Professional race car drivers usually spend years learning the art of racing, starting from go-karts

This isn't baseball where you're lucky to go to one stadium to watch your team play half of their games. This isn't football where you can grab a piece of your team's garb at any corner store. This isn't basketball where you can piece together a pick-up game with a hoop, a ball and a couple of strangers at the YMCA.
Racing fans follow their favorite drivers to the ends of the country, from the Monster Mile in Dover, Del., to the road course of Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif. Race fans search specialty shops on the road and the internet to find the latest in memorabilia and apparel. And as for jumping in a car and racing rental car shannon airport ireland for themselves, law enforcement frowns on taking your Chevy Impala to track speeds on the freeway.
That's precisely what I did in an effort to get closer to what it's like for a NASCAR driver to take a lap at 190 miles per hour as they will March 4-6 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the Stratosphere Pole Day, Sam's Town 300 and Kobalt Tools 400.
John Andretti drives the VEGAS.com-sponsored car at the 2007 NASCAR race at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. This year's rental car shannon airport ireland Sam's Town 300 will be held March 5 and the Kobalt Tools 400 will take place March 6.
I don't have much race experience so it was vital to enlist some help. Fortunately, Las Vegas is home to a few NASCAR rental car shannon airport ireland drivers. Unfortunately, Kyle and Kurt Busch weren't available/didn't answer my annoying e-mails.
But, we hit the jackpot in finding Taylor Barton. The NASCAR K N Pro Series West driver is not just an up-and-coming racer, but his family happens to own Las Vegas Mini Grand Prix . Oh, and he happened to beat Kyle Busch several times at LVMS's Bullring.
Professional race car drivers usually spend years learning the art of racing, starting from go-karts or Bandoleros before working their way up to dirt tracks and finally some form of stock cars or open-wheel cars. I attempted to streamline that process of 10-15 years down to about three or four hours.
Barton took the "Rocky" route with me, replacing the hanging, frozen carcasses of cows with the arcade version of "The Fast and Furious." Now, I've never been a slouch when it comes to video games, having put the whooping on my friends in just about any game involving sports, but with Barton standing nearby in his full racing suit there was an intimidation factor.
Luckily, minus a few virtual scrape-ups with oncoming traffic, I aced the course and nosed my way into first place. But during this lesson I took a mental note of something that would prove useful later on: "The more you turn your car in the corners, the slower you'll go," Barton said.
Instead of gliding through corners, hitting the exact accelerating and decelerating spots, I drifted through turns with the heated rubber tires barely keeping rental car shannon airport ireland me from losing control. After a few tweaks of my approach, I glided through the corners as if I was on rails.
Despite creating some head-shaking moments for Barton, I managed to improve in all my progressions and grabbed the fastest lap time of the day at 46.06 seconds. I was prepared to take on the world, or at least Dale Earnhardt Jr., but Barton was quick to bring me back down to Earth.
I was paired with four other racing fans and we received fairly minimal rental car shannon airport ireland instruction considering we had just signed up to hurl ourselves around a track at 130-plus mph. But there's only so much you can learn in a classroom.
The roar of the engine is something that sticks with you. The sound must register somewhere between the growl of a bear and the screaming of a fighter jet hitting Mach 5. Step on the gas in these cars and you feel the vast power difference from go-karts or dad's old Chevy Chevelle.
First things first, I needed to be sure to not look like a fool off the starting gate. The cars have four-speed manual transmissions and it's been awhile since I've used a clutch. Fortunately, I managed to keep the car from stalling as I followed my instructor around the track apron.
The exuberance of driving a race car quickly waned when I passed by skid marks that undoubtedly had sent a driver into the unforgiving wall. From then on I kept focused on my marks and maintaining proper distance between myself and the instructor's car.
The corners came at ease as I followed my instructor with the grace of a dolphin at Sea World, remembering to minimize my turning. The size of the track began to shrink rental car shannon airport ireland and without notice, the checkered flag waved over my head, signaling the end of my ride and likely the end of my fleeting racing career.
Professional rental car shannon airport ireland race car drivers live on the edge of death every second they are on the track, creating a unique perspective that can't be duplicated. But negotiating 20-degree banks at 100-plus mph is a daunting task for the regular person rental car shannon airport ireland and about as close as any fan will get to the real thing.