Gary’s Q&A

Listener question & Gary’s response · Transcript passage

The next question comes from Matt Bitner. He asks, On your website there’s a picture of you wearing a racing suit that says “Best Lap F1 Event”. Where did this take place? Did you meet any current or former drivers?

That took place during the 2011 Gran Pre of Europe, which took place in Valencia, Spain.

I was there with a group of travel journalists who were invited to the race by the Valencia Tourism Board.

As part of the event, we got to visit the behind-the-scenes of the race, including going into the paddocks where the cars were being worked on.

As part of the events surrounding the Formula One race, there was a company which set up at a local race track that provided a Formula One experience.

They owned an actual Formula One car that had actually won a Formula One race several years earlier. The company acquired the car and put a custom body on the chassis. The new fiberglass body had seats for two passengers between the wheels.

So, the company would offer passengers rides in an actual Formula One car with a professional driver. I believe our driver raced on the Formula Two circuit.

We did three laps around the track, and it was really an incredible experience. What I learned, in a very visceral way, is that the key to Formula One cars isn’t their top speeds but rather their acceleration.

We hit about 180 miles per hours in the straightway, but that is possible to achieve in some high end luxury cars. Where Formula One cars shine is in their acceleration. The acceleration I experienced riding as a passenger in a Formula One car was second only to the acceleration I experienced getting launched from an aircraft carrier.

That, however, is another story.