“Not so fast, my friend.”
That may be Lee Corso’s signature phrase, but I’m borrowing it this morning because today is the conclusion of Speedweeks.
And as I discovered this week at Disney World instead of Daytona International Speedway, speed is a relative thing.
Need convincing? Here’s a chart:
Speed of light — 186,000 miles per second.
Speed of sound — 750 miles per hour in the air.
Speed of stock car at Daytona — 180 mph average.
Cheetah — 70 mph.
Mongolian wild ass — 40 mph.
Grizzly bear — 30 mph.
Human — 28 mph. (Note who wins between your average human and your average bear.)
Chicken — 9 mph.
Giant tortoise — 0.17 mph.
Garden snail — 0.03 mph.
And then there’s me.
But this is Speedweeks, so I vowed to find out just how fast I can go.
BIG-BONED ‘DRIVING’ EXPERIENCE
What better place to start is there than the Richard Petty Driving Experience on a 1.1-mile track sitting in the middle of the Magic Kingdom parking lot? Hey, Britney Spears recently had the Driving Experience at a track in Las Vegas — and what has she got that I haven’t got?
Living the Petty Experience does not qualify you to head straight to the pits at Daytona. But as instructor Dave Williams, who lives in Maitland, said: “It’s a taste.”
And that’s got to be a rush for a lot of guys. It’s a touch pricey at about $95 to ride with somebody else. Or get the actual Driving Experience for either about $370, or going for “The King’s Experience” for about $745.
Everybody I saw trying it appeared to be having a wonderful time. If you want to know what it feels like to be on a banked track at about 160 mph in a stock car, this is a great gift for someone to give you or for you to give yourself.
You get to don a driver’s suit and a helmet. The suit makes you feel cool (although it’s hot, so wear shorts) — and the helmet feels like a vise if you are somewhat big-headed.
The cars are essentially the real thing, with the one major exception being a passenger seat. There are even company logos all over them that are part of advertising contracts with the PDE.
Warning: There’s a clutch. If you don’t know what a clutch is, you could be in trouble.
Me? Unfortunately, I was in big trouble the moment I tried to open the car’s door.
They don’t open.
The theory is that you enter and exit through the window, just like real drivers. Great theory — but there must not be any Big-Boned Drivers left in NASCAR.
As you can see, my Experience began and ended halfway into the car. Stuck in the window while others are watching — well, I bet that’s an experience that Richard Petty never dreamed of having.
MY KIND OF RACING
My people may be Big-Boned and slow, but we are not quitters. I traveled to the Magic Kingdom and found a race car I could get in — at the Tomorrowland Indy Speedway.
And you just step into the car. Why couldn’t NASCAR think of this?
A man truly feels like a man when he’s racing along with the wind in his hair and talking trash to a punk 12-year-old in the next car.
And they have this sign at the end of the ride: “Do Not Strike the Car in Front of You.”
Why don’t they have that sign on I-4 where it could do some good?
‘CRASH DUMMY’ MAKES GOOD
Over at EPCOT they have an attraction called Test Track. It simulates a car proving ground, ending with a ride in a test car that is being tested for everything. In other words, you’re the crash dummy.
Somehow it felt so natural.
What nobody told me is that it ends when your open-air car smashes through the wall and goes around a 50-degree bank at 60 mph. If you will refer to the chart above, 60 mph is even faster than the speed of a Mongolian wild ass — so it’s certainly faster than I was meant to go.
But Test Track is quite popular with celebrities visiting EPCOT. I was told Kobe Bryant and other NBA players get a kick out of it. And added one of the attraction’s managers: “Michael Jackson just loves this ride” — even though you must keep your arms and children inside the car at all times.
PERFECT END TO PERFECT DAY
Time for one last journey to Disney-MGM Studios for the place that should have my name on it — the Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater Restaurant.
Now this is what cars are for — to sit and watch classic films like Invasion of the Saucer Men while eating a big burger and slurping a drink from a glass with ice cubes that glow in the dark.
And the cheesecake is to die for.
My quest was complete. I had found something that is just my speed.
Let’s all hail
King Homer
Unless rain turns the Daytona 500 into a prime-time event, Fox has a great Sunday doubleheader. The race this afternoon and a celebration of the 300th episode of The Simpsons tonight at 8. Our Gregory Hardy, who usually is in charge of making the Cheap Seats look pretty no matter what I write, has compiled a list of the show’s greatest sporting moments, and that list is waiting for you on page C17.
As a preview, I stole one of my favorite outtakes from Hardy’s cutting room floor. It’s Homer’s reaction when Lisa joins a hockey team:
“Girls should stick to girls’ sports — hot-oil wrestling, foxy boxing and such-and-such.”
MYSTERY SOLVED
Thanks to a number of our reader-agents at Cheap Seats Investigations, we know that Darrell Waltrip is not the first to utter “Boogity! Boogity! Boogity!”
Ray Stevens used “Boogity” througout his famous ’70s pop masterpiece, “The Streaker.” And Jerry Reed used the phrase in the first Smokey and the Bandit flick in 1977. There are unconfirmed reports that some auctioneers shout it when they want things to move along. Other than that, it’s all yours, Darrell.
SHOCK OF THE WEEK
Michael Jordan fouled out? A NBA crew of officials called six fouls on Michael in one game? Is nothing sacred?
