Richard Petty crappy "Driving" experience

I did the Mario Andretti race school last year and drove a full size Indy car and had a blast. I had a top speed of 158.75. It was a great experiance. Price was high but you just don't get to go that fast everyday. Again great experiance I highly reccomend it.

 

Sprint cars schools are popping up all over too. somthing about being on dirt, sliding full throttle into a turn on 3 wheels with 20 others doing the same next to you, is something that sounds like my style.

 

I did the $89 ride along experience at Charlotte (Lowes) Motor Speedway many years ago. It was great, not sure if I would do it again though.

I had just as much fun in my own car running around the track under the lights that same weekend. Lucky for me I was pals with a few of the GG personal that were organizing things that nite and after everyone else left they let me on the track in my 1990 red Corvette convert with no limitations. I've got a huge photo of me in the Vette, on the track at speed, on the wall in my computer room. I look at it wth fond memories.

Charlotte GG is at the end of the month......man I really want to drive Big Olds on that track....maybe next year.

 

Like they said in the literature....."Driving Experience". Not high performance driving school, not a high speed run and - yes - they are set up for the average "street" driver who typically hasn't been on the far side of 120mph for more than a few seconds...if at all.

I'm a high performance driving instructor at Watkins Glen International and have been participating in open track events there for almost 19 years. I can tell you first hand that the majority of folks that come to the track for the first time are COMPLETELY out of thier element. The entry-level Petty Experience events are geared exactly for somebody who is has never been on a race track, who manytimes hasn't been in anything resembling a race car and ususally doesn't know what they are doing. If they handed over a 700hp car to the average Joe and set them loose out there they'd be closed in a week because some hillbilly thinks he's Mark Martin then pulls an Earhardt in turn three.

You got EXACTLY what you paid for. Laps in a race car on a race track and little else. If you wanted higher speeds you would have had to do a ride-a-long (a better deal if you wanna do some fly'n) or spring for the driving schools......BTW, Petty Driving Schools are EXPENSIVE. You could also go buy yourself a Winston Cup car (used ones are readily available), rent the track and go play yourself..........and once you do you'll realize that the 800 dollars was cheap fun in comparison.

If your serious about high performance driving and getting some seriously hot laps on awesome race tracks all over the country there are many driving schools and ***ociations out there geared just for that. Most tracks rent out time to clubs and driving schools/companies to fill in track time between races. The two driving school companies I work for have two day "schools" at that run the students about $450. You run your own car (street car or track car) we instruct you in your car on the basics of high speed driving on that track. There are 'run groups' based on driver track experience and driver-car capabilities so your typically running with folks of similar skills/speeds.

There are NO speed limits.

Just chalk it up to experience.

-Bigchief.

 

Just the opposite for me.

I won a Goodyear contest with some other guys and we got to do the 30 lap deal at Walt Disney World track (1 1/4 mi ?). We ran 3 cars, with the "instructor" running first. We ran three 10-lap heats, increasing speeds as skill level came up.

We couldn't p***, but as long as we hooked up with the lead car, he kept increasing speed. We ended up with 130 mph average lap, with straight away speeds over 145. The "real" drivers ran about 160 on the straights.

The cars had plenty of power, and according to the instructor, the only difference was a smaller carb and a 'gl*** front end.

It was absolutely the most fun I've ever had in a car, not counting that date back in '66 with the sorority sisters.