over 200mph — and on a public road, no less.

I felt the need to repeat the experience a couple years later in a newer McLaren 765LT Spider, this time wearing my much older 1968 Rolex Daytona 6241 Paul Newman. This car was able to hit its 204-ish miles per hour top speed even faster than the 600LT with its nearly 150mph horsepower increase. Fair warning for anyone who participates in this amazing event or any like it: “Once you go that fast, you never go back…” Or, something like that.