Packages range from my three-lap ride-along to $1,000-plus splurges that allow motorsports fans to suit up and get behind the wheel of these open-wheel cars that look and sound like the real thing - though they don’t quite top out at the 230 mph or so you see in Indy qualifying. This was the three-lap, $99 special of the Mario Andretti Racing Experience, a traveling attraction that operates at 19 tracks around the country. Under blue summer skies we were sizzling inside the helmets and close confines of the car. Having spectated at more than a few MIS races, I was still surprised at how wide the back side of the track was, and how low to the ground we were in the streamlined little vehicle. I was deep inside the cockpit of a two-person Indy-style race car, flashing down the backstretch of the storied two-mile track as a Friday afternoon lark.
My hands were clutching a steering wheel but it wasn’t the one controlling the race car - just a little dummy wheel to give the rear-seat passenger something to hang onto. The spine-tingling acceleration reverberated through my solar plexus and I’m sure I was smiling. A few seconds later, I was tearing out of pit road and into turn one of Michigan International Speedway. The guy with the silver crewcut gave me a wink and pushed my visor down into place. At that moment, reality sank in, my heartbeat accelerated and my chest heaved in a couple of anxiously deep breaths. I wasn’t really nervous - people do this all the time, right? - until I was nearly supine, and two technicians loomed over me, reaching down and around my body to strap and buckle me firmly into place.
All I could see of the man who would soon hold my life in his grip was a pair of handsome eyes above the face shield, the smile wrinkles around them deepening as he returned my little wave with a gloved hand.
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