JohnC Wrote:Sunday brought absolutely beautiful weather and an abundance of NASA grid workers. There were like 8 people in the grid area, so I decided to try and score some rides. One of the instructors there had a black RX-7. When I first asked for a ride he mumbled something about the suspension being tuned for the driver only and he didn't want to screw anything up. Whatever - so I said "Thanks anyway" and continued down the line of cars. Well, as the group was leaving grid he yells at me to grab a helmet and meet him after a couple of laps. Sure enough, he pulled back into pit lane after a couple of minutes and I jumped in.

Holy shit.

Holy fucking shit.

Going into turn 1, I actually closed my eyes because I thought we were going to die. I didn't see where he was braking because I didn't think it would matter - the wall would stop us quickly enough. But a quick jab of the brakes and then a quick turn in and through the apex. Passed 2 or 3 other cars before another quick stab at the brakes and full throttle from the turn in at 3 all the way to 5. Yes, that's turn 5. Maybe he lifted a little bit before turn 4, but I don't remember because all I could think about was not soiling myself or his nice seats (because the car is apparently a daily driver as well). The car stopped surely and rotated quickly through the carousel. We passed another 4 or 5 cars between turns 8 and 10. The front straight flew by and I made a point of looking at the speed-o-meter as we were coming into turn 1.

One hundred and thirty eight miles per hour. It was cool. Shocked

I got a couple more laps of this and then he dropped me off back at the grid. So, ::thumb up:: to the FD driving instructor who had a change of heart and let me ride along.