Right now, I'm in Oklahoma staying with my son Daniel. I'll be here for the month of November, including a few days trip to Colorado in his muscle-car, and also to Porsche Weekend in Eureka Springs to the east, in Arkansas. Daniel likes his cars, and knows people who like to race them.
That first day, we were driving up the forested hill from the local town, rounded a bend, and found a double-wide house on the back of a truck coming in the other direction and occupying the entire width of the road. In America, they usually build their houses out of wood and then haul them to wherever they are needed. Preceded along the route - at least as a rule - by a van with a light on top and a sign saying 'Caution: Wide-load'.
This one didn't. We had to swerve off the road into the ditch. Otherwise it might have been a case not so much of a car driving into the side of a house as a house driving into the side of a car.
My boy's car is a cobalt-blue Dodge Challenger 'Hell-Cat' which has a powerful acceleration and has over seven hundred horsepower. He picked it up second-hand, and in its favour, it can be used as a sober vehicle for taking granddad for a ride, or for some volume-shopping down at Walmart. The boot ('trunk') is massive.
And thus it came to pass that, on my second day in Daniel's town (an hour north of Tulsa), we drove down to the track at Hallett, a circuit somewhere south of Tulsa. We were going racing.
They give you a talk at the race-track. Drive with your window open (in case you need to be rescued). Wear a racing-car helmet. Empty the trunk of anything loose. Watch the flags. Don't do this, don't do that. There were around twenty drivers (and one passenger) taking this all in. Anyone have an electric car? No? Good. We hope no one's been silly enough to bring a Hell-Cat? (Laughs).
There are several groups of five who will drive for fifteen minutes - the first time for practice and getting to know the track - no passengers. So I went over to the stand to watch them go.
Later, it was time for my ride. I put on the helmet in the enclosed space - it's not easy - and we drove down to the chequered flag and then, away...
Daniel is a good driver, but the Dodge weighs a lot and, as happens with American cars anyway, it doesn't do corners very well. It has excellent acceleration, but we had to slow down long before any corner to get around it.
There are a couple of nasty corners at Hallett. All went well, although after the session was over, we found we had burned the brake-pads - perhaps not surprisingly.
We stayed for lunch and talked shop with the others. I told them about my Citroen back in Spain. I don't think they were very impressed.
After lunch, Eddie invited me to ride in his new Lamborghini STO. Eddie is a master behind the wheel and once I had crawled into the car and somehow managed to put on my helmet after putting the back of the seat down to *flat*, we took off.
A car like this holds the road and is so much lighter that the Dodge that it zipped around the corners with incredible grip. Gosh, it was fast. An amazing experience and my thanks to Eddie for the ride.
I shall be asking Santa for one of those.