“Participants keep right and check in at the box office.”
“If any of you have pre-registered, I can help you down here.”
“Can my friend ride along?”
“Sorry. No passengers.”
I can’t believe I’m driving my car onto a racetrack!
“Do I need a helmet?”
“They won’t let you go without a helmet. It says so on the website.”
“Hm – I didn’t read that about the helmets on the web site.”
“They’ll rent you one at the Kart House.”
So I had to give up my position in line to go rent a helmet. When I got back, the line was twice as long as when I had left. And now I was at the back of it. The first cars around the track were already back in line too. They had their hoods open and were pushing their cars through the queue to avoid over-heating the engines. This seemed dorky until I realized that it was silly to leave my car idling for three minutes just to move one car length.
The queue had two stages, the first was through pit lane and it was three cars wide. At the end of pit lane a track worker with a mustache, white coveralls, and a giant race-track headset chatted with me and then signaled that the first row of three cars could move up into the second, single-file stage of the queue. At the end of that queue another track worker with a bushy white beard to match his coveralls made sure that I had my tray tables and seat-backs in their full upright and locked position.
One more track worker stopped me at the green cones and while we waited for the car in front of me to get far enough ahead he explained the corner markings. There was a whole language of orange cones: some on their sides pointing directions, others in more common, upright configurations. Then he said, “Have fun!” and waved me onto the track.
I stomped on the gas, accelerated up to the red-line, shifted into second and I was already through the first set of cones. I decelerated for the next set of cones and then got up to third gear while heading through the next corner.
Counting all the slalom-y chicanes on the “back straight,” there were something like ten corners. My prototype GPS lap timer was built for continuous laps, each starting and finishing in the same place; so I don’t know how long it took. It was longer than most roller-coaster rides. I got to go three times, it was absolutely worth every penny.
