race car driving school

A screaming comes across the sky: it’s an F-15 Strike Eagle fighter jet, dropping sharply as it prepares to land at nearby Nellis Air Force Base. Loud as it was, the roar of that craft is nothing compared to my own vehicle, a NASCAR stock car, as I prepare to race around the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

I am not a professional driver, and I probably haven’t seen the high side of 100 miles per hour since my teenage years, when I had a Cougar with a peppy, gas-hogging 351. But here I am, in the pit area at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, enrolled along with 33 other men and women in the Richard Petty Driving Experience.

A three hour course, it’s not meant to turn you into a pro. “It’s entertainment, not a driving school,” clarifies Bryan Kroten, Incentive Sales Manager for the Experience. But it will help just about anyone release his or her inner speed demon, even those who don’t know a NASCAR from the NASDAQ. And serious racing enthusiasts can sign up for longer courses, up to a day and a half in duration.

The Speedway sits about 15 miles north of Las Vegas’ storied Strip, and you can see all the landmark hotels in the distance. Dramatic snow-capped mountains fill the horizon, while smaller hills and desert terrain greet the eye closer in. Participants drive their own cars through a tunnel that takes them to the interior of the track, famous as the home of the Winston Cup and the UAW Daimler Chrysler 400.

After donning blue cotton jumpsuits with the Petty logo, we watch a video narrated by Petty, and then we’re turned over to the local pros – Petty operates schools like this on two dozen-plus tracks around the country – for some crucial safety instruction.

I opt for an add-on, the fabled “ride-along.” Seconds later, I’m sliding in through the window – no doors on these babies – and getting strapped into the passenger seat of a stock car, wearing both helmet and neck brace, next to a grinning pro, whose face is all but obscured by his helmet, as his voice is by the roar of the engine. Before I can consider the sanity of my decision, he screams out of the pit area and on to the track, no doubt working his way through each of the four speeds on the stick shift, though I never notice it. This ain’t Disneyland’s Autopia.

We’re doing a blazing 160 on the straightaway, and he’s keeping the car high up, by the wall, before shooting sharply down into the first lightly banked curve, accelerating all the while. The G forces are so strong, I can barely move, and all that I can manage is to feebly – and insincerely – return his “thumbs up” gesture when he wordlessly inquires if I’m enjoying the ride. The three laps blaze by – about one and a half minutes total time on the mile and half track, if my math is correct – before we veer off, back in to the pit.

I’m wobbly when I get out, but there’s no time to think as my turn is up, this time behind the wheel. Again, I ease myself through the window opening – no problem for me after a decade of yoga, but potentially challenging for the less flexible – and get strapped in from all sides. I am supposed to follow a pro in a matching car as he pulls out ahead of me – but I stall as I shift into first gear, and have to restart the engine. The second time is the charm, and I follow him out of the pit, doing 100 or so in fourth gear as we hit the track.

I follow his line, but I can’t keep up his pace on the first couple of laps, especially into the curves, so the flagman waves a rolled up green flag as I pass, indicating that I need to pick up my speed. By the fourth lap, I feel comfortable behind the wheel, and I push down harder on the gas pedal, bringing my car within three lengths of his as we circle the track at just under 130 miles per hour.

I get the checkered flag just as I’m ready to go even faster, so it’s time to pull back in to the pit area. It’s a relief to remove the helmet and jumpsuit, now soaked in sweat. But I know I can handle the speed, and I’m eager to return, perhaps for one of the longer courses, with more time on the track.

And I can't help but think -- if only all the schools i had attended had been like this.