crankandpiston.com spent an exhausting 24 hours at the region’s biggest endurance race, efforts aided by our new long term Cadillac CTS.
[Not a valid template]As you may already have seen, crankandpiston was on-hand during the Dubai 24 Hours to cover the general goings on, day and night then day again. Naturally, for 24 straight hours of endurance racing coverage, we needed some vital supplies: our wits; our motoring knowledge; a fleet of cameras, tripods, lenses, spare batteries, notepads, and a muscle-hewn vehicle to ferry them from A-B; a ready-stream of Red Bull, coffee and pretzels; and, of course, a place to rest our weary heads (most of us live just twenty minutes away from the circuit, but we’re nothing if not thorough).
Such a task seemed a fitting opportunity to put our new (cough, 2010 model year, cough) Cadillac CTS through its first big test. The big 3.6-litre V6 belted down under the bonnet has impressed us on paper, but a couple of swift runs around the Autodrome’s perimeter roads (usually in a blind panic ten minutes before one session or other was about to get underway) demonstrated that the big Caddy has got some puff. A little laboured in the lower revs perhaps, since you don’t get the full benefit of those 317 horses until you’re well up the rev range.
Still, when push came to boot, the big bad bruiser from Detroit was not afraid to take a bit of punishment at the throttle and the six-speed automatic gearbox. Given a hint or two of understeer and oversteer – though fortunately not in the same corner – the Caddy once or twice did try to kick us back, a slightly nerve-jangling experience given the laundry list of technical wizardry we had stashed in the boot. Plus most of the crankandpiston editorial crew.
Another reason we can’t really be too down on the CTS for it’s slightly underwhelming performance is space. Even though up front driver and passenger feel quite cocooned in their separate little pods (courtesy of a low driving position and raised centre console), there was enough room in the back seats and the spacious boot to store all our required paraphernalia (Burger King wrappers, empty cans, Snickers bars, etc) should push have come to shove and our hired minivan failed to have arrived.
Come 2.30am though, one slight issue about the CTS reared its ugly head. The somewhat outdated infotainment system made finding the appropriate night-time tunes a bit of a headache, but it was more the Recaro seats that got our danders up. They are stiff. Quite stiff. Really, really quite stiff. The prospect of sleeping in the CTS consequently grew old quickly.
The CTS may well have proven a dab hand at chauffeuring us around the circuit, and eating up all our required equipment, but that didn’t stop most of the team trying to find floor space in the media centre for a few hours kip. Even the most rugged of endurance race reporters needs his creature comforts sometimes.
