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FeedA Breed for Speed
family fun at nearly 100 mph
Picture your kids at the wheel of a car, accelerating down a straightaway—70, 80, 90 miles per hour. There’s a big curve up ahead. You’re in another car, giving chase. A parent’s nightmare? A dazzling new video game? No way. Zipped into brightly colored Nomex flame-retardant racing suits, wearing crash helmets (“lids,” the pros call them) and strapped into the open cockpits of four classically shaped race cars, my son, two daughters, and I roar around Lime Rock Park on a heart-thumping, pulse-elevating experience, negotiating the 1.53-mile track’s twists and turns—acing the 180-degree double apex right turn called Big Bend, maneuvering through the taxing Essess, the Left Hander and the Right Hander, all the while learning some valuable lessons about road dynamics and the safe handling of a motor vehicle under challenging circumstances that could be put to use in the “real” world.
I’d signed us up for what the Skip Barber Racing School benignly calls Introduction to Racing. That’s like describing a hot-fudge sundae as nothing more than a bowl of ice cream. Let me put it another way: The time we spent behind the wheel of the 150-horsepower, two-liter, four-cylinder, 1,150-pound chariots of fun was like having our own reality show—our family’s version of The Amazing Race.
The experience had begun to take shape months before, during a holiday party, when I instructed my offspring to close their eyes and open their hands. Adam, Sarah, and Jennie, all in their thirties, surprisingly obeyed. I placed a bright-green lime in their one hand. A rock in the other. Jennie was the first to catch on. “Lime Rock!” she shouted. “We’re going racing at Lime Rock? Awesome!”
Awesome proved to be an understatement. The weather that June morning was Litchfield County perfect. The 300-acre park—for half a century the scene of many epic contests of skill, courage, and endurance—was capped by a sun-filled sky that splashed the surrounding green wreath of the Berkshire Mountains with light. The track was dry and fast, just the way the pros like it. And hey, if it were good enough for them, it was better than okay for a family of racing rookies who could pluck down about $600 per head to satisfy their spirit of competition and a passion for going outside the lines of the ordinary.
Any trepidation that squeezed our gut—we spotted two damaged racecars off to the side near where we parked—quickly dissolved after we trooped into a small meeting room for the pre-lim: a chalkboard tutorial acquainting us with the characteristics of the track and the peculiarities of the cars we’d be piloting. It included instruction on how to down-shift, how to corner, when to brake and accelerate, how to prevent a skid, how to avoid crashing into one another. Sure, we were told, the idea was to have fun, but the emphasis was on safety. Recklessness would not be tolerated—imagine driving without a cell phone glued to your ear.
By the time we suited up, we were pumped. Ready to go. But first, a van took us on a high-speed run to get a feel for the track, the driver providing play by play, reiterating what we’d heard in the classroom—what to do, how to do it, when to do it.
Then it was off to the races. Our car engines roared like a pride of lions. These were no kiddie cars. According to Rick Roso of the Skip Barber School, “Anyone who is anyone in professional racing went to school and learned in this kind of car.” The sixty-plus minutes of track time was divided into three legs. A trio of instructors in pace cars would lead the way. Although there are no speedometers in race cars, we were told each leg would top out faster than the last. First—60 mph, then we’d try to hit 80, and for the last leg—“Let it all hang out,” challenged the instructor. “Break a hundred if you can.” We could be more cautious and go slower if we wanted to. We didn’t.
Even so, we were respectful of the potential dangers. Matt Plumb, a pro who races the world’s most famous tracks, told Litchfield Magazine: “Lime Rock’s challenging. Hairy. You have to focus your attention or there can be big repercussions.” Trust me, our attention was focused. Very focused.
Luckily the only blip occurred when son Adam’s engine conked out—a timing-chain problem. With a new car, he was back on the track in minutes.
Following each of the first two racing legs, the pros critiqued what we’d done. “You’re holding back,” one told me. “Let ’er rip.” Knowing my parental dominance was being challenged, on the final leg I did indeed let ’er rip. If the kids were going to beat me, they had to earn it. Two out of the three did.
Flashing across the finish line we felt the way big-time tracer Will Langhorne told me he does when he’s won a Grand Prix: “I can hardly contain myself. It’s fantastic. I want to unbuckle and just leap out of the car.”
Adam, Sarah, Jennie, and I throttled down, arm-pumped a couple dozen thumbs-up salutes, macho-strutted toward one another, slapped off some high fives and embraced to a chorus of superlatives. It was our Grand Prix. It was our own Amazing Race.
