It was great fun driving at NHIR back in August. That said, there have been some accusations about the Andretti program…

First the positives: I did get to drive an open wheel single seater on a 1 mile oval. I did experience some of the noise and vibration the pros feel. I did experience the highest power to weight ratio I have ever driven. I did get to pass a slower car and get passed by one of the two seater ride cars. I did come away with a big smile on my face, and even more respect for the Indy car drivers. And I did get a nice certificate saying I went 116 miles per hour.

They didn’t let us stay on the throttle for the entire lap. A spotter directs your every move, lanes to be in, when to pass, etc. Citing NH’s tight turns, we had to let off the throttle at marker cones at the end of each straight, and we couldn’t get back on it until the beginning of the next straight. Still, it felt pretty fast…

I had my Android Speedometer running, but, when looking at my speed plot on the phone, my peak recorded speed was well below the certificate speed. It must have sampling too slowly, I thought.

But when I got home, I exported the data into Excel, and got a good look at my speed plot. I could see I was getting data points every 1.14 seconds, plenty fast to get a fairly accurate estimate of my speed.

The last photo is my speed plot, with a few calculations. My maximum speed was really about 86 miles per hour. I’ve been faster, for longer, in a 4 door sedan. With the air conditioning on. The sensations of being so low, combined with all the noise and vibration, can be misleading.

From the data, my fastest lap averaged 63 MPH, my fastest half lap averaged 66MPH. If I could have done a whole lap like that, It would have been a 54 second lap. Wow, it certainly felt a lot faster. I guess your perception is fooled from being so much lower, and all the noise and vibration.

Talking to a guy on the way out, he claimed carts do laps in under 40 seconds. That’s regular carts, not shifters. It will be interesting to see what the NASCAR boys do in a couple weeks.

Googling around, I found a number of people who found the same thing, fun, but they too saw exaggerated speed claims in their advertising, and on the certificates.

I can understand why they wouldn’t want novices getting anywhere near high speeds they mention in their ads, or near the limit on the corners, but it was my feeling that the cars were fully composed, no, positively bored, with the speeds we cornered at.

So yes, I had a fun experience, and I’m glad I did it. They should have been a bit more truthful about the potential and actual speeds, though.