My nature makes it really hard for my wife to surprise me with birthday / holiday gifts but she still manages to throw me a curve every once in a while.

Last year she had purchased a gift card to exoticdriving.com for Father's Day and since we love road trips to New Orleans I had put it in a drawer waiting to coordinate scheduling at one of their next NOLA track events as I have no track time there. Well life happens and I ended up forgetting about the gift card UNTIL I saw the news segment how exoticdriving.com is no longer affiliated with the Disneyworld Driving Experience as their home track. I checked their web site for dates and they no longer NOLA as a track option either.

That being said they are running an event this weekend at MSR Houston and I have signed up to do laps in a Ferrari Scuderia.

Even though I have done thousands of laps around various tracks in the US on my RC51 race bike this will be my first experience tracking a car.

Has anyone else here participated in one of their events?

 

Sounds like lots of fun!
I never tracked cars either, but have bikes (motocrossing), and I suspect since you are already an experienced performance car driver, that after a couple of warm up laps you will be flying and having a blast.
As you well know, knowing every inch of the track plays a big part in feeling comfortable and being able to push closer to the limit....

Enjoy the Ferrari and report back!

PS: I almost pulled the trigger on an RC51, years back when I was still riding a street bike (Gixxer 1000 and Triumph Daytona 955 were the last two I owned).

 

I have a friend that has done that twice with the group in Las Vegas. He loved it. Based on his experience, I'm thinking you will have a large time.

 

Well, wanted to take a moment to post up my experience with exoticdriving.com.

I ended up doing 6 laps in a Ferrari 430 Scuderia. I chose it because I thought it would be closest in performance capabilities to my Grandsport and 430 was the closest option to a true track car with lights.

While I love the fact that my spouse picked a great gift for me to be quite frank I most likely would not rebook a future event for a couple different reasons:
1. Event seemed somewhat disorganized. Individuals signed up for specific cars and then they were not available for the event. It was blatantly obvious that the individual providing the classroom pre-briefing was not familiar with their own inventory and car features, for example repeatedly referring to cars by incorrect models (referred to the 430 Scuderia as a 360 Modena) and incorrectly answering questions about car options (e.g. paddle shifter placement and function).
2. Cars are put into maximum "nanny" mode, traction controls fully enabled and performance modes set at lowest settings. I understand that this is done for safety reasons but it severely impacts the driving experience.
3. The in car instructors were not familiar with the track and the capabilities of the cars they had been assigned. For example, my in-car instructor would direct me to brake at the first braking marker (300') even though the car was barely hitting 90mph on the front straight in its "neutered" driving mode configuration.
4. Instructors pressure you to not utilize paddle shifters and rely solely on the full automatic mode, claiming that because the shifters are column mounted (instead of steering wheel) that searching for the shifters will be a distraction for you and that the car can ultimately shift better than you can anyway.

Overall I still enjoyed the opportunity to experience an Italian exotic in a track setting. If your goal is to get some seat time behind different supercars and are ok not being given the opportunity to push the cars to the edge then one of their events is not a bad option.

 

Yea, I'm pretty sure someone was killed recently at one of these events, so I'm sure all employees got told to take it easy on the tracks. Unfortunate for someone with a little experience like you, who wanted more, but they are protecting their interests.

The real way to experience it is to go to a driving school, like Ron Fellows or Bondurant. Then, after they train you, you can hang it out to your practical limit

 

Yea, from what I understand an in-car ride instructor was killed in a Lambroghini SuperLeggara at the Disney Driving Experience track.

ExoticDriving.com no longer offers events there.

To be honest I'm betting the company will not last. The number of tracks they are running events at is half what it was a year ago and turn out a the MSR event was very low, only 5-6 drivers in our time slot.

 

^ suspect their insurance costs are now unaffordable...

 

A buddy of mine did the Xtreme Xperience last year. He drove an R8 and had a blast.

They use Driveway Austin, and will be in Texas twice this year, July and December.

http://www.thextremexperience.com/