FORT WORTH, Texas – Gentlemen, start your engines.
Over the past few months professional NASCAR drivers such as Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Tony Stewart and Jimmy Johnson have heard those four words prior to each race.
But for one day, yours truly received the opportunity to get behind the wheel, strap in and drive a Nextel Cup stock car on the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas.
After jumping into a full-body fireproof racing suit, I learned how Bo and Luke Duke from the Dukes of Hazzard must have felt when climbing through the driver’s side window of the No. 20 Home Depot car.
With the flip of a few switches, my left foot on the clutch and a press of a button, I heard the rumble of an engine that makes the sound someone hears from a landing aircraft sound and feel like a vibrating cellular phone.
Coming out of pit row and into a half-mile turn, I reached speeds of 100 mph. Shifting from second to third gear, I accelerated into the straight away.
Once I reached fourth gear, traveling more than 160 mph just inches away from the wall did not compare to the noise coming from the souped-up V-8 engine. The individual white lane markers looked like one single line as I reached top speeds.
Ten laps into the event I was asked to pit and change vehicles.
After receiving a few pointers from a driving instructor, I climbed into the No. 29 Goodwrench car ready to speed off in anticipation of the checkered flag.
I completed 10 more laps and was finally brought in and shown how the big boys drive. I was strapped into the passenger side of another car and given what the event calls “the ride of a lifetime.”
And it didn’t disappoint.
I got a chance to see all the things I did incorrectly and saw what these cars are like when riding with someone that knows what they’re doing. I was jerked around and thrown against the back of the seat like a ten-year-old rag doll in the hands of an infant.
Until Sunday I really had no real appreciation for NASCAR drivers. To tell you the truth, I didn’t even care for the sport.
But after experiencing how difficult it is to worry about down shifting at 160 mph while steering a car through a turn, I have a new level of respect for these individuals.
Going straight down a mile-and-a-half long track is the easy part. It’s trying to turn left without driving up the wall or staying out of the grass at the bottom of the track that adds a level of difficulty to a sport that many individuals believe should not qualify as one.
Twenty laps are nothing compared to the 500 laps the 43 NASCAR drivers muscled through Sunday during the Subway 500 in Phoenix, Ariz.
To think that these guys are strapped into a seat with little to no wiggle room, worry about the other cars around them and hear the constant roar from an engine, which puts the most highly powered subwoofers to shame, deserves recognition.
I’m probably not the biggest NASCAR fan in the world, but after Sunday’s driving experience, a sport that has seen its fan base grow tremendously over the past few years just gained another.
—–Contact Jay St. Pierre at [email protected]