I was honestly shocked yesterday when a friend of mine, Lebanese but living in the US, told me that he “just got to drive a NASCAR around the Kentucky Speedway”; I thought he was kidding, until I read what followed: “I’ll upload pictures and my onboard video once I get home.”
He wasn’t kidding, and a video was indeed uploaded. You see, my friend Roy Al Ahmar registered in the Rusty Wallace Race Experience, which is a program that allows you to drive a legitimate NASCAR around a Short Speedway, Speedway or Super Speedway with distances ranging from 5 laps to a full race (depending on your budget). Roy drove Kyle Busch’s Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS around the 2.4-kilometer Kentucky Speedway at speeds exceeding 190 km/h.
This is how he described the experience in his video (which you can watch below):
“Driving Kyle Busch’s #5 car from 2007 at the Kentucky Speedway. First few laps were me getting used to the car, by lap 5 I was getting the hang of things and was averaging about 120+mph [190 km/h] a lap. My first time around a NASCAR and a Speedway. I respect those races more now that I have experienced driving one nowhere near its limits. A once in a life time experience.”