Formula One Abu Dhabi

[Melvina Kryder]

Atthe racetrack, they started us with an educational briefing. This ratcheted my nervousness up a few notches. In addition to telling us how to start the car and shift gears, they told us what to do if we spun out; and showed us the button to press to shut off the car in an emergency, and the knob to turn to escape our harness, and the lever to pull in case of a fire. Yikes!

The car has a clutch that is used only when starting in first gear. After that, upshifting and downshifting is as easy as clicking the paddle shifters on each side of the steering wheel. With each downshift, the car offers up a mighty bone-rattling thump (for lack of a better description).

We each had our own instructor-car to follow. The driver of that car would somehow monitor what was happening behind them and adjust speed accordingly. That was great because I never felt unsure about what I was doing once on the track. The first time around the track was intentionally slow to get us used to driving the car at all. After that, we were free to unleash the beast.

Once I felt relatively comfortable driving, I took off. Or so I thought. There were three of us driving the track at once, and one guy lapped me several times. Nick lapped me once. Still, I must have been going at least 50 or 60 miles per hour ;).

It took me a while to get used to going relatively fast around turns. I really had no interest in spinning out, so the main issue was getting comfortable enough to keep the speed up above a crawl as I entered turns. With each lap, I think I took the turns faster until I finally got to where my mom might not beat me in a formula 1 race. Nick apparently also increased his speed around turns as he went along because he spun out on the second to last lap. Fortunately, he was unhurt and was able to safely finish the drive.

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