Haulin' Arse

My sister, Cyndi, called me a couple of weeks ago and invited me to go with her to a an event sponsored by Marlboro -- her brand of cigarettes -- at MSR. It sounded fun so I agreed to go and took this afternoon off from work. What a blast. Upon arriving at the track in Angleton and getting through registrations and signing a few waivers, we got all suited up in race car driver jumpsuits, took pictures (I guess for a "before" reference if we needed to be glued back together and reshaped later...just kidding), then fitted for helmets. After that, they gave us a short orientation schpiel, and we were off to the track to load up in a Panoz race car for our first shotgun encounter with speed and lateral G-force.

Reportedly, if you don't do thumbs down signal to tell the driver to slow down, he'll take you around the curves and straight aways at about 115mph. Of course, I was all thumbs up, and my 2 laps were over too quickly for my liking. My cheeks hurt from the irrepressible grin that kept spreading inside my snugly fitting helmet. This ride was very enjoyable, and a little like riding with John when he has to go to the bathroom ASAP; but the next ride was the best!

After we removed our jumpsuits and grabbed a snack and beverage, we went over to a different track and loaded into Mustangs for some "drifting." Now THAT was an awesome thrill ride. I giggled the entire time.

They didn't allow us to bring cameras in the car with us on either ride, so I took video while some of the other riders were having their turns. Enjoy!



At the end, there was pretty good food to eat, which was good because somewhere around the second lap of the first ride, my stomach noticed it was empty and wanted to be fed. Also, we left with an armload of cool freebies, although strangely, no cigarettes - much to my sister's disappointment because she had accidentally left hers in her car back at my office parking garage.

And, to add a fittingly comical ending to the outting, I got a ticket as I was hauling ass back home in my TransAm, doing 80 in a 60. Oh well, it's been about 2 years since I got one. No biggie.