Petty Driving School

Homestead, FL, December 13, 2007

12132007, Homestead-Miami Speedway, Richard Petty Driving School, 8 lap "Rookie" experience. A gift from my wife for our 10th Wedding Anniversary.

It turned out to be a good day to take 8 laps around Homestead. It really was not as difficult as I thought it would be to climb in and out of the car. I was surprised that the clutch was not as heavy as I expected for a car with that much horsepower (as compared to the clutch on the Driven2Win dragster which required some force to hold in). I was also surprised at how long it takes these cars to get up to speed. But once you get it up there, it just wants to go! Video here -- right click and "save target as" to your desktop (about 3 minutes on DSL), then play in MS Media player or similar... If it does not play you might need a DIVX codec, get it at http://www.divx.com/.

The car was not as hard to drive as I imagined it would be, but I would not want to drive 500 laps in it either -- that is some work! Turns 1, 2 and 3 were not too bad to negotiate, but turn 4 seemed to take forever to get through and I sort of had like tunnel vision driving through it. I can understand why a lot of crashes take place in that turn at this speedway.

Homestead-Miami Speedway track facts:

Course: 1.5 mile oval, 2.21 mile road course

Surface: Asphalt

Length of front straight: 1,760 feet

Length of back straight: 1,760 feet

Banking in turns: 20-degrees variable banking

Banking in straights: Three degrees

Width of Track: 55 feet

Pit Road: 1,900 feet long, 50 feet wide

Suited up...

Ready to get in the Lowes #48.

Let's roll!

AWESOME!

Climbing out of the Lowes #48 car. Click to Enlarge