- 176
- Virginia, USA
- redhotcpeppers
I did get my wife to go with me to the "Track Laps for Charity" event at the Richmond Raceway NASCAR track yesterday. You donate $20 to cancer research and you get to drive your personal car around the track for 5 laps. So I took my Honda Civic for a spin! You have to stay in line with a group behind the pace car (they took about 10 cars on the track at one time) and the speed limit is 55mph, but we got over 60mph for a good portion of it. That isn't very fast, but with Richmond being such a short track you could still feel it in the turns at that speed. It was cool to feel the banking in the turns as well.
What was interesting to me was that the track felt really short even at that slow speed. With the front-stretch being a D-shape it felt like I was constantly in a turn, with only a brief break on the straight back-stretch. At the speed the NASCAR guys go (140mph on the straights, 90mph in the turns) that is a lot of work keeping the wheel steady for 400 laps.
I've never done anything like that before so it was a pretty cool experience. 👍
What was interesting to me was that the track felt really short even at that slow speed. With the front-stretch being a D-shape it felt like I was constantly in a turn, with only a brief break on the straight back-stretch. At the speed the NASCAR guys go (140mph on the straights, 90mph in the turns) that is a lot of work keeping the wheel steady for 400 laps.
I've never done anything like that before so it was a pretty cool experience. 👍