“When you come into the pits, do not trust yourself, only your speedometer”
ANDREW FRANKEL
I drove the new Ford Mustang in North Carolina on roads close to the Charlotte Motor Speedway. NASCAR is 75 years old this year and is headquartered in the city, so I sought out the Hall of Fame and spent a couple of hours gawping at the extraordinary array of machines that have adorned the ovals over the last lifetime.
I know shamefully little about stock car racing and have only driven one – an ‘ASCAR’ if you recall the series that ran in the UK for a few years in the early part of this century – and it was absolutely dreadful. Testing commitments mean I’ve driven on banked tracks from MIRA in Warwickshire to NARDO in the heel of Italy, but before this month, just one in the US.
This was Talladega, a place probably made most famous by Will Ferrell’s ‘Ricky Bobby’ character, but which was scorched into my mind from the day of Mark Donohue’s 221mph lap there in 1975.