Those who know me may be surprised to learn that I am a fan of NASCAR. I've been to a live race, and always enjoy disengaging my brain for a few hours on 36 Sunday afternoons a year. Well, my wonderful wife, Stephanie, bought me a day at one of many NASCAR affiliated racing schools. These schools are for all levels of racing students and have produced some of the biggest names in the sport. So with great excitement, I called and reserved my day at North Carolina Speedway.

The morning would be spent in a classroom setting, learning the fundamentals of safety, track lines, and controlling the car. Then I would get five "ride-along" laps with an instructor, and ten laps of driving with the instructor riding shotgun. As it turned out, the enrollment that day was low and I got about double the laps for free.

So we arrived, and after classroom time I hopped into my firesuit (a one-piece padded job that you wear over your clothes) and walked out to pit road. A few of us loaded into a minivan, and one of the instructors drove us out to demonstrate the "preferred line" of the track. This is the best possible path a driver can take around the track - if you hit the line, the car will let you go faster; miss the line, and you'll be in the wall.

After the demonstration run in the van (at about 70 mph, typical pace car speed), I was assigned an individual instructor and car. I went over and met "Tank" and hopped in the passenger side for the ride-along. We strapped in (5-point harness system), and Tank gave me the rundown on everything inside the car. Then we were off. The first lap was fun - stock cars only have four gears: you'll be in forth before entering turn three, and you never downshift. Still, we weren't fully up to speed until the second lap. It was then that we entered turn one (23° bank) at 130 mph and the blood left the entire top half of my body. With a three to four lateral g-force pulling on us, I had to strain to keep from passing out. It was awesome! Thankfully, my body adjusted by the third lap, and I really got to enjoy all 10 (!) laps of the entire experience.

We pulled in to pit road and switched positions. As I strapped in to the driver's seat, my instructor ran through some last minute reminders and hand signals. I fired up the engine, and pulled out. I eased down pit road towards the straight between turns two and three (everything about driving a stock car is "ease": easy in and out of gas, easy in and out of turns). We were off! It took a moment to adjust, but as I entered turn three, I threw it into fourth gear, and aimed for my marks (white dots on the track to guide the preferred line). What an experience!!! After a whopping 19 laps, I pulled in to pit road and my instructor gave me a very nice compliment about "how nice it is to ride with someone who learns fast and knows how to drive a car."

At the end, I went to a trailer where they have this great company track all the stats from your drive (complete with in-car cameras). They dump all that on a CD-ROM, and I picked one up for a few bucks. They were apparently having trouble with their speedometers that day (which don't exist in the car - they programmatically evaluate everything from computerized equipment), so I couldn't get exact speed stats for my run. My instructor estimated my top speed to be up in the 100s to 110s, though!

Stephanie took some great photos which you can see in the gallery below.

Many thanks to the Buck Baker Racing School for such a safe, professional, and totally memorable day. I'll be back!

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