The NASCAR Experience at Texas Motor Speedway on Saturday was awesome! I highly recommend that you give it a try if you're ever given the opportunity. My amazing wife gave it to me as an early birthday present. It's normally $800 for eight minutes, but it's on sale right now for $483.99. It's not cheap, but how often can you say you got to drive a NASCAR race car?
Here's a run-down of what to expect. The Experience gives you the option of driving a car by yourself or riding along with a professional driver. As a driver, you're electronically limited to 5,000 RPM. The ride along is not limited and therefore are about 20MPH faster on the track. Ride along customers don't wear a racing suit.
My reservation was for 11:00am, but you are instructed to get there an hour ahead of your assigned time. You sign in, they issue you a racing suit to wear, you watch a 15-minute instructional video, and then you go outside and wait your turn. It was in the mid-90's on Saturday, and I made the mistake of wearing jeans. The racing suits are hotter than 2 rats fornicating in a wool sock, so shorts are greatly advised. Also, wear sneakers that are easy to slip on and off.
I was scheduled to start at 11:00, but I didn't get into the car until 2:30. There was a large turn out, so it took them a while to get through everyone. Getting into the car was a fun exercise. I'll be 52 next week, and I weigh 250lbs - thank you covid - so I'm not as spry as I used to be. I don't raise my right leg up higher than my waist on a routine basis, so getting my leg up into the driver's window was an interesting feat. It's a very tight fit once you're in the seat. You basically wear the car. I can see how someone with claustrophobia would be uncomfortable. They strapped me in, I had to wait a few minutes, and I got even hotter - I'm talking 4 rats fornicating in a wool sock hotter at this point! Finally, they fired up the car, and a spotter on the radio told me to pull out. The cars are four speed stick shifts, so getting to shift through the gears was really cool.
Your spotter is talking to you constantly as you drive. There's a push to talk button on the steering wheel so you can communicate back, but there's really no reason to say anything back to them once you're up to speed on the track. You take the banked curves at top speed, and the g-forces press you down and slightly to the right into the seat. As you come off of the curved embankment and onto the straight, the car wants to pull HARD LEFT, and you really have to work to keep the car straight. I knew that it would pull to the left, but I didn't expect it to pull that much. Funny thing is, it didn't pull to the left when at low speed in the pits, only at full speed and on the straights.
Eight minutes goes by fast when you're doing 150 MPH - at least the certificate they gave me said I got up to 150 at some point - and I was able to get six laps in. Getting out of the car was another interesting experience. Being fat and out of shape does not contribute to easily getting out of a race car that doesn't have doors - now I know how Uncle Jesse felt! I have a newfound respect for NASCAR drivers after doing this. They must lose 20-30lbs every race because of the heat.
Anyway, here's a video of my drive. The video costs an extra $79.
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