december-2009

064
HAVE DREAMS, WILL TRAVEL
Car racing attracts the type of hypercompetitive
people who can’t stand second
place, and I’m no exception—I even get
upset when I’m passed on the highway. For
this reason, I enroll at Skip Barber Racing,
a nationwide school that has been teaching
speed freaks to drive freakishly fast for 34
years. The school offers an MX-5 racecar
program, and I figure that as I drive a 1994
street model of this poor man’s sports car,
better known as a Mazda Miata, I might
have a head start on my fellow students. In
another ploy to head straight to the top of
the class, I have signed up for classes at the
legendary Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.
The 52-year-old track is set a couple
hours south of California’s Bay Area in
a parched valley not far from Monterey.
Famous for its rollercoaster-like Turn
8—called the “Corkscrew”—the raceway
is one of the stars of televised motorsports.
I have watched dozens of races (in vintage
racecars, Le Mans cars, even MX-5s) take
place on its 2.2 miles of narrow asphalt.
More importantly, I have logged more
hours than an adult should admit navigating
virtual cars around the road course on
an otherwise unused Playstation. I can close
my eyes and recite every bump and corner,
and I haven’t even been there yet.
With a ghost-like purr, my
rented Prius climbs the hill
leading to the entrance of
the park. At the crest, I get
my first glimpse of the sprawling course.
Awash in fog rolled in off the ocean and lit
by early morning sun, the gunmetal grey of
the asphalt is highlighted by freshly painted
red and white curbs. Despite a restless night
of day-before-Christmas anticipation, I am
now fully awake.
After getting fitted for a firesuit and
helmet, I get to know my competition fellow
students, who range from a 19-year-old who
has been saving up for months to take this
GO MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2009
first step toward a racing career to a 56-yearold
lawyer with a passion for anything with
a motor in it. Of the six of us, I’m the only
one without experience; others have karted,
autocrossed or lapped racetracks.
Class starts with a quick lecture, complete
with mantras like “squealing tires are
happy tires.” During a brief introduction to
the cars we will be driving, my palms begin
to sweat. These souped-up sports cars look
nothing like my cushy Miata. Before I know
it, I’m squeezing through the roll cage,
“Dukes of Hazzard”-style. In the racing seat,
tightly strapped in with a five-point harness,
helmet and gloves on, I begin to really feel
the part.
The first lesson is on an autocross
track—a huge parking lot with a winding
trail made from fluorescent orange traffic
cones. The sound of the engine roaring to
life like an angry beast is music to my ears.
An instructor named Jeff sits beside me,
calling out urgent commands as I bring
the car up to speed. “Gas.” “Break.” “Full
power!” he shouts in a Texan twang through
a helmet-mounted radio. The tires sound
happy, and I’m ecstatic, pushing the car to
its limits. And the best part? I seem to be
one of the fastest.
Next, it’s time to venture onto the
renowned raceway’s doglegged straightaway
to learn how to brake and downshift.
Braking like a racer is easy enough—stomp
on the pedal as hard as you can before the
anti-lock brakes kick in. The pads stop the
car in a fraction of the distance of my Miata,
throwing my torso into the seatbelts and my
helmet-weighted head forward—a feeling
as fulfilling as the compression into the seat
provided by the zippy acceleration.
Here’s the hard part: When you’re
braking in a racecar, you’re not just braking.
While the intense deceleration is happening,
you also have to downshift a couple of gears
and tap the throttle with the heel of your
right foot to prevent the wheels from locking
up. The notorious “heel-toe” technique
provides me with my first failures. It’s like