Ride car #96 at Daytona International Speedway.
As a part-time driver for the NASCAR Racing Experience, I give all sorts of folks high-speed thrill rides around the Daytona International Speedway. I’ve taken passengers as young as eight years, and as old as 93. I’ve given rides to wheelchair-bound people, an astronaut, a Daytona 500 winner, an NHRA Top-Fuel drag-racing champion, grandmothers, the military, persons from countries including Brazil, Argentina, Scotland and India. You get the picture.
This past weekend I added three more “firsts” to that list. One was a blind man. When asked why he was doing a ride, he said he wanted to hear the roar of the engine, feel the vibrations, G-forces and whipping winds in the car, and smell burning fuel and tire rubber. Being blind, all of his other senses are heightened. Fair enough.
The following day, a man who had just had a heart transplant was belted in. I was a bit apprehensive, to say the least, and used humor to deflect my unease (I mean, who wants a nervous-nelly taking them on a joy ride at 170 mph?). I jokingly asked if he had signed a waiver. The guy’s rationale for the ride: “I’ve been given a second chance at life, so I’m going to do all of the things left on my bucket list.” One, obviously, was to ride in a stock car. He said a parachute jump was next.
The third person was a former international professional figure skater, Rosanna “Rosie’’ Tovi. Tovi was particularly interesting in that she suffers from a type of PTSD resulting from a bad car accident several years back that almost took her life. “I was clipped by another car on the 405 in Los Angeles, which spun me into the concrete highway divider, then bounced me into the middle of the freeway. A semi-truck hit me, and I careened into another car. That’s when I stopped remembering.” In the hospital, she was diagnosed with a broken pelvis, fractured shoulder, all of her teeth smashed, and countless cuts and bruises on her face which required stitches. The car, a Porsche, was cut in half.
Tovi arrived at the track early. I enjoy giving rides in the morning, when few student drivers are on-track, and when there is less chance of rain. If inclement weather strikes, it’s usually in the afternoon at Daytona. If storms are even in the area, and lightning hits within eight miles, operations must be ceased for at least half an hour. And, if it does rain, NRE cannot run at all as the slick tires, with no treads, will lose grip with any kind of moisture on the asphalt.
Tovi was scheduled for six laps. Clad in an open-face helmet and HANS device, she climbed through the window of the passenger side of the #96 car (“felt really cool, like a real race car driver doing that”), and was belted in with a five-point harness system. I asked how fast she was going just before her accident. Seventy miles per hour, was her response. I was about to take her 100 mph faster than that, but I kept it to myself. No need to rattle her. She looked nervous enough.
After a quick fist bump, I accelerated through four gears out of pit lane, and blended onto the track just before Turn 1, banked at a whopping 31 degrees. Imagine that angle. The noise of the 600-plus-hp engine was deafening, and I had no radio contact with Tovi. So, at that point, she was fully committed. We do have hand signals, where if a rider wants to slow, he/she gives a thumbs-down. To speed up, just the opposite - a thumbs-up. While I am concentrating on the track in front of me, obviously, I can see peripherally on both sides.
Rosie Tovi with the stock car she rode in at Daytona International Speedway, January 2023.
As I accelerated through Turns 1 and 2, then down the long back-straight, I carefully monitored Tovi to see if she would flash any signals. If a rider panics, it’s usually on that part of the track. I’m at full speed barreling into Turn 3, and I don’t slow one iota. Nothing from Tovi; so far, so good. She evidently was handling her PTSD.
On the first lap, which covers 2.5 miles in less than a minute, I took her through the corners on the low line, near the bottom of the track. While riders pull almost 3 Gs there, they tend to feel more secure as far away from the outside retaining wall as possible. Still no reaction. So I gradually moved up closer to the wall on each lap. Still no reaction. Either she was frozen in time, scared out of her mind, or she was enjoying the ride.
After six laps, I pulled low exiting Turn 4, and coasted into pit lane, back to the area we had started from. Well? “Before the ride, I had a lot of thoughts,” she said. “It was a really big deal. I almost postponed it. Was this going to trigger some sort of PTSD?”
“Your perception is skewed as to what it might be like,’’ Tovi continued. “It’s the unknown. In reality, you’re sideways near this wall at a crazy speed, a kind of altered reality, but with an incredible feeling. I loved every minute of it.”
Any iffy moments? “I noticed when you make tiny moves on the steering wheel, the car really reacts,” she said. “Your level of focus has to be unbelievable. My eyes were tearing from the wind, and I didn’t rub them because I thought you might think I was having a PTSD moment, maybe crying. So I just kept my hands down and let it all be [laughs].”
“Overall, it was a real letting-go experience, like in my old skating days,” Tovi added. “Surviving gives you courage to walk through fear with other things in life. For me, that now includes riding in regular cars on big highways without concern. It was hugely empowering.”
Would Tovi ever consider driving one of the stock cars herself? NRE has several programs designed to put novices behind the wheel, albeit at lower speeds. Tovi and I even passed a few of those students on the track during our ride. “I love stick-shift cars,” said Tovi. “When are we going, Jim [laughs]?”
