There was no making phone calls, no perusing documents, no pounding away on my keyboard.
Instead, there was a firesuit and a helmet and shoulder straps.
My office chair was replaced by a race car — and deadline pressure swapped for an altogether foreign kind of adrenaline.
Tuesday, March 29, wasn’t a normal day at work. It was the day I learned what it was like to whip around a race track — in this case, the streets of Long Beach — at nearly 200 mph.
The Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach will take over the city’s downtown from April 8 to 10 and Tuesday was the event’s annual Media Day. That day is essentially a showcase of drivers, their vehicles and just how fast they go. It helps get potential spectators revved up — so to speak — ahead of the big weekend. But it’s also a day to torment — or, depending on your perspective, enthrall — naive journalists by giving them a chance to ride in an IndyCar with a professional driver at the wheel.
On Tuesday morning, it was my turn.
The work day started as started as any other. I woke up early and made my way to an assignment.
As I crossed to downtown Long Beach via the Vincent Thomas Bridge, I psyched myself up.
In an hour or so, I’d be racing through the streets of downtown Long Beach’s 1.97 mile, 11-turn Grand Prix course — with a stranger at the wheel — hitting speeds up to 180 miles an hour.
And that’s on the slow side for these drivers: IndyCars, during actual races, can hit up to around 230 mph, though they typically go slower in Long Beach because of the hairpin turns inherent in a street race, as opposed to competitions on an oval track. Still, considering I rarely push my old Kia past 80 mph on the freeway, I had no idea what going that fast would actually feel like.
“You’re not gonna die,” I thought to myself.
I recited in my head my father’s reassurances that if there were an accident, these race cars are designed to protect the drivers and passengers.
“You’re not gonna die.”
The city’s annual transformation from bustling hub to roaring race track is compelling — around 180,000 people descend upon downtown Long Beach to watch competitors speed around some of the city’s most iconic landmarks, including the Convention & Entertainment Center, the Aquarium of the Pacific and a portion of The Pike Outlets complex.
Putting the danger out of mind, I bounced into Media Day, a large coffee pumping through my veins. If this is going to be my last public appearance, I thought, I may as well have fun with it.
The familiarity of my surroundings, as I walked up to a check-in tent, put me at an odd sense of ease. Now — what was once a lowly Convention Center parking lot — swarmed with reporters, drivers and crew members.
At the check-in table, I signed a liability waiver.
“Should I be scared?” I asked.
“Well, let’s just say,” one of the workers replied, “something will be puckered once you’re on that course.
“But,” the worker added, “you’ll have fun.”
“Well, at least you gave me the heads up,” I said.
The next thing on my list: Suit up.
Inside a pop-up fitting room trailer, I slipped a fully-body blue racing suit over my clothes. I picked my shoes special for today — Adidas Stan Smiths — hoping they’d look cool with whatever color suit I was given. (I think I pulled off the look).
After donning the suit, it was time to walk to the track.
On my way, the calmness I’d managed to maintain began slipping away.
Fortunately, I ran into a colleague — Robert Morales, a fellow reporter covering the event. He’d escaped a ride in the IndyCar this year, having already paid his dues nearly a decade ago.
“Those turns are what will scare you,” he told me. “But you’re going to love this.”
Morales also offered another bit of reassurance: When he took his turn, the only protection he had was a helmet. At least now, they’d made some upgrades to the passenger experience.
Morales walked with me to the track, where a pit crewman, backgrounded by a couple of minty green-and-white IndyCars, handed me a balaclava and a pair of gloves.
I covered my ears as the race cars took off with the first ride-alongs. Their engines’ vociferous thundering reverberated through my entire body. And they were out of sight in a blink.
They returned just as quickly.
And suddenly, it was my turn. To hop in a narrow cockpit. Of a two-seated race car.
The crew strapped me in tight and placed a whiplash-prevention bar — whiplash prevention — behind my head. My driver, Gabby Chaves, gave me a reassuring thumbs-up — though I couldn’t see his face through his helmet.
“We’ll leave the visor on your helmet up until take off, so you don’t fog up,” the pit crewman told me.
I tried to make out the sounds of conversation through the padding of my helmet and the cacophony that surrounded me.
I looked around. At Morales. At Howard Freshman, the photographer who’d accompanied me. At the others waiting their turn.
As I sat there, I did mental gymnastics to convince myself that what I was about to do wasn’t scary. I should probably mention that, aside from the occasional roller coaster, I’m not a natural thrill seeker.
But whatever was about to happen, I realized, was now out of my hands.
“Have fun,” the pit crewman yelled as he flicked my helmet’s visor closed.
Then, Chaves hit the gas. The sheer force threw me back into my seat. And we flew.
Before I could even comprehend what had happened, we’d hit the first turn of the track and Chaves hit the brakes — launching me forward only to be held back tightly by the safety straps.
Less than a second later, Chaves was on the gas again, sending us screeching back up to a good 170 miles an hour. My pulse raised and I struggled to catch my breath — and almost immediately, I wondered how much longer this would go on for.
But then, something miraculous happened. My body — and more importantly, my mind — acclimated to the situation. I could breathe again and even through the suit, balaclava, and helmet, I could feel the fresh spring air rushing around me.
Those familiar Long Beach landmarks streamed past as Chaves raced us through the remainder of the hot lap — though they remained unrecognizable to my eye, distorted by our speed.
For a moment, I thought we might even break the sound barrier. An exaggeration, to be sure — we were about 500 mph away from that. But it sure felt like it could happen.
Before that could happen, however, Chaves turned the final corner and returned me safely where we began.
I hopped out, shakily, and reacquainted myself with a stable and steady world. With my adrenaline at an all-time high, there was one thing left to do — smile.
“How was it?” Morales called from the sidelines.
“Awesome,” I said — with an adverb not fit for a newspaper.
Then, I drove home, returning to the phone calls and keyboard and office chair — none of which was half as exciting as being strapped into a race car.
Source: Orange County Register
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