Off Duty, Automotive - Army Times

At 200 mph, the world’s a blur

MOJAVE, Calif. — Here are a few things you don’t do when driving 200 mph. You don’t think about duty or your commanding officer or your next deployment. You don’t worry about updating your Facebook page or missing any tweets.

You do concern yourself with surviving an experience that few mortals will have the opportunity to savor. The reward is one extraordinary adrenaline rush, while the penalty for distraction includes the destruction of a superpricey supercar and, um, damage to not only your own body parts but also those of the celebrated race car driver nervously riding shotgun.

“My priorities have always been screwed up,” jokes Kent Meyers, 45, an aerospace network administrator from Torrance, Calif. He is paying for the chance to hit a speed at which planes take off.

He prepares to shoehorn himself into a fire-breathing Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren (list price: about $500K) and zip down the 2.7-mile runway at the Mojave Air and Space Port, a private facility home to Burt and Dick Rutan’s SpaceShipOne.

“It’s expensive, considering that it’s just one cool day,” Meyers says. “But it’s about doing something that for the rest of your life you can say, ‘Yeah, I did that.’ ”

Is it legal? Is it sane, considering most of us experience such speeds only in video games?

Yes. Knock yourself out on private grounds. And anyone can play so long as they have a reasonable driving record and the $4,995 that World Class Driving requires for eight hours in five cars pushing the 200 mph envelope.

“We hear the term ‘bucket list,’ but I don’t really like it, as it implies you may die next,” says Jean Paul Libert, a businessman and ex-racer who started World Class Driving in 2005.

Though the company’s main focus is organizing public-road drives in hot cars, its 200 mph XTREME program has taken off. Many leisure businesses are contracting in a sour economy, but Libert is now expanding XTREME from its original Florida location to Texas and here in the California desert.

Where dreams are made

So far, nearly 90 attendees — about half — have hit 200 mph. Those who don’t hit the mark back off the throttle out of fear or have track and weather conditions to blame. Once 200 drivers hit 200 mph, Libert says, he’ll close this event and “dream up something new.”

Libert concedes that five grand for a day’s fun isn’t cheap. “But it’s far less than owning these cars,” he says. His fleet includes Ferraris, Lamborghinis and a sleek Ford GT. “Times may be tough, but it doesn’t mean people’s dreams die.”

Fantasy is the prime mover for the 11 men huddled under a white tent that groans under the force of a cutting desert wind. The first order of business involves making a 90-degree turn at 60 mph, triple the common-sense speed. To have a chance at hitting 200, drivers must turn onto the long runway from an adjacent road at a dead sprint.

The second exercise involves taking a car up to about 90 mph and then easing on the brakes just when your gut tells you to pounce on it. This is crucial when slowing the car from 200; braking too abruptly will throw weight forward, which can make the rear end swing violently. That’s bad.

Eric MacGregor, 25, is having a go at the big turn while his wife, Natalie, 25, looks on nervously. “He’s never done this before,” she says as painful squeals emanate from the tires of the Ferrari F430 her husband is torturing.

“This isn’t as easy as it looks,” MacGregor says afterward. “But it is unbelievably entertaining.”

Drivers with both skill and capable cars routinely push and exceed the 200 mph barrier during organized rally races on closed Nevada highways and across the country at special racing schools.

“This sort of thing appeals to a limited amount of people, but those who love it are fiercely loyal,” says Mike Borders, general manager of MKM Racing Promotions, which organizes legal races. Next March, he’ll stage a similar event at this very airstrip.

“Many people enjoy the rush, but they also like the control. I’ll drive my car 200 mph on a closed highway, but I won’t jump with a chute I didn’t prepare,” Borders says.

For the remainder of the day, racers get a few attempts to hit the magic number. Meyers breaks 200 mph on his first try in a Lamborghini LP 560, a menacing wedge of Italian beauty.

“It’s so flat there is no way to really feel how fast you are going,” he says, making his way to the McLaren for another stab at 200-plus. “That said, you know things are not normal. Which is the whole point.”

Nearby, Rich Williams, 63, looks like he’s just seen Santa Claus.

“I feel like I just pulled the plugs out of my adrenal glands,” says the San Jose-based technical writer. “I’ve sky-dived, fire-walked, ziplined. I’ve even flown in planes that take you to zero gravity. But this is so bloody fast, it’s hard to forget.”

Each one of today’s adventurers will return to their lives with the knowledge that they once sat a foot off the ground and traveled 300 feet (about the length of a football field) per second — and lived to tell the tale.

Not that that’s enough.

“We had a good tail wind today,” Libert says, announcing one racer hit 212 mph during a demo run.

“Really?” says another. “So what would it take for one of us to hit 230?”

Libert knows the answer: guts, endless pavement and Bugatti’s Veyron, a $2 million steed that tops out at 255 mph.

Is a 250 mph program next? If Libert arranges it, these crazies will come.

Where to go

Extreme racing schools can be found across the country, most near major military installations. Some even offer military discounts to active-duty service members. These are your best bets:

• Supercar Life: Burn rubber in a Ferrari, Lamborghini, Aston Martin and more at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway on Jan. 17 or Feb. 20. Prices range from $199 to $5,000.

• Bondurant: The Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving in Phoenix has 200 race cars. Prices range from $400 to $5,000; ask for a military discount for 10 percent off.

• Richard Petty Driving Experience: For the NASCAR buff, check out Richard Petty’s outfit, which travels around the country to 20 different tracks. Packages range from $59 to $1,300.

• Skip Barber Racing: If you’re more of an Indy car racer, check out Skip Barber’s school held on 20 tracks across the country. Prices range from $450 to $4,000.

• NASCAR Racing Experience: Drive Jeff Gordon’s actual race car (or plenty of others) at the NASCAR Experience, coming to one of 15 cities near you. Prices range from $89 up to $3,000. No military discounts.

Related reading

• A day with Supercar Life

• Win a package with Supercar Life!