Day 1 The Long Way Up

This year’s field: 6,938 horsepower and a couple Woodrow Wilsons shyof $3 million in sheetmetal and carbon fiber.

- Jonny Lieberman

I eased the gassed-up BMW M850i into the MotorTrend parking lot just before 7:30 a.m. We weren’t leaving until 8, but with the exception of deadlines, I have a real issue with being late.

Parked sideways across three spots in the back lot sat the $982,816 purple and orange McLaren Senna. I nosed the M850i up to the odd-looking beastie, taking up an additional three spots, and sat for a moment to contemplate the diversity of the 2019 Best Driver’s Car field. A Toyota, a Bentley, a Lamborghini SUV, a Mustang (albeit a Shelby), a pocket rocket BMW, and a great big personal luxury coupe of a BMW. Plus, you know, the Senna.

Can we make this work? My thoughts (and the last moment I’d have to myself for the next week) were interrupted by photographer William Walker not so subtly pulling up in the never-subtle Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat Redeye, a big ol’ American boat that produces 8 more horsepower than the 789-hp Senna. Slowly but surely, the rest of the gang turned up along with the rest of the dozen cars, all 6,938 horsepower and a couple Woodrow Wilsons shy of $3 million in sheet metal and carbon fiber. Yeah, we’re good.

The plan for day one of this year’s Best Driver’s Car was to drive all the competitors from our HQ in El Segundo up to Paso Robles, the center of California’s Central Coast wine region. Why there? Paso is pretty close to where we’d be starting day two, the notorious State Route 198. Also, the yummy Firestone Walker Brewing Company taproom restaurant is pretty close to the hotel, and an army marches on its stomach. But I’m getting ahead of the program.

The drive was not to be a straight shot. The idea was that we’d stop every half hour or so and switch cars to give all nine judges seat time in as many cars as possible. This way we’d be able to see what the BDC contenders are like in the real world, or our close approximation of it.