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Racing School on a Budget
By Steve Wingate
I've always wanted to attend one those racing schools like Fast Track, The Richard Petty Driving Experience, or maybe even the Skip Barber driving school. I can just imagine myself barreling through the turns in a finely tuned racing machine, the sound of the yowling engine and barking tires transporting me into fits of epiphany. While the world blurs by in wash of speed, I also take in the smells of burning rubber, high octane fuel and the acrid smell of my instructor dampening his fire retardant suit.
However, my dream has always been hampered by silly things like not having any money. I've appealed to my wife to let me go and sell a kidney or something, but she always forbids me from doing it. Her reasoning is that I shouldn't be selling any kidneys on account of she might need one of them one day, and that she would hate to leave me without any kidneys at all. Even if I could sell a kidney, chances are it would only get me half way. I might even be able to afford one of those "discount" driving experiences that lets you actually lean in and smell the interior of a real race car. Sigh.
Just as I had given up on my dream, I discovered an affordable alternative that had been there all along. Nestled in the foothills of Jasper, Alabama, not ten miles from my own home, lies Sonny's Fast Track-- a veritable haven for the aspiring racer on a budget. Instead of costing several thousand dollars, you pay just five dollars for five minutes in one of their professionally prepared racers. Sounded like a good deal to me. So, I grabbed my son and a twenty dollar bill and we headed off to Sonny's.
My son Isaac is only seven, but I have raised the boy to race. I started sitting him down in front of the Playstation when he could do little more than drool on the controller and goggle at nothing in particular. We worked our way through numerous driving games such as Gran Turismo 1 and 2, the Need for Speed series, various NASCAR games, and both Driver and Driver 2. In the beginning, I would have to stop and wait on him while he figured how to bite on the controller to make the little on-screen racer go. Now, almost seven years later, he routinely whoops my tail on every driving game in our library. The boy was ready for the real thing.
Once at the track, we paid for four tickets, and got a fifth one free. Surprisingly, there was no one else at the track, and our driving instructor was nowhere to be found. I went back to the booth where we bought our tickets and asked where our instructor might be, and was told that he was "behind the shed, wackin' them weeds." I followed the sound of the weed trimmer and found not a seasoned racing instructor, but a surly sixteen year old wearing a Korn tee-shirt. Mr. Surly tried his best not to roll his eyes when I told him what I wanted, but ending up losing that battle. After thunking the weed trimmer carelessly to the ground, he started shuffling towards the race track with slightly more enthusiasm than an ornery tom cat being wadded into a pet taxi.
Mr. Surly opened the gate to the track, and my son and I both caught our breath… before us was a five turn road course laid out on an expanse almost big enough for a miniature golf course. To our right, the racing machines sat silent, waiting for a hungry driver to take the helm. My son immediately chose the replica of the #28 Havoline car, and I chose the #43 STP.
In less than four nanoseconds, Isaac was belted in and ready to rumble, whereas I was still trying to figure out how to get in the damn thing. I see now why 6' 5" Michael Waltrip is such an advocate for the taller greenhouse in WC cars. Finally, I decided the best way to get in this beast was to straddle it, then fold all 6' 3" of me into a compartment that looked no bigger than a Buster Brown shoebox. Okay…. Ah! I was in… or at least my ass was, because my feet were still sticking out either side. Once I got my right leg in so I could operate the pedals, I found that I could no longer turn the steering wheel to the right because my knee was jammed against it. After deciding that my left knee would not fit in my ear, I left my other leg dangling out in front of the car. I'm glad I couldn't see myself… I've never had a desire to know what a rhinoceros sitting on a skateboard looked like. But hey… I was in the car, and that was what mattered.
Mr. Surly pushed both of our cars out onto the track, and I began looking for the series of ignition switches like I've seen on TV. Then I saw Mr. Surly walk to rear of Isaac's car and pull a rope several times, and I heard the powerful motor mutter to life. He came around to my car and did the same, then told me that (I am not making this up!) the pedal on the right made it go, and the one on the left made it stop. Humph! Some instructor he turned out to be. I gassed it, and pulled even with Isaac. We exchanged a look, and our first real race against one another was on.
We went into the first turn, a left hander, side by side, and when I got on the brakes and cut the wheel to enter the turn, nothing happened… I kept on going straight as my son whipped through the first turn, his triumphant laughter just barely reaching my ears over the engine noise and the sound of skidding tires. Just as I was about the tag the wall, the #43 machine finally co-operated and entered the turn. The machine behaved the exact same way with the four other turns as well, and the right turns were especially difficult, seeing as how I could not turn the wheel in that direction without risking serious kneecap damage. As I came around to the start/finish line, I tried yelling out to our instructor that I had developed a bad push, but he was too busy drinking a Mountain Dew and tugging on the seat of his pants.
Halfway through our third lap, I began to hear something behind me. Daring a look over my shoulder, I saw Isaac closing in on my rear bumper. The shame! The embarrassment! After all I had taught him, after all the times I waited for him to catch up with me on the Playstation games, MY OWN SON WAS ABOUT TO PUT ME A LAP DOWN!!! As if this was not bad enough, he made hard contact going into the next turn and sent me tail first into the tire barrier. My only consolation in this was seeing Isaac slam into the wall on the next turn because he was laughing so hard.
We both got going again, but I never even got close to him until he came around to lap me the second time. I was spared that indignity when the "last lap" flasher went off. Apparently Mr. Surly, who had finished his Mountain Dew and successfully extracted the seat of his pants from the nether regions, realized that we had exceeded our seat time and called us in. I pulled in to my space, gently nudging the tire barrier before coming to a complete stop. Isaac pulled in next, slamming the barrier hard enough to launch a tire over his head and send Mr. Surly ducking for cover.
"I won didn't I?" he asked, grinning like a fiend.
"I think you won several times, Isaac." I said. His grin broadened, and he said two absolutely crushing words to me, words that I will never forget… words that I will never let him forget:
"You're slow." Translation: You're old.
"I'll get you next time, you little cuss." I said. Yeah right… unless I drop fifty pounds, shrink six inches, and lose about four shoe sizes, I'll never get in one of these things again. Hell, I didn't even know if I'd be getting out of this one.
I was able to get out without the jaws of life. I do not wish to speak much of this experience, but let me say that it did involve doing a handstand at one point. My doctor says the cast can come off in just a few more months, and that is very encouraging.
We still had one ticket to ride left between us, and I let Isaac run without me. I leaned on the outside gate, watching him go. He never ran as fast by himself as he did when I was on the track. Without me out there to beat, he was just out there having fun… bumping into things on purpose, laughing like a loon, weaving back and forth like he's seen the Winston Cup guys during a caution. I tried to yell at him that his tires were already warm, and he was just scrubbing off speed, but he didn't hear me. Not that he would have listened anyway.
Well, I'd had my driving school experience. Not quite what I had in mind, and I didn't really learn anything… except that giving my son the chance to beat his ol' dad in a race for real was worth every penny.
2002 Car Guy of Benchfield