Track time at Talladega worth every penny

By Scott Wright

EASTABOGA — All week long, I told myself it would be just like driving 100 mph on the interstate. Taking six laps in a former NASCAR Sprint Cup stock car at Talladega Superspeedway, because of the 60-foot width of the track and the fact I'd be out there mostly alone, wouldn't really feel all that fast.

That's what I kept telling myself. Turns out, though, that 175 mph feels exactly like you might think it would. It feels fast. Really freaking fast. I got the opportunity to drive really freaking fast thanks to my dad, who thought a trip to the Dale Jarrett Racing Adventure would be a great Christmas present.

And it was -- probably about the best gift I've ever received. If you're a race fan who's never seen the sport from behind the steering wheel, take it from this race fan when I tell you that you don't know what you're missing. Everyone who's ever sat in a bleacher seat at Talladega ought to see that 2.66-mile-around stretch of asphalt from the driver's seat at least once in his life.

Actually, last weekend was my second time in a stock car. Thirteen years ago, I treated myself to a few laps around Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte, N.C. My top speed then was a little over 147 mph. So I wheeled into the Talladega infield at 7:30 a.m. on April 12 figuring I pretty well knew what to expect.

For a few minutes, at least, there were no surprises.

The driver's meeting began at 8 a.m. and lasted about 20 minutes. There were about 50 other rookies seated in the driver's lounge with me, and after watching a short video we met lead instructor Eddie Cox, who went over the procedures for entering and exiting the car and the race track. He then displayed the hand signals we'd be seeing out the corner of our eyes from the instructor seated beside us in the race car: A “thumbs up” for faster, a “thumbs down” for slower and a flat palm for “hold it right there”.

Thirty minutes later, I'd been around the track in a dually pick-up filled with fellow drivers and another instructor, who showed us the line to take around the track. He told us to keep our race car one lane off the bottom all the way through the turns except for the tri-oval area along the front stretch grandstands, where we could swoop down and hug the bottom grove before fanning out to within half a lane of the concrete retaining wall as we approached the start-finish line.

Back on pit road, I climbed into an ill-fitting fireproof suit and picked out a closed-face helmet, then sat down to wait my turn behind the wheel. I didn't have to wait long, either. I had requested Cox as my instructor earlier in the morning and he was the first make his way onto pit road and climb into the passenger's seat of his race car, a 2003 No. 38 M&M's Ford Taurus. All the other rookies looked at me and breathed a sigh of relief. As a group, we had all agreed earlier than morning that none of us wanted to be the first guy onto the track.

As I tossed my leg through the driver's side window, the official photographer struck up a short conversation with me. Turned out, he has family in Cherokee County and asked me if I knew Billy Joe someone, and somebody else named Mackey. I might have known them -- hell, I might have been one of the people he asked about, for that matter -- but I really wasn't paying attention to the conversation because there was a guy in my face strapping me into an 800-horsepower stock car and the instructor was showing me the gears and going over the hand signals one last time and checking my flip-down visor and before I knew it someone had started the engine and then I couldn't hear a damned thing and my entire body was vibrating and I couldn't find the clutch pedal with my foot and Eddie was looking at me like, “Let's go, moron, I've got eight more hours of hand-holding to do today,” and then I missed second gear on the first try and over-revved the engine getting into third and shifted into fourth before Eddie signaled that I could and then I was on the back straightaway and then, and then -- And then, it was over.

Like I said, we were going pretty freaking fast.

I stayed in my lane and Eddie regulated my speed for the first four laps. That took more than a few thumb-down motions, because I had already found the floorboard a couple times and I wanted to see how fast that piece-of-crap Ford (I own two of them, so don't bother writing in) would go with someone besides Elliott Sadler behind the wheel. Coming off the second turn and entering the backstretch on lap No. 5, Eddie didn't bother with the thumbs down so I hammered down, and we drove pretty much wide open for the last lap-and-a-half.

My top speed was 175.51 mph. Translation: The whole thing, including the warm-up and cool-down laps, took eight minutes and works out to about $50 a lap.

As soon I brought the car to a stop on pit road, I turned to Eddie and said through a huge grin: “Talladega feels a hell of a lot faster than Charlotte!” I took off my helmet and thanked him for the ride. Then, the seat belt guy got me unbuckled and helped me out the window. He also helped me walk over to the pit wall because my legs had suddenly turned into Jell-O.

“Happens to everybody,” he said. “It's the adrenaline. You'll probably be light-headed for a few minutes, too.”

A few minutes? I climbed out of that car well over a week ago, and I still haven't come all the way back down. Talladega fans, if you ever wanted to know what it's like on the other side of the catch fence, Dale Jarrett and his employees will be glad to show you. The toll-free number to schedule your own hot lap session is 1-888-GO-RACE-1.

Oh, and thanks again, dad. It was absolutely worth every penny.