Hanging Out at 150 Miles Per Hour

© Christine Blunck / RumBum.com

The author (second from left) rides the sidecar in a Formula 1 race during Speed Week at Bonneville.

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We pulled into the pit lane and I was panting. What the heck? I was just a passenger, why was I breathing hard? I guess there's something about blasting around a world-class racetrack at 150 miles an hour, all the while scrambling around from spot to spot, using your weight to counterbalance the vehicle in the turns, that will do that to you.

Welcome to the world of Formula 1 sidecar racing. With Rick Murray driving, I had the opportunity on Sunday to take the passenger spot on a "taxi ride" around the Miller Motorsports Park track. If you're guessing it was unlike anything I've ever experienced, you would be right.

The number one rule, Rick explained to me beforehand, is to "grab this grip with your left hand and never let go." The grip in question was a little to the left of center in the passenger compartment. A little to the right of that and lower was another grip to use with my right hand while leaning off the rig to the left, with my feet braced against the compartment wall.

To shift my weight to the right I would extend my body over the rear of the rig and grab another grip halfway down the side on the right, all the while hanging on tight with the left hand. Back and forth-right, neutral, left, neutral, right-as the rig sped around the curves. Neutral, or center, was for straightaways, where the idea was just to tuck in and make myself small so as to minimize wind resistance.

Before we headed out, Christine Blunck, who rides passenger with Wade Boyd, walked me through the moves I wanted to make on each turn on the course. Of course, as soon as we got out on the track I immediately lost track of what turn we were in and all of Christine's instruction. All I could think was "We're going into a left-hand sweeper, so I need to move left."

Except it wasn't that simple. I had also been told that if I was unsure what to do I should look ahead to what the passenger in the car in front of us was doing. And on several occasions I put myself left or right only to look and see that up ahead the passenger was opposite me. He was a taxi rider, too. Was he in the wrong place or was I?

One way or another, we circled the track. I did my best to hang as far out on the left as I could, put as much weight as I could on the right, and make myself as small as I could on the straights, all the while holding on for all I was worth with my left hand. I was also trying to move smoothly, to practice that high-speed ballet that Wade had described to me.

I was so intent on all this that it was only the roar of the engine that made me stop and realize we were in the main straightaway on the second lap and Rick was opening it up for all the rig had in it. That was my personal land speed record being set right there. Yeah, we were going fast.

And then we were rolling back into the pits. Taxi ride over. All that remained was to shuck off the borrowed leathers and accept my pin, which says "I rode a racing sidecar." Yes I did. And I'd do it again in a heartbeat.