My Richard Petty Experience

Top speed achieved 144.7 mph.....

     Being a long time NASCAR fan, my darling wife on Christmas '98 gave me the Rookie Experience in the Richard Petty Driving School. What this gives you is 8 laps around the track, as the Atlanta Motor Speedway was the closest, that was my track of choice. This took up 3 complete hours, and when they say it is a experience of a lifetime, they weren't kidding!!!!

    The day started with a formal class on safety as well as stating their rules for the day. There was 35 other lucky guys and a couple of gals in my class-the anticipation was so thick in the room-you could cut it with a knife. You could tell that many were nervous--and I myself was one of those. Prior to the safety meeting we were given our racing suits--the anticipation really started building by now and you were starting to "feel" the experience.

We then got all of the safety stuff out of the way--showing us where all of the fire safety as well as engine kills were, and
monitoring all of the engine essentials. Keep in mind that these are for real nascar cars, built to nascar specs and rules. Of course they are setup to hold the track very well, the engines are used nascar engines but they still produced 600 HP, and man could you feel it. The cars were painted up like the some of the top guys cars......

Just a totally awesome experience to say the least, I've owned big block chevys and a couple fast mopars but never felt the torque like these had. Butterflies left and right but got right behind the pace car on pit road and stuck to him. He dictates the speed based on how well you say within 3-4 car lengths behind, if you fall behind he slows down. Amazing how these cars drive and grip the track, course they were setup to stick like glue I'm sure. Straight-aways you could really nail it so he'd wave ya off if ya got to close. Seems the laps just flew by and before ya know it, you were in a cool down lap and pulling into the pits. Outta the car, a know that queasy feeling ya get when ya first get off of that huge roller coaster--same feeling!  I really didn't start shaking till I was finished and got out of the car. I couldn't wipe that smile off my face the whole day long and when I think about it now, the same smile comes back. I guess that was what it was all about-huh...   Just want to say thanks again to my lovely wife as she made all of this possible for me and I love you very much!!!!