This past weekend, I flew to the East Coast at the invitation of Dr Larry Caplin and his annual CF Charities Supercar Show, which returned for 2021 after skipping last year due to coronavirus concerns. Best known for setting a new world record in January behind the wheel of his SSC Tuatara, Dr Caplin logged the fastest ever two-way run in a production vehicle, solidly beating the Koenigsegg Agera RS with a combined average of 282.9 miles per hour—but he's been a well-known philanthropist in the Philadelphia region for about the last decade, using his extensive supercar collection to raise money for the healthcare-focused charitable foundation. When I interview Dr Caplin shortly after he set the world record, he had his eyes firmly set on cracking the 300 mile-per-hour mark and at the time, he invited me to Philadelphia for a chance to check out the Tuatara, the rest of his supercars, and the foundation's largest yearly fundraising event.
But as great as covering one of the largest supercar meets in the country sounds, the invitation became all the more enticing when I got the chance to fly into Washington DC and join the Fueling Bright Futures Supercar Rally for a Saturday drive through Wilmington, Delaware, and up to Philadelphia in time for Sunday's main show. Organized by Antone Barnes, Dr Caplin's Head of PR at The Brand Architects, and largely consisting of Capital Auto Club members, the group promised somewhere in the range of 40 to 50 supercars for a fun morning on the road.
Meeting Up With A Supercar Rally
I landed on a hot afternoon in DC only to discover that unseasonably rainy weather in Los Angeles apparently followed me east and I got drenched by thunderstorms as I explored the Capitol Mall hoping to see all the quintessential tourist sights. But luckily, on the morning of the rally itself, the weather forecast proved completely wrong (what else is new?) and the skies opened up for a bright, sunny day on the road intercut only by storms of cicadas dive-bombing everything in sight.
Gathering In The Bright Morning Sun
I arrived early on Saturday morning to make sure I'd have my photo and video gear set up and running by the time the fun cars started to show up. At first, a few cars trickled in, including Barnes in his hardcore, decal-pasted and tuned Dodge Charger Hellcat making an absolute ruckus at barely above idle. But then an occasional McLaren or Porsche would slow cruise into the parking lot, plus a Ferrari Superamerica in well-used condition.
A few minutes past the stated 9 AM meetup time, long lines of cars began to rumble on in—everything from 992-gen Porsches to a highly modified Nissan GT-R, a pair of Lamborghini Huracan Performantes, and even a few Maseratis. The aftermarket industry showed up big, too, in the form of a twin-turbocharged Huracan and a twin-turbocharged C8 Corvette. Perhaps one of the most attention-catching arrivals, however, came in the form of an Audi RS6 Avant, which would probably offer a bit more comfort for the cruise up Interstate 95 in the stately wagon form despite still packing a serious wallop with its twin-turbocharged V8, eight-speed dual-clutch, and Quattro all-wheel-drive system.
Prepping To Hit The Road
As the group swelled, with drivers and passengers greeting and introducing each other, Barnes pulled everyone together to lay down some ground rules and the planned itinerary. The big lineup obviously presented a few challenges and more than a few groans could be heard as he explained that everyone should stay behind the Hellcat, which he planned to keep almost entirely at reasonable speeds (maybe 15 over but not much more).
I hopped into a Volkswagen Golf GTI belonging to a guy named Adam, who listed all the mods he'd performed that might help us keep up with the much faster cars surrounding us as we served as something of a camera car. (Another Golf, a tuned R, also joined in on the fun—but it was putting down something around 380 all-wheel-horsepower). Luckily, alongside coilovers and just about every upgraded suspension component for the GTI, Adam had recently installed some big Brembo brakes from a TT RS that ended up saving us more than a few times along the way.
Follow The Charger Hellcat Through Traffic
For first thing on a Saturday morning, the 95 proved quite a challenge, full of stop-and-go traffic interspersed with only a few clear sections. The congestion meant that Barnes mostly kept his promise of tame driving, though the same certainly can't be said for everyone who wanted to let loose while swerving through all the passenger cars, work trucks, and semis on the road. Luckily, the Hellcat's fully decked-out exterior meant it was pretty easy to follow in the scrum—key for us in the GTI as Adam pushed the little VW to its limits trying to get ahead of the pack in the hopes that I could catch some shots as they then blew by us on the few wide-open stretches that we did encounter.
Staying In Formation (Sometimes)
Staying in formation throughout what turned into a few hours of driving, rather than the quick sprint everyone expected, proved pretty difficult. Sometimes the drivers kept themselves in a neat, organized line for us photographers and videographers to capture but most of the time, we resembled more on an amorphous blob trying to find the quickest way through and around slowpokes. The frustration definitely felt palpable, to say the least.
Definitely Obeying All Posted Signs
We did spot a few cops on the sides of the freeway, though luckily, they always seemed to show up at the most clogged-up moments and nobody managed to get caught speeding—plausible deniability in effect here, I never looked at the speedometer so I can't say for certain whether anyone actually broke the speed limit. But suffice to say, we had places to be and people to see, so these McLarens, Maseratis, Porsches, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and Corvettes definitely got to stretch their legs when the opportunity arose.
Blow-Bys And Breakdowns
The traffic did clear up for a couple of blow-by moments, producing a cacophony in a tunnel when Adam slowed down his GTI enough to allow everyone to floor it at redline as they passed us. Out in the E-ZPass express lane, we also caught the Hellcat and others screaming on by (plus a Toyota SUV whose driver was extremely upset by the whole situation and decided to pass us on the right-hand shoulder).
Not everybody in the group made it through the day unscathed, however, and apparently there was some Italian-on-German crime as the twin-turbo Lamborghini sprayed up some gravel that hit two Porsches, one ending up with about a footlong crack on the windshield and the other with a pretty solid spiderweb. The Ferrari Superamerica also broke down and had to be left behind, apparently due to some oil starvation issues.
Police Escort Through Wilmington, DE
Eventually, we made it to Wilmington, Delaware, the ostensible home of Joseph Robinette Biden Jr, where we met up with a few another group of mostly muscle cars organized by Vance Kershner, the owner of Goober's Garage and Goober's Diner who showed up with a 1,000-horsepower Yenko Super Camaro. Meanwhile, Aaron Cooper, owner of the exotic-luxury auto dealership Carplug Factory LLC in Wilmington, bumped the hospitality up another notch by setting us up with a police escort for the few miles through town to Rockford Park. As the motorcycle cops blocked off cross traffic, some pedestrians and bystanders gave us cheers and thumbs up—still, everyone pretty much agreed that the sound of sirens had them on edge, even if the cops were allegedly on our side.
Lunch At Historic Rockford Park
At Rockford Park, the swelling group parked for a photo opp and picked up lunch from a food truck. By now past 2 PM, we'd managed to arrive well over an hour behind schedule and the minimal shade left most people looking for some respite from the heat. Cooper also invited Wilmington's mayor, Michael S Purzycki, who stoppped by for a meet-and-greet and some pics, but I didn't have time to stick around—Adam and I needed to get to our hotel ASAP to prep for interviews and charge up batteries in advance of the main events coming up quickly on Saturday evening and Sunday morning. So we climbed back into the GTI well before everyone else left, settling in for a much tamer ride up to Philadelphia.
Tucked In For The Night In Philly
At the hotel, a detailing crew awaited all the supercars and their cicada-splatted front ends—after all, there's no point in going to a supercar show with a filthy Ferrari, right? (Well, other than the Superamerica, which never rejoined the party.) To be fair, some of the cars in our group might not 100% count as supercars—arguably, not the Cayman GT4, the Charger Hellcat, or the two Golfs, and maybe not the Maseratis or the Audi RS6 Avant. But then again, as the lines blur between today's increasingly powerful, turbocharged and supercharged factory products, everyone managed to get up to some of the highest speeds I've ever seen on public roads (in fact, Adam told me afterward that we'd broken my own public-road top-speed record). But I had to quash the excitement, prepare to interview Dr Larry Caplin, and get myself ready for a hectic Sunday at the CF Charities Supercar Show, which looked set for up to 500 or even 600 cars, a police-escorted drive through the streets of Philadelphia, and even higher speeds on a closed-down portion of the 95 freeway.
Sources: capitalautoclub.com, cfcharities.org, youtube.com, instagram.com, goobersdiner.com, and wilmingtonde.gov.