Fast Track NASCAR Driving School

So you think to yourself, “I can drive a car. In fact, I’m a better driver than most people. So how hard can it be to do what guys like Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., or Dale Jarrett do?” Time to head for Bruton Smith’s Palace of Speed in Charlotte, North Carolina to find out! After coming in the back stretch tunnel, we go to the media center in the infield, sign a release form, and meet about 20 classmates. The next step is to get fitted with a Simpson Driving Suit which is comfortable, yet tight-fitting. Then our group goes into the conference room in the media center for some preliminary instructions. Our very pleasant and capable chief instructor starts out by holding up a race car steering wheel and telling us that, “This is a steering wheel, and it’s a lot like the one in your car, except that it comes off!” Then we are briefed on the five-point harness and how the driving school program operates, and told about keeping the proper distance between our instructor’s car and our car when we are out on the race track.

Next we go track side to the pit wall. It’s just getting dusk and Lowe’s Motor Speedway, with its 24 degree banking, looks even more intimidating than it does from the stands. When we are fitted with Simpson helmets each one of us gets to have a picture taken, leaning on the race car just like Richard Petty.

Anyone with a last name beginning with a “W” is used to being last in the order to do things, and sure enough, your writer has to fidget until he finally hears from our chief instructor, “Dick, go ahead and get in the 99 car.” Another instructor tells me how to climb through the window of the number 99 Winston Cup Chevy Monte Carlo, and to say the least, this is a tight fit. Once you are in the car, it’s easy to see why race drivers need “spotters.” There is not much peripheral vision on either side because of the roll cage and the custom made driver’s seat, and there’s a window net on the left side, and the rakish windshield has two steel supports to keep it in the car at racing speeds. You have to put the steering wheel on the column after you’re in the car. “Click,” and it’s on, and it’s right against your chest.

I am sitting in the car working the 4-speed transmission, the instructor tells me not to engage the clutch until I get the revs to 3,000. (Tall gears for super speedways, you know.) I turn the toggle switch and 750 horses come alive with a very pleasing roar. Then the chief instructor points to the instructor’s lead car going out of the pits on to the race track and tells me to follow. How about that - I didn’t stall the car bringing it up through the gears!

Down the pit road through the transition and “jolt,” up on the 24 degree banking going into turns 1 and 2. Off the bottom of the track and up close to the outside wall, going down the back stretch. Watch for the end of the white lines when the back stretch ends, and dive down low and touch the white line going through turns 3 and 4. Your speed carries you right up against the outside wall coming off turn 4, and then off the 24 degree banking.

Next, set up for the “double dog leg” on the front stretch. It’s tricky! Have to clip the apex of each of the two bends of the double dog leg. Almost flat down here, and then “Bump” up onto the banking, going into turn 1, and against the outside wall again before diving down low about a half lane off the bottom of the track to go through turns 1 and 2.

Faster this next lap, and on each succeeding lap, and the faster I go, the closer I am to the outside wall of the back stretch, within a couple of feet. The “Lowe’s Motor Speedway” sign on the back stretch is a blur. This time, a little twitchey through turns 3 and 4. Remember, the instructor said “Be smooth.” Under the flag stand, close up on the instructor’s car ahead so that there is just a little bit of pavement showing between his rear bumper and your hood. Faster and faster each lap; I’m really cranking now!

This is great, but it is over all too soon when the checkered flag comes out on the front stretch, and the instructor waves to slow down. Coast down pit lane and stop, and once the car is shut off, I end up trying to get out the window the wrong way and have to start all over again.

They say this is the experience of a lifetime, and it is. I tell the chief instructor, “It’s a good thing I didn’t do this 20 years ago,” and he just smiles back. And what about Gordon, Earnhardt and Jarrett? Hey, these guys are good!

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