As I drove my tiny Miata early one morning along Highway 401, buffeted by high winds in an intense rainstorm, I began to wonder what I had got myself into. I was headed to Shannonville Motorsport Park near Belleville, Ont., where I had signed up for the Driver for a Day program, which meant driving five Porsches, two of them all-out racing cars, around a windy track.
I love driving, and have had a series of modest sports cars, but what I faced was daunting. Certainly racing has become a popular leisure or fantasy activity among enthusiasts and stressed-out professionals, fuelled by the proliferation of racing programs and owners' clubs for marques such as Porsche and BMW. Porsche is in a class of its own: two-thirds of all the Porsches built (since the first, in 1948) are still on the road, and the automobile has won more races than any other in history.
It wasn't just the pelting rain that made me nervous; there were the frightening specs on the cars that the organizers had sent. I would be driving a Porsche Boxter, new red and yellow 911 Carreras, a factory twin-turbo 944, and a menacing-looking 911 race car, a 320-horsepower bomb that goes from 0 to 60 in four seconds and tops out at 180 miles per hour. Ominously, the interiors of the race cars feature a large red button labelled FIRE, which sprays fire-retardant when pressed.
Then there were the pages of instructions, which made it clear that driving like hell and trying not to crash was not an adequate strategy. You needed to know physics. "If the car requires more steering after the Apex (B), this means that the driver has turned in too soon or too much," the booklet explained helpfully. "This becomes evident once you have passed the Apex (B) and the car is pointed straight off the road." Right.
I encountered a pretty good mix of people when I arrived. There were the expected enthusiasts, including a 21-year-old engineering student from the University of Toronto who was from Indonesia and arrived in a new arctic silver Porsche 911. There were two, typically confident brokers from Nesbitt Burns who had driven down from Toronto. It was good to see two females in the group: 44-year- old law clerk Heather Savard, who drives a new Volkswagen Passat and loves cars ("This is so cool"), and 49-year-old Doris Kosch, who works at a construction company, drives a minivan, and admitted to being a bit nervous. There were five instructors for a group of 16, led by the personable Brad Meise, a former crew chief. "Rain is the most fun because the cars have less adhesion," he suggested.
We began the day in the classroom, where we were told the goal was to have fun and improve our driving skills while driving to the limit of our ability. We were taught how to sit properly, which is upright with the arms slightly bent, rather than the straight-arm stuff in the old movies, with hands in the 9-to-3 position. We were instructed to look well ahead to the apex of the corner, do all our braking before the car is in the corner, make a firm commitment to turn, and accelerate as the steering wheel unwinds at the exit. To ensure safety, we were at all times accompanied by an instructor and restricted to third gear, which is plenty fast.
My guess is that most people would find the experience either terrifying or exhilarating. I found it exhilarating and seemed to get the hang of it fairly easily. It was daunting to try to drive within inches of a cone placed at the edge of the track at the apex of a sharp corner; if you waited too long to turn, you were off the track. And it's tough to learn a track, a car and new driving skills at the same time. I made a beeline for the Boxter for my first drive, because it was the most manageable of the five. Everyone enjoyed driving it. I was then assigned the 944 race car, which was nicknamed "the Beast" and had been crashed once. I drove it gingerly around the track without incident.
Not so the two brokers, whose names I will omit to spare them further embarrassment. The first got no further than the second corner before spinning out, or, as one instructor wryly phrased it, "going agricultural.'' The second, who reportedly had bragged about his driving ability on the trip down, gunned the car with the wheels turned and went off the straightaway into, and then over, a guardrail. He was unhurt but shaken, and the car had to be ignominiously lifted off the rail with a front-end loader. Though the cars are worth up to $160,000 each, he was not held liable for damages. "I feel like an idiot,'' he said, as he dusted himself off. Added Heather Savard: "Make sure your article says it wasn't a woman who crashed.''
The course included driving on the skid pad, a large, asphalt area with a white circle painted on it, to practise skid recovery. The idea is to drive an ordinary car around the circle faster and faster, until it skids out of control. The driver's job is to bring the car back into control. The key is to look where you want to go and guide the car in that direction. Braking is your last choice because it causes the vehicle to lose traction. Skidding was a bit scary at first, but fun once you learned that if you keep your cool you have more control than you would ever imagine.
For anyone who is able to shell out $1,000 for a day or $599 for a half-day, I would highly recommend this program ( ). It's reasonably priced given the value of the cars and the one-on-one instruction. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Obviously, you should be a keen, proficient driver who likes cars and can drive a standard transmission. I felt safer on the track than I did driving back to Toronto on the 401.
More demanding, occasionally frightening and equally exhilarating are the offerings at the well-known Bridgestone/Firestone Racing Academy at Mosport, near Toronto. The academy's Formula 2000 program features cars that are miniature versions of Formula Ones: They are completely open, with the wheels outside rather than beneath the body. The cars are so small, hot and cramped that the tiny steering wheel, which is perhaps a foot across, has to be taken off so the driver can get into the cockpit. The driver is virtually welded to the seat, which is only a couple of inches off the ground, with a secure six-point harness, two straps of which come up between your legs. Not that you can see your legs, which disappear towards the minuscule pedals. This 1,000-pound Dinky toy, a Reynaud 2000, can take the driver from zero to 60 in five seconds.
When I arrived recently for a media day, it was boiling hot. The triple-layer, fire-retardant suit, socks and balaclava, just underneath the massive and claustrophobic helmet, were well short of comfortable. I really began to question my participation when we were first lined up on the track, the deafening engine was started with a battery booster, and I noticed an ambulance parked nearby. (The academy has not had an injury in 18 years of operation.)
The cars were fun, though challenging to drive. The tiny gearshift takes getting used to, as do the pedals, and learning to put your right foot on both the brake and gas when downshifting. Because the cars are single-seaters, there is no instructor by your side. I drove conservatively, trying to adjust to the car. Only one driver had a minor spinout during the day. Our lessons from instructor Ugo Provencher focused on proper shifting. The most useful thing we learned was that if you find yourself going too fast through a corner, don't brake because it will take the weight off the rear wheels and lessen traction. Instead, gently accelerate, which will transfer weight to the rear of the car.
The course is clearly good training if you want to take racing seriously. Jacques Villeneuve, Greg Moore and other top drivers got their start here. The full-day program we took costs $890 ( ).
Finally, if money is no object and you are truly obsessed, consider RaceInc ( ). For $8,000 (U.S.), you can be taught to take a Formula One car around Shannonville. The course is run by the well-known father-and-son team of Patrick Xuereb Sr. and Patrick Xuereb Jr. There is no lack of takers, and having recently seen RaceInc's impressive stable of cars in action on that track, I can see why.
Welcome to our second annual Sports Issue. Last year, our exclusive ranking of the world's 50 Most Valuable Athletes (see page 51) drew calls for interviews from across the country as well as from the United States. Everyone likes rankings, and ours is based on a rigorous points system. But while our list was widely applauded, we were criticized for one omission: We left off Texan Lance Armstrong, three-time winner of the gruelling Tour de France. We have corrected the error this year by adding cycling (and figure skating) to our list of sports. By the way, Lance Armstrong appears as No. 11.
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