What I Learned as a Nondriver at Racing School
I slammed my foot on the gas pedal of the very, very nice car as I jerked the steering wheel to the left, trying to trace a figure eight on a slick road that gleamed underneath the California sunshine. (Mom, maybe stop reading here.)
Thisisfinethisisfinethisisfine, I thought as I rounded the last curve, the Mercedes-Benz screeching in response. I could swear I felt its left tires lifting away from the ground.
You wouldn’t usually find me behind the wheel of a car fit for The Fast and the Furious, but there I was in a driving academy at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, located in stunning Carmel, California. Glamour was hosting the adrenaline-fueled retreat in honor of its upcoming Women of the Year summit and awards, which will take place on November 10 and 11 in New York City. (Mercedes-Benz is the presenting partner of the Women of the Year summit and awards.) In addition to enjoying delicious meals in beautiful venues and hearing the extremely successful skin-care entrepreneur Kate Somerville share her life story and advice, retreat attendees got to spend some time driving various Mercedes-Benz models.
Full disclosure: Cars have never really been my thing. I also am not the best driver in the world, if you must know. My survival instincts (slow waaay down to merge onto the highway because, hello, merging is scary) don’t always align with the rules of the road (speed up when merging so you don’t get rear-ended). This is more than a slight incompatibility.
My only real driving experience was in the months after I graduated from high school when I’d use my aunt’s beloved old convertible to get to and from my summer job at Abercrombie and Fitch. I haven’t driven much since then, and it’s never really been an issue. I’ve spent the past 10 years living on a college campus outside of Chicago, then in New York City, and now in Washington, D.C. I drive as little as possible when I visit my family in Miami, a city notoriously full of what I’ll call creative and spirited drivers. Beyond that, my time in cars is usually spent next to the driver. I’ll happily plop myself in the passenger seat during road trips, trying to atone for my lack of driving with my excellent DJ skills. (“Excellent” means a lot of Hamilton.)
Then I got invited on this trip to Carmel. It sounded great, so I said yes without asking for the full itinerary. As a result I didn’t know about the whole “racing a car at 90+ miles an hour” bit until my tickets were booked and there was no turning back. You know, minor detail.
That’s not to say I wouldn’t have gone if I’d known. I like to push my boundaries. It also seemed almost serendipitous since I’ve been thinking about going to driving school to brush up on my skills. It’s just that I figured said driving school would involve winding down D.C. streets behind the wheel of a creaky old sedan with a “STUDENT DRIVER” sticker helpfully tacked onto the bumper to preemptively explain away my mistakes. I didn’t expect that my reintroduction to the driver’s seat would happen at full throttle under the tutelage of professional racers.
When our big group got onto the track for our driving academy experience, they split us up into teams of 10 or so people, each led by a professional driver with a decorated racing résumé. My team leader was Shea Holbrook, a world record holder who fell in love with racing when she was 16. Holbrook had us pair up so we’d be alternating between driving and riding shotgun most of the day, then we got started.
First up was the slalom, a short, flat, zig-zagging course marked with bright orange cones. The goal was to drive through it a few times to practice, then race through it as quickly as possible without hitting any cones. Holbrook guided us the whole time via walkie talkies. My nerves quieted a bit when I saw the course; it didn’t look scary at all. When it was my turn to drive, I realized that I felt surprisingly comfortable behind the wheel, and that comfort increased each time I made my way through the slalom. It felt reassuring to show myself over and over that no matter how powerful the car was (and it was powerful—the engine’s roar was wild), it was ultimately still under my command.
Then we tried to learn how to drift, which was much more nerve-racking. Holbrook watched us go around premade figure eights on a flat patch of the track, telling us to “kick” (step on the gas) as we turned. I obeyed as best I could, skidding and swerving, sometimes spinning the car what felt like a full 180 degrees before braking, breathless and a bit in disbelief at what I was doing.
After that we graduated to the actual race loop, which was a little over two miles. We sped through the course as a pack of a few cars at a time, sometimes going upwards of 90 miles per hour, always with a professional racer leading the way and guiding us over the radio. This was the toughest part for me; we needed to essentially tailgate each other because it helped to see the car in front of us handle hairpin turns (including one fittingly called “the corkscrew”). It gave us an idea of what to expect, but I felt like I’d just learned to use floaties and was suddenly diving into the deep end. My grip on the wheel was ironclad, and I breathed a sigh of relief every time we slowed down to pull into the pit.
By the end of the experience, I’d realized a few things. First: how exhausting driving is when you’re not used to it. We were only out on the course for about four hours, and a fair amount of that was as a passenger or waiting for one group to finish up so our group could drive. I still felt somewhat physically and mentally spent from a mix of nerves and forcing myself to concentrate in a new way, commanding my brain and body to work in tandem as well as possible for safety’s sake.
I also remembered how much I respect expertise. Thanks to my job, I’m lucky enough to interact with various kinds of experts pretty often, whether it’s editors with decades of experience polishing pieces until they shine or obstetricians who talk about delivering babies with the same nonchalance I talk about making dinner. But I haven’t been around professional racers before, much less professional female racers who have extra hurdles to overcome in a sport typically viewed as being just for men. Seeing how they elevated a typically mundane activity to an elite, potentially dangerous sport—and having Holbrook talk my baby-driver self through the exercises with the patience of a saint—helped me remember how cool it is to see people, especially women, throw themselves into their passions and excel.
Lastly, I realized it really is time for me to go to (regular) driving school because being behind the wheel is more fun than I remembered. D.C. streets, I hope you’re ready for me.
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Originally Appeared on Self
