[tommygold]

I'm the OP. Hi everyone. What an amazing community -- post something late at night on Saturday and get a terrific, sometimes detailed, set of responses.

Neither spam nor a troll. I'm a Washington lawyer. I got the 458 (black on black) around 3 weeks ago from Ferrari of DC. It's a 2011 and has about 480 miles on it now.

My buddy is a Venture Capital guy who lives in Las Vegas. He's had the Kirkham for a year and has put about 20 miles on it, embarrassingly. He bought it used in 06, and he says that it is registered as a 65.

The race will be at the Las Vegas Speedway. I just need to ship the car out there.

So this is definitely for real, and the stakes are definitely very high.

It sounds like the key question here is to get some more details on his car. I apologize -- I'm neither a car guy generally, nor someone who knows Cobras certainly.

I do know that he has a side-oiler, and that he doesn't have anything else special intended to make the car hyperfast, such as nitrous. If you let me know what questions to ask about his engine, I'll be glad to.

In terms of the slicks, he bought the car with them on, and I think he just thinks they look cool. I tend to think that the slicks will earn him about one second over my tires in the quarter mile.

My great advantage does seem to be at the start, when my computer can deal with the launch and he has to generate a great start. Then I get the advantage of the shifts.

He will invest the time to get the shifting down better. There's a lot of money and pride at stake.

It will be videotaped.

Thanks for all your responses.