By Kate Bast
I must plead ignorance. I had no idea auto racing was so cerebral. Driving a race car means you must be part physicist. Mastering the skill requires mathematically understanding the equal and opposite reactions of every action you take behind the wheel. The language of the sport involves words like apex and slip angle, and equations like r=mph and 15gr=(MPH)2.
You’ve also got to be a super athlete: The rigors of racing are many, and the sport requires extreme stamina. You are, after all, driving at maximum speed, making every second, every maneuver count.
So, it also takes guts.
Sitting in my sleek machine, I momentarily panic that I possess absolutely none of these qualities, that I am neither brain, brawn nor bold. I am simply petrified.
Edgy, distracted and practically panting from nerves crossed with waves of excitement, I wait to rev the engine of my Formula Dodge and take off around the track. My tongue is Velcroed to the roof of my mouth.
Car exhaust soon fills my nostrils, like some sort of smelling salt. I begin to feel secure, cocooned inside my helmet and flame-retardant racer’s unisuit and belted inside the cockpit. The engine’s rumble takes over, pulsing in my bones and throbbing in my ears as if it’s my own heartbeat. I am anxious to put the pedal to metal, as they say, and get this race car moving.
My flight of fancy -- being a race car driver for an afternoon -- occurs at Road America, in Elkhart Lake. This major racing venue is also one of five national bases where you can suit up for a half-day “Introduction to Racing” course with the Skip Barber Racing School. Founded by former professional racer John “Skip” Barber in 1975, the school has offered courses here for more than 20 years. The intro course teaches auto racing basics -- vehicle dynamics, the racing line (fastest route around the track), race-style downshifting, braking, cornering and more -- in the classroom and in the seat of a Formula Dodge. Driver wannabes can also consider the three-day and advanced courses that can lead them down the track to competitive racing.
Several students have gone that route, in fact. According to the school, more than one-third of all Indy 500 competitors and one-fourth of the NASCAR Winston Cup drivers have been students.
Our intro starts in the classroom, where I learn that auto racing is not as simple as just getting in the car, firing up the engine, squealing off at the start and hauling around the course as fast as you possibly can. Yes, speed is an important factor, but there’s more to it than mph. You have to read the road, feel the car and make adjustments to achieve your flight plan, not to mention keeping an eye on track conditions and other cars.
Part of what’s baffled me about this sport until now is, just how do you understand what’s happening out there, especially at those high speeds?
“Race car driving is more of a ballet and not a break dance,” advises Duck Waddle, a racing philosopher and Skip Barber instructor who’s been involved in the sport since 1949. Racing, he adds, is “about trying to get that tenth of a second -- or less, which can become a significant amount.”
Waddle laughs. “I sometimes tell people I teach applied physics,” he says. “It’s 90 percent mental. It’s athletic -- there are no timeouts in racing. It’s all-consuming. You are using all of your senses and you have to stay totally focused.”
In awesome fact, drivers can experience more than 4 Gs -- incredible force -- during two hours under green flag (starting) conditions on a super speedway. They experience Gs from the front, back and both sides while accelerating, turning and braking. A driver’s sustained heart rate hovers around 175 beats per minute during a race -- similar to that of an Olympic marathoner.
Like any sport or science, auto racing has its own technical language, and good racing is in the details. I get up to speed on terms like apex, slip angle, turn-in and track-out points, and skills like double clutching and heel-and-toe braking. And then there are the formulas and explanations of phenomena like weight transfers and contact patches, and how speed affects radius and braking affects steering.
It’s a lot to keep in mind, and I promptly forget it all the moment I buckle myself in. Overwhelmed, I guess, by the prospect of putting this car, and myself, to the test on the track. While the general workings of cars are not entirely foreign to me, climbing into a Formula Dodge race car is a bit like hopping on a race horse after riding in the pony ring.
And it’s a wild ride. The Formula Dodge is an open-cockpit, open-wheel car -- the uncovered wheels flank the sleek body. You fit into it like the proverbial hand in a glove, and you don’t so much hop as slide in, stretching out in the long, slightly reclined seat. Thankfully, the cars are pretty straightforward. Pedals -- gas, brake, clutch -- are closer together, requiring careful footwork. The gear shift -- 4 speeds and reverse -- is up, not down on the right, and the dash sports only three gauges: water temperature, oil and tachometer. The steering wheel is tiny, about half the usual size. The ride is close to the ground, making the entire experience more immediate.
As my mind turns over the fact that I am behind the wheel of a car with exquisite cornering and braking that will outperform any high-performance sports car you’d see on the road, it’s like someone’s tapping on my internal throttle, sending adrenaline through my system. The Formula Dodge corners in excess of 1.3 Gs; a typical Corvette, for comparison, only corners at .9 Gs. This race car can top out at 130 mph on the straightaways, take corners at 60 to 75 mph and go from 0 to 60 in less than 5 seconds, then back to 0 in less than 3 seconds.
It’s true, the Indy cars -- and even many high-performance sports cars -- go much faster, but that’s beyond my comprehension. Professional CART racer Christian Fittipaldi drives the entire 4-mile Road America circuit in about 1 minute and 40 seconds, with an average speed of 145 mph, and a top speed that can reach 210 mph. Early on in my timid laps, it probably takes me more than twice that time just to get around our 2.2-mile short course.
Track instruction is lead-and-follow: We take off behind the pace cars like red, green, black, yellow and blue bullets, following in tight single-file formation and fast pursuit. We mimic the instructors’ moves -- where they accelerate, how they attack corners and complete them, where they brake.
During one of many breaks to recap track performance I’m told, “You could’ve taken that last lap a lot faster,” along with plenty of other advice from the instructor who was driving my lead car. It’s good advice, given that he and the other instructors have racing experience.
I put that wisdom to practice with each lap around the track, and I think about what the pros who have raced this Road America circuit have said about the curves. Renowned driver Brian Redman calls Turn 6 “slightly tricky,” because of its blind approach. Fittipaldi calls the Carousel -- Turns 9 and 10 -- “incredibly difficult” because of high G-force drivers experience on it.
Next is the Kink -- Turn 11 -- the course’s “most difficult and dangerous,” according to Redman. Superbike racer Nicky Hayden calls it “the scariest corner on the whole AMA [American Motorcyclist Association] series.” To the unknowing it’s just a long, loose and somewhat narrow turn.
Experienced drivers, however, know that this leaves no room for error for fast cars that aren’t set up properly on the track. This fills me with trepidation, laced with a good dose of respect and absolute thrill. The Formula Dodges we’re driving can take the Kink at 110 mph. For comparison: Fittipaldi takes it at 185 to 190 mph. Indy cars can take it at 191 mph. Unbelievable.
As we pick up the pace with each lap, I ponder hurtling into the catch pit -- the gravel trap that intercepts cars that spin off the track at Turn 6 -- and about leaving “race art,” the paint hieroglyphics caused by skids along the concrete barriers under the bridges. The existence of these things is titillating, somehow edifying and reassuring -- well, at least in terms of the gravel pit.
We mentally apply the math out here, and the formulas that made mathematical sense in the classroom make applied real-time sense on the track. Finally, after several go-rounds, it all comes together -- driver, car, road, physics, feeling. It’s like nailing that double-diamond ski run you always tank on each year.
The Skip Barber school hails Wisconsin’s Road America track as a “true driver’s circuit,” and “one of the world’s greatest race tracks” thanks to its mix of 14 slow and fast corners and three long straightaways on the full 4-mile course.
It is a premier road track, and probably among the most interesting courses by virtue of its scenery, history and culture. Drivers talk about its difficulty and the thrill of driving it. Writers and spectators comment on its gorgeous setting, nestled in the Kettle Moraine countryside; the welcoming atmosphere that lends easy access to racers; and the concession stands stocked with locally homemade food.
The area’s strong racing history was cultivated 52 years ago when the first road races were held on the streets and highways. You still can drive the historic 3.35-mile loop -- Highway P to Highway J to Highway JP. Elkhart Lake’s last road race was held in 1952. After that, races were discontinued due to safety concerns and the opposition of a local resident. In 1954 the race committee’s hopes for a private road course were fulfilled when a handful of local residents incorporated Road America. The track was completed in 1955.
Improve Your Skills Behind the Wheel
Skip Barber also offers a driving school at Road America. It’s an excellent prelude to the racing courses and will get you up to speed on vehicle dynamics and handling. Experienced drivers improve their skills and correct bad habits, and newly licensed kids can get off to a great start by learning car-handling fundamentals. The session offers classroom and hands-on driving instruction, during which students are more or less encouraged to do those things we all did under the cover of night in the parking lots of our youth.
Since then, Road America’s reputation has grown and today its races draw 500,000 to 750,000 spectators annually -- plus hundreds of racers, crews and club-event participants. The track is rented nearly every day of the year, and contributes $53 million to the local economy during the eight months of the year it’s in operation.
Media director Julie Sebranek schools me on all the different racing events the track hosts today -- from club racing and regional race series, to national and international series. Come for a traditional race weekend and you’ll see Superbikes, SCCA, CART, American Le Mans races and more. Some big names in racing have competed here: Phil Hill, Mario and Michael Andretti, Al Unser Jr. and Dario Franchitti, among others.
Barnes is actually one of my six fellow racing school classmates, and the only other woman signed up for the day’s course. A racing enthusiast, she competes in a vintage car, a Formula Vee powered by a Volkswagen engine. With a slightly devilish grin she says she’d always been somewhat of a tomboy, and when growing up “boys’ stuff always looked like more fun,” so it’s no surprise she likes the thrill of racing.
Though women are competing on all racing levels, including national and international, the sport still is male-dominated. But women and girls’ involvement is beginning to swell in the local racing ranks, particularly in karting, and the hope is that those racers eventually will move on to the elite levels.
Day over, course certificate in hand and still sharing superlatives with fellow students, I find the thrill is not gone. In fact, it’ll last a few days, even in my humble car. I grab my racing instruction book and head out to my, uh, “grocery getter” -- a sporty Honda wagon, which hauls … stuff. I’m heading back to my pony ring.
But no matter. My arms are still vibrating from gripping the wheel of the Formula Dodge and the adrenaline’s still lingering, so I settle in and feel the load transfer to the back as I power up. A pair of fuzzy dice really would give me a nice visual of that weight shift. I think about how the road feels, and about how I’m going to approach the apex of the turn onto the interstate, how I need to align my little wagon on the road. And, I think about coming back for the three-day course. I am woman. I am fast. Hear my engine roar.
“It’s like being naughty. I can skid the car,” says student Cheryl Barnes, former communications director at Road America.
My classmates are a mix of men and women, ages 16 to late 60s. Skill levels vary as much as the reasons for taking the class. “I’m a driving enthusiast. I love cars—I’m not a mechanic or anything, but I love driving them,” says Joe Suttner of Chilton. “I just like to drive fast,” says Nan Marshall of Waukesha, who attended to polish her high-speed driving skills.
In between classroom sessions, the instructors are seated in the cars with us. Under their watchful eyes, we send Dodge 4x4s into spinouts and powerslides on skidpads and learn about vehicle dynamics and accident avoidance techniques. We test those new skills during a team autocross in Neons, and in high-performance Vipers. Then we each ride shotgun as our instructors take us on a professional rubber-burning spin around the course.
Skip Barber Driving School: one-day course: $895; two-day course: $1,395; new driver program: $695; www.skipbarber.com.
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN WISCONSIN TRAILS MAGAZINE