Emily found out about the Richard Petty Driving experience a few weeks before we went and we booked up for my birthday. I spoke to a lovely lady on the phone and confirmed that a UK driving licence was OK to use. She also sent across all the forms via email (which basically state that you won’t sue anyone if you have an accident etc) and I filled them in ready for the day. All I had to do then was ensure that they had my hotel contact number just in case the weather was bad and the event was cancelled (unfortunately if it rains they won’t run the event due to safety reasons).
There is a Richard Petty track at Disney, but the banks aren’t quite as high as they are at Daytona, so make sure you pick a “real” track that’s used by NASCAR for the full effect. When we turned up I handed over all the safety forms to the lady behind the counter. I looked over and saw a guy in a cow-boy hat who simply said, “Hey man. Do you like to drive fast?” I figured I was in good hands after that. :)
So anyway, here’s a video of us at Daytona. First up is us arriving in the Dodge Charger (big car, lots of power, but no pull or steering ability!) You could hear the sound of the engines from the car-park – even though there were only two cars going round at the time. The noise is fantastic and, as you’ll see in the video, we had a huge amount of fun. We even managed to get a bit of practice in on the Daytona arcade game, as you’ll see in the video. You’ll also hear Emily mentioning quite a few references to Talladega Nights too… “Shake and Bake!”