February 24, 2005

By Jim Llewellyn

A flapping green flag flickers through your peripheral vision as the start/finish stripe slides beneath you at 115 mph. Your eyes focus on turn one, which is reached in a flash, demanding that you to give up full throttle slightly before turning the steering wheel left to wrangle 600 horsepower into the corner. The G’s shove you firmly into the aluminum seat and your whole body pulsates.

Lots of advice from the crew

An instant later you’re halfway through the turn and gazing at corner exit. Slowly pressing the “giddy-up” pedal back to the floorboard, you revive the 358-cubic-inch engine that rattles the vehicle in the direction of the menacing wall. Playing it on the safe side, you exit the corner shallow to leave plenty of room between you and the white monster.

Ahead is a long straight, but no chance for rest. The car meanders toward the infield and you must force it back up track. Fence posts zip by rhythmically as the car ahead springs up and down like wood rolling on calm surf. And just as you get comfortable going 140mph, corner entry careens up again and the whole process starts over.

For most racing fans, turning laps in a stock car was once only a dream. But thanks to NASCAR’s popularity, several programs now exist that give everyday people the chance to guide a powerful race car around banked ovals. FinishLine Racing School, Dale Jarrett Driving Adventure, Track Time Driving School and DriveTech Racing School are just a few such programs. The Richard Petty Driving Experience is another program that operates at major tracks around the country, including Daytona Motor Speedway, Atlanta Motor Speedway, Darlington and others. A driver’s license and $380 or more is all that’s needed to tuck in a detuned Busch-type car for some hot laps. And no need to spend thousands of dollars on a helmet or fireproof clothing because most programs supply all the safety equipment.

Getting buckled in

Your day begins when you pull a well-worn driving suit over your street clothes, then hit the track for a van ride and training from someone like Mike Montes, a Richard Petty Driving Experience instructor with years of stock car racing under his belt. Montes first shows students where to place the race car during laps at speed. White blocks painted on the pavement form something like a driving lane, except the stripes are about 75 yards from one set to another and form a 16-foot wide lane. Mike says students must keep the car within these blocks, which define the racing line for rookies.

“If you’re a little high, just be a little harder on the steering wheel and get the car back down into the driving line,” Montes said. “You don’t want to be real jerky and you don’t want to do anything erratic.”

Next is to learn where to slow the car down or speed it up. At the beginning of corners an orange cone next to the outside retaining wall indicates where to initiate slowing. Upon reaching that cone, according to Montes, drivers should just curl their toes and back off the accelerator, but never jump off the gas.

“Each lap as we increase our speed, you’re going to need to slow down a little bit more for the corner,” he said. “But don’t hit the brakes ever. Once you’re in fourth gear, no touching the brakes.”

A little past midway in the corner, green cones on the track’s apron show students where to get back on the gas. But throughout the turn racers should be concentrating on one of the toughest tasks in performance driving: looking as far down the track as possible.

“On entering turn one, you should be looking at the exit of turn two,” Montes said. “Just as you begin to exit turn two, you should already be looking all the way down the track at the entrance of turn three.”

Corners are not the only tricky parts to an oval track. Scott Schmidt, another instructor at the Richard Petty Driving Experience, said many students are caught a little off guard during their first trip down the backstretch. This is where people begin to understand that cars set up for ovals pull to the left, which means you must counteract that force by pushing the car right.

“When we run the Petty program at tracks with 24-degree banking, we tell students to place their hands on the steering wheel at the 9 o’clock and 3 o’clock position,” Schmidt said. ‘But on a flatter oval, you put your hands at 10 o’clock and 4 o’clock to counter the car’s stagger more easily.”

The backup car

The Richard Petty Driving Experience uses Dodge Intrepids, Chevrolet Monte Carlos, Pontiac Grand Prixs and Ford Tauruses painted to look like the cars that race every weekend on television. Chris McKee, marketing director for the Petty program, said the 17-foot long monsters are powered by cast-iron engines. The transmissions are four-speed manuals that count on Goodyears and Outlaw brakes to stop the craziness.

Once the van trip is completed and you’ve received some additional training within the race car, it’s time to strap on a stocker for the ride of your life. At the Richard Petty Driving Experience a professional instructor leads students around the track at speed with about three car lengths separation. People with previous racing experience might be a bit annoyed by this because the cars are capable of going much, much quicker than an instructor will allow. However, because nearly anyone with a drivers’ license can participate in the Petty program it is important to set limits that will keep the cars well under control.

Completing the Richard Petty Driving Experience or other stock car driving programs will not allow you to enter the Daytona 500. During these track sessions you won’t be racing inches from the wall, focusing on apex points or using anything close to 100 percent of the car. But for most people that won’t make a difference. What is of importance is the fact that when the day’s done you will have accomplished something of which others only dream, and maybe learn whether or not oval racing is something you’d like to do more of in the future.

One thing for sure, after taking part in these stock car programs you’ll never watch a NASCAR race the same way again.

The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN. Although we may not always agree with what is said, we do feel it's our duty to give a voice to those who have something relevant to say about the sport of auto racing.