Tuesday, December 16, 2008

July 16, 2007

I have several things that I do, and one of them is accept that I have to have a car. With children living out of the state from me and with work not being walking distance in a temperamental climate, I must use a car. I do however try to limit my damage; I drive only when necessary, I check gasbuddy.com for the lowest prices in my area, and I try to make my trips a singular one instead of me going to up-teen-million different places to do my shopping. Now for a few moments as you are reading this - ignore the wasted gas, the air emissions, and just wasted rubber, the experience was a memorable one for both of us.
However, with this in mind I have to tell you about my trip to Michigan International Speedway (MIS) on 7/13/07, if you ask if I am supersticious, "nope I ain't never scared!!!"
I was invited with one guest, (my husband, if I had gone without him it might have been a divorce) by Marlboro, (let’s not go into the smoking thing though k?) to visit MIS and do their “Hot Laps” thing… WOW! It was so WORTH it!
First, we got to MIS and were greeted and ushered towards the fitting rooms to fit into the fire/driving suits that we would have on for most of the day (good thing it was nice that day). We had our pictures taken in front of a blue screen and then super imposed with a car behind us. Then after our crazy host let us know what was going to happen, we went to the first stop for the day for us.
We rode with a professional racecar driver, in the Marlboro IROC. Squeezing through the window like the Dukes of Hazard, with my head sock, helmet and gloves on, I thought “WOW.” The g-forces were just unbelievable; I have a newfound respect for those people that race on the banked turns (MIS is 18 degrees at the 3rd & 4th turn). The first turn almost had my stomach rolling, but determined as I was, I decided that my stomach would not come out my shoes or mouth and did the “thumbs up” to go faster. Now granted we only get to do 3 laps, but I will tell you in that suit, inside that car, going that fast on the track, 3 laps was enough I was sweating like you wouldn’t believe when we were done. My driver even made me believe we were going to hit the wall, but I know these drivers do this just for the experience and truthfully, I had no real fear we were going to hit the wall.
Second, (yeah, more I couldn’t believe it either!) we rode in the Panoz on the road course. This is more for European racing but I LOVED it! I was slung all around in that seat with me laughing the whole way, never mind the 5-point seatbelt it did not stop me from going everywhere in that seat with my “thumbs up.” I loved every minute of it, going 120 plus then slamming on the brakes to get around a corner, WOW on this one too, I told them I wanted to go again, and they said most people want to. The little car is just so cute too! (Ok enough girly comment/reflection.)
Last and certainly not least, we went out in the Mustang GT for some serious drifting, yep just like Tokyo Drift the movie, it was insane! My driver was friendly and we didn’t need our fire/driving suits anymore, so we buckled me up in a normal seatbelt, the helmet, and headed out. He joked with me about how the rest of the drivers were insane and he wasn’t sure he wanted to go out on the course but as soon as he said that - poof we were gone out onto the race course. The turns were wild, it was like controlled crashing, and he had me laughing the whole time trying to get him to take wider turns and quicker whip-arounds. We had one turn really close to a building and you thought every time you went by it that they were going to hit it, but no, just controlled sliding right by it. Talk about wasted tires with rubber all over the track, but WOW it was just impressive, I hadn’t been in a Mustang in over 3 years and nothing like this one’s power so I just wanted to try this one out myself, they of course said no, but hey I had to try and ask. J
Last and least on the way back home our host reminded us that no matter how much the passenger puts their thumbs up, we had to follow the speed limits and try and not race all the way home. I loved this experience and while it was by Phillip Morris, I have to say, I didn’t really think about smoking the whole time I was there, I just wanted to ride!
This is the longer version than what you have read elsewhere. I hope no one minds. ;) Also, new blog/pictures about Zoo Days as soon as I can figure out flicker and 360! RRRRRRRRRRRR!

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