Doing Donuts Is Not Just for Your Misspent Youth

The last time I did a donut in a car was sometime back in high school, in my friend’s burnt orange Buick sedan. We ended up in a snow-covered parking lot, and my buddy Tom decided to pull off a few spins. Our joyride was short-lived, as we bounced over a snow-covered concrete parking-space bumper and nearly destroyed the car’s axles.

I had assumed doing donuts was something consigned to the foolhardiness of youth, but for 70-year-old former World Rally champ Jean Ragnotti, that is not the case. Ragnotti takes his Renault Maxi 5 Turbo out for a spin – literally – at Goodwood, and invites viewers along for the ride. I’m not sure what’s cooler, the split-screen views of the Frenchman’s driving skills, the flames that burst out of the Turbo’s exhaust, or hearing Ragnotti say “360” in French: “trois-cent-soixante.”