Supercars push the limit of fun and fearlessness, for a price
12/02/2009
By Marco R. della Cava, USA TODAY
MOJAVE, Calif. — Here are a few things you don't do when driving 200 miles an hour.
You don't think about family, friends or work. You don't worry about updating your Facebook page or missing any Tweets. You don't daydream.
You do concern yourself with surviving an experience that few mortals will savor. The reward is one extraordinary adrenaline rush, while the penalty for distraction includes the destruction of a super-pricey 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 most planes take off, one attainable only by Herculean cars.
He pops on a helmet as he prepares to shoehorn himself into a fire-breathing Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren (list price: about $500,000) and zip down the 2.7-mile runway here at the Mojave Air & Space Port, a private facility that is 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 this for real? 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 enough coins stuffed between those sofa cushions to pay 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 Belgian businessman and ex-racer who started World Class Driving in Europe and added a U.S. office 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.
'It's far less than owning these cars'
So far nearly 90 attendees – about 50% – 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 folks (all are men; women are rare) huddled under a white tent that groans under the force of a cutting desert wind. Ranging in age from late 20s to nearing retirement, none is destined for race track glory. But all want to experience what a professional driver calls commonplace.
"It's about putting the pedal to the floor and not letting up, which we never get to do," says Alfred Lock, 60, of Los Angeles, a muscle-car lover who made the trip here with his son, Alan, 28, who bought him a spot in the class as a birthday gift.
"There's not much Dad gets pumped up about, but I knew this would do it," says Alan, a former Honda engineer turned stock trader.
The pair are inseparable in the morning training sessions, which find renowned Belgian racer Didier Theys and three other top pros leading the group through two exercises that familiarize students with the otherworldly performance characteristics of exotic cars.
The first 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, which requires a high-speed turn.
The second exercise involves taking a car up to about 90 mph and then easing on the brake just when your gut tells you to pounce on it with both feet. This is crucial when slowing the car from 200; braking too abruptly will throw the car's weight forward, which in turn 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."
His friends nod. The four have made the trek from Vancouver Island in British Columbia, guests of Doug Lockhart, 53, who is rewarding the key players in a recently completed heating and ventilation project.
This is Lockhart's second stab at 200; at a previous event in Miami, weather capped his speed at a mere 195. "That wasn't going to do," he says with a grin. "I needed to come back and nail it."
A haven for thrill-seekers
If you're thinking that Lockhart isn't quite normal, you'd be right.
Studies have shown that thrill-seeking humans have fewer receptors in the brain that monitor infusions of dopamine, the natural chemical that accompanies an especially exciting experience.
"Some events are interpreted two ways by the brain, either 'too much' or 'I feel alive,' " says David Zald, associate professor of psychology and psychiatry at Vanderbilt University. "The difference is the amount of dopamine."
Last year, he scanned the brains of 34 men and women and determined that those who sought out risky adventures were getting big shots of dopamine. Zald says humans probably have always pursued dicey pastimes. "In the old days, it was jumping on fast horses," he says. "Now it's driving cars 200 mph."
Drivers with both skill and capable cars routinely push and exceed the 200-mph barrier during organized rally races on closed Nevada highways.
"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 on highways, airstrips and Western salt flats. Next March, he'll stage the top-speed Mojave Mile 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. "But I guess in the end, we all have some sort of defective gene."
At the main tent, racer Theys addresses the 200-mph gang, who are busy tucking away a lunch of Mexican food.
For the remainder of the day, they'll get a few attempts – depending on the fading light – to hit the magic number.
"I want everyone to be comfortable, because this is not a competition," he says, dead serious. "If you don't feel you want to go fast, do not go fast. Please."
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. Eyes agog. Mouth open.
"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, zip-lined. 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 everyday lives with the knowledge, and an inscribed Lucite cube as proof, 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 that Theys hit 212 during a demonstration run.
"Really?" says Rodney Baker, one of the Canadian contingent. "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 whose top speed is 255.
Is a 250-mph program next? Make no mistake: If Libert arranges it, these crazies will come.
