Have Dreams, Will Travel

LIFE IN THE FAST LANE

BY ORION RAY-JONES
PHOTOGRAPHS BY SAM POLCER

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"Like many eager-to-please six-year-olds, I was quick to tell adults that I wanted to be the president someday. But when I was with other kids, zipping our Hot Wheels through intricately constructed obstacle courses, I could be honest: I wanted to be a racecar driver. Twenty-five years later, armed with a plane ticket and pair of stylish new driving shoes, it was time to make that dream come true.

Car racing attracts the type of hyper-competitive 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 first step toward a racing career to a 56-year-old 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 patting my head and rubbing my tummy while dancing the waltz and tango simultaneously. A cacophony of transmission and engine noises screams out from under the hood as I miss gears or over-rev the engine. The instructor gives me a feeble thumbs-up when I manage to get from third to first without torturing the car. Suddenly, I don't feel like an honors student anymore.

But before I know it, I'm driving on one of the world's greatest road courses. The first time jetting down the Corkscrew, a combination of two tight turns that abruptly drops you down a 60-foot hill, is as thrilling as any Cedar Park ride. At the end of each lap, instructors positioned in various corners give feedback through a walkie-talkie, telling me how to better attack the track. With the exception of the slow-speed corners, which require the dreaded heel-toe technique, I feel fast, like I was born to do this.

Back on the stop-and-go streets of New York City, I fancy myself a pretty impressive driver. I love the chaos of slaloming my Miata down Second Avenue with a stampeding herd of taxis that has little regard for turn signals or the lines that divide lanes. But this is infinitely more thrilling. Requiring a fighter pilot's concentration, driving on the edge leaves barely enough capacity to appreciate the bright California sky, the magnificently traffic-free tarmac and the wind rushing under my helmet's visor.

Over the next couple of days, I continue to learn the secrets of driving fast. I also learn that I had better hang on to my day job. It seems that I have miscalculated my classmates. The aspiring young racer, Jesse Guerra, has a natural touch that propels him to the top of the class while I languish near the rear.

No matter-with every passing lesson, my competitive fire dims, replaced by a growing sense of camaraderie. Between sessions, we trade stories of on-track mishaps and off-road adventures. I'm not even upset when Jesse passes me; his beaming smile afterwards is impossible to begrudge.

The instructors pass our entire class, and armed with a diploma and a newfound addiction to the thrill of a racecar, I leave California eager to continue chasing my checkered-patterned boyhood dreams. Yes, it's finally time to grow up.