Velocity Motorsports

Here is hopefully a fairly balanced review of the «AMP Track Experience» (LivingSocial) that I received as a birthday gift.
(1) Booking a slot: If you absolutely want to drive the Ferrari or the Lambo, be prepared to commit to a date 2 – 3 months in advance. Both these cars are ultra-​popular, and are sold out months in advance. You might have to call a couple of times before you get a call-​back
(2) Getting there: Easy to find if you have GPS
(3) Pre-​Drive Experience: Once I got through AMP’s gates, I headed over to Velocity’s garage. All of Velocity’s cars were parked outside, and my fellow drivers and their compadre’s were milling about admiring them. Check-​in was easy, and the folks over at Velocity are pretty friendly. [But here’s the first gotcha! GOTCHA #1: At check-​in, you are expected to buy car insurance on the car you are driving… prices start at $ 59. That is on top of the $ 179 you have already paid] I spent some time admiring the cars, sitting in them, taking pics, etc.; and then it was time to head indoors for our briefing. Here is where I think experiences will begin to diverge. You are either someone who has driven on a track before, or one that hasn’t. Unfortunately I was in the latter group. While the briefing itself was fairly simple, there are a couple of new concepts that one has to learn… easy to understand when you are sitting in a room, on a chair travelling at 0mph, but not that easy to execute when you are driving a $ 100k-​$ 300k car, traveling at 90mph. I cant say that the folks at Velocity do a particularly good job of explaining the practical application of these concepts.
(4) Driving Experience: Before you get to drive your car, an instructor puts you and two of your fellow drivers into another car and takes you for a spin around the track [GOTCHA #2: This drive also counts toward your total # of laps. You have 4 laps in total]. Once you’re back, you get into the car of your choice, and take it for 3 laps around the track, with an instructor by your side. These 3 laps are exhilarating (G-​forces, acceleration, etc.), yet confusing at times (made worse by the instructor’s constant squealing :)) [GOTCHA #3: AMP is a ‘technical track’; so you are not going to get over, say, 80mph for more than a couple of seconds (max) at a time] [GOTCHA #4: AMP’s track is 2 miles long. If you drove 3 laps at an average speed of 60mph, your driving experience is complete in 6 minutes]
Bottom-​line: The cars are beautiful and the people are nice. The instructors could be better, and the instructions could be clearer. But the big question you should really be asking yourself is — do you think $ 250 (incl. insurance) is a worthwhile price to pay for driving a supercar for 6 – 8 minutes tops. If yes, then this one’s for you.

Cashed in my Groupon voucher yesterday for my Ferrari drive around a track yesterday and it was everything I could have hoped it to be. Got there around 10, watched a brief instructional video and went for what they call a ‘discovery drive’; a ride around the track with an instructor, I was off in my dream car for a thrilling drive where I got to pretend to be one of the host of the BBC show «Top Gear». I had a great time in what turned out to be around a two hour experience.
I gave it four instead of five because the sd car I bought to record my laps failed to record which only slightly damped the day.
A little on the pricey side without the Groupon, but again I drove a Ferrari. I’ll be keeping a lookout for more of those, it is something I definitely want to do again.