“Write what you know,” they say. Well, the protagonist in one of my WIPs (works-in-progress, and yes, plural, because doesn’t everyone work on multiple novels at the same time? No? Hmmm…) is a committed lone wolf caught up in a controversy he’s not interested in being caught up in. There are bad guys. Missing friends. A beautiful woman. Casinos. An old guy with a walker. And maybe a car chase or two.
I can’t claim I “know” most of those things first-hand, beyond having walked through a few casinos on the way to the pool. That’s never stopped me from writing about things, of course. But I decided I could do something about the car chases.
That’s why I told myself it was a wise decision to plant my butt in the passenger seat of a Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat while a professional driver “drifted” around turns on a racetrack, melting the tires.
Yep. Me. I did that.
I’d planned a high-octane trip to the commercial racetrack called Speed Vegas in Las Vegas with my husband and our son to celebrate our son’s graduation from college. I’d only intended to sign each of them up to drive a “supercar” on the track (5 laps each), while I snapped photos from the wonderfully solid, immovable viewing deck.
But then I saw the “Drifting Ride-Along” banner on their website. You know those scenes in the movies where the cars skid around turns, tires squealing and raising clouds of smoke, screeching along the knife’s edge of disaster? That’s “drifting.”
“My menfolk would LOVE that!” I thought. Then I read closer. They could put three passengers in their drifting car. There just happened to be—wait for it—three of us.
That’s when a little voice (okay, it belonged to my writing friend, Sydney) started saying “You should do this. It totally counts as research for that main character you’re writing!”
So before my common sense and normally strong sense of self-preservation could kick in, I added the Drifting Ride-Along to the shopping cart and clicked “Buy.”
I have to say, it was an incredibly thrilling two-and-a-half minutes! Helmet-clad and laughing out loud, we cruised at 100 mph on the straightaways, then drifted into turns at anywhere from 40 to 60 mph, the bumper within kissing distance of the course barriers. The driver was chill and unflappable, my husband was grinning ear-to-ear, and my son (in the front passenger seat) was all-out hootin’ and hollerin’ for the sheer joy of it.
As for the supercars my menfolk got to drive, my husband chose a red Ferrari F430, and our son chose a green Mercedes AMG GTR. They drove on the track with a handful of other drivers and cars, but each had a professional driver sitting beside them, talking them through every turn, gear shift, and brake. Out of the pack of 28 drivers in that morning’s session, our son came in #2. I still don’t know whether to be proud or terrified. My husband’s time was a little more reasonable (in my opinion), but I still would have been happier if they’d both come in last place. (This opinion is not shared by my guys.)
And my protagonist? He was as happy as a cat in a catnip factory, although he wouldn’t ever show it, of course. But I can tell he’s contemplating his next move to outwit the bad guys in future chapters. And there just might be a Hellcat involved.
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