Epic East Coast - Day 9

Today was a crazy, stressful, weird and awesome day.  Like a child before Christmas, I was unable to sleep much last night.  Once all the kids woke up, we went for breakfast in the hotel and then I headed out to pick up our rental car.  That is when things went crazy.  Our reservation said to pick up the car at the Ritz-Carlton, but the doorman there informed me that the National car rental station had moved out of there last week.  After phoning for more information, I was directed to another car rental spot about 8 blocks away, so I walked over there.

The extremely nice man there had apparently been trying to get in touch with us, due to the fact that the car rental locations had changed, especially as we had specially ordered a minivan + carseat and he only had regular cars.  However, he did have a seven seater SUV that he could give me (with Missouri plates for my Mom), and I quickly agreed, as it was getting late in the morning and I didn't want to miss my chance at driving a race car.  Did anyone catch my mistake?

I drove back to the hotel, explained what happened to Sandra, who pointed out that we sort of had to have a car seat for Bradley.  We decided that I would just run to a nearby Target and buy the cheapest one I could find.  I managed to find my way there and buy a big booster seat, as all the actual car seats were $200 or more and then we were finally able to pack everyone up and head out to Concord, which is where Charlotte Motor Speedway is.

The drive there was uneventful - 30 minutes on moderately busy Interstates - and we stopped at the first McDonald's for lunch.  After lunch, we had about 40 minutes before I wanted to be at the track, so we drove over to the Hendrick Motorsports museum and shop.  As it was Saturday, only the museum was open, so we walked through that.  It had a fairly impressive display of race winning Hendrick cars, in the condition they were taken off the track - covered in

rubber and paper confetti.

Done at the museum, we drove to the race track and found our way to the tunnel under the track and the Media Center right behind Victory Lane to await our sign-in.  We were the first ones there, but quite a crowd of drivers and families arrived before they checked us in and gave us race suits.  Once that was done, we went in to the driver meeting room and watched a video explaining what we were going to do and then we headed outside.  They set up shop right in pit lane, with one area for the drivers, one for people going on ride-alongs and one for people watching.  They had five cars for people driving, plus two cars for ride-alongs and they tried to keep it to 3 cars on the track at a time.  There were 23 of us and they grouped us into groups of 5 based on our height / weight, as each of the five cars had the seat position set for a specific body type.  I was 21st to go, which meant that I had a long wait.  I spent the afternoon watching people go out and do their laps and come in before it was finally my turn.  Then, because I had paid extra to run 18 laps instead of the regular 8 laps, they made me wait even longer, as they had offered a second 8 lap segment to the early drivers at a reduced cost if they wanted and some people had taken the offer.  All those drivers went out before I got in the car - practically the last person on the track.

The cars are specially built for regular drivers with reduced horsepower (they said 600hp) and a right-hand seat for the instructor - you are connected to him via a direct radio so that he can tell you what to do.  He also has a control that cuts the engine or limits the output of the engine based on how he thinks you are doing.  They are setup so that you don't have to brake going around the track - you just let off the gas into the corners and then get back in the gas in the corner.  They put cones on the track to indicate where those positions are, and they had red marks showing where your line should be going into the corners, though I never could see the ones they had in the dog leg.

Anyway, they put you in the car and then you sit and talk with the instructor until it is your turn to go.  Dad will be happy (?) to know that I did manage to stall the car, though not because of an inability to use the clutch properly.  After the instructor started the car, I let off the gas completely, but race engines don't idle unless you give the engine a little gas and it stalled.  Once the engine was restarted, I was able to get the car moving, drive down pit lane and start my first 8 laps.

I was very tentative at first, as I was trying to figure out what I was doing, and for the first few laps I wasn't even trying to push the gas pedal all the way down, but by the end of the segment I had most of the line figured out and was confident enough to go as fast as I could.  We then pulled into pit lane, shut off the car and had a short discussion about how I was doing before we headed out for the 10 lap segment.  I'm really glad I paid for the extra laps as after about 3 laps, the instructor went silent and just let me drive and I had a great time (except for the one lap where there was a piece of trash on the track going into turn 1 and I tried to slow down to avoid it, while the instructor shouted at me to ignore it - and don't look at it - because you drive towards what you look at).

And then it was done and I was out of the car.  Definitely worth the time, hassle and money it took to accomplish and a great 40th birthday present from my wife.  Thanks Sandra!

Tomorrow we head back to Washington for quite a long time, as there are a lot of free museums to visit.  Unfortunately, that means another early morning and another long train trip, though this time I have two seasons of kids shows on the computer and one on my phone for the kids to watch on the train.