Ride in an auto race
 

I went to the Mohegan Sun NASCAR race at Lime Rock yesterday. Skip Barber Racing School had a deal where you could ride in a staged race. They had four cars that were Mazda Speed (Mazda Speed 3?). These cars were 4-seater and I had the front passenger seat. They ran a pace lap, with pace car, 4 laps at race speed and a cool down lap. The cars all stayed pretty close together, pretty much 1/4 to 1/2 car length apart. On corners they braked hard and tried to dive in under the guy in front. Tires screaming on all the corners. The track has curbs/rumble strips on the edges of the curves and I think my driver hit every one of them. He went off the track into the grass a couple times.

I have a short youtube clip from the main stretch where me and my brother each went for a ride. This is the first time I've uploaded anything to youtube, so I hope it works.


I also have a couple pictures. There's a short downhill with a sharp curve at the far end of the main stretch. In the first picture you can see where one of the cars went a little wide and off the track. In the second you can see some of the passing action.

Fun!

They do something similar at Mid Ohio. There you can actually take classes and eventually race, expensive but if you have the $$$ I'm sure it is worth it.

I looked at the Skip Barber website. They have a one day class with one hour track time for $600.00. If you want to spend a few thousand dollars, they run a racing program. If you have the money it's a fun way to spend it.