No Speed Limit
Lamborghini's Gallardo LP 610 Huracán has a 610-horsepower, V-10 under the hood, and can go from 0-60 in a blazing 2.9 seconds. Even if you have an extra quarter million dollars kicking around, it's hard to justify a limited-production supercar. But for just $89 a lap, you can put the Huracán through its paces on the new 1.5 mile Formula One-style racetrack at SpeedVegas. If that's not enough, you can trade up to an equally powerful 210 mph Ferrari 458 Italia, or several other dream cars from Ferrari and Lamborghini, along with a few Porsches, the Mercedes AMG GT-S, Audi R8, Corvette ZO6, Shelby GT or Japan's signature high-horsepower muscle car, the Nissan GTR.
SpeedVegas is a brand new, $30 million, 100-acre motorsports complex, 10 minutes from the heart of the touristic Strip. Its racetrack is patterned after international F1 venues and has 12 sweeping turns, banked up to 20 degrees, and a half-mile straightaway for putting the pedal to the metal. But it is not the only racetrack in Vegas, and not even the only one where you can take the wheel of a Huracán. Exotics Racing at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway offers a nearly identical lineup, plus a McLaren 570S and James Bond's Aston Martin Vantage GT, for hot laps around its 1.2 mile track.
Fast, shiny cars are a huge attraction in Sin City, but it is hardly the only place where you can experience the g-force thrills and grossly overpowered engines—with expert instruction and no speed limits. Several similar operations can be found around the country, and almost all feature Lamborghinis and Ferraris, while most also have Porsches, the R8 and GTR, with a few wildcards mixed in. Exotics Racing also has a Southern California location with a purpose built 1.2 mile track in Fontana, 45 minutes from Los Angeles. In the Big Easy, Extreme Experience is based year round at the NOLA Motorsport Park with its 1.8 mile track just 20 minutes from New Orleans' French Quarter. Extreme Experiences also has a traveling roadshow, taking its cars to tracks around the country on select dates, including Boston, Pittsburgh, Austin, Chicago and many others. Dallas has its own full-time option, DriveXotic, based at the Motorsports Ranch in Cresson, Texas, with the usual suspects plus a Lotus Evora, Maserati GT MC Stradale and Dodge Viper SRT. In South Florida, Miami Exotic Auto Racing has two locations, at Homestead Miami Speedway and Palm Beach International Raceway.
Most sell track experiences by the lap (often with a three-lap minimum) and usually include some preliminary instruction, safety gear and sometimes a warm up lap. They also offer multicar packages: for example, in Miami, a nine-lap experience comes with three each in a Ferrari F430, Lamborghini Gallardo and Audi R8 for $849. SpeedVegas has several theme packages, such as American Muscle, pairing the Corvette ZO6 and Shelby GT and an Italian Supercar package combining the Huracán and 458 Italia. At the world's most famous racetrack, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, you can drive real open cockpit former race cars that actually competed in the Indianapolis 500. The engines have been detuned so your three laps around the Brickyard max out at "only" 130 mph.
Visit speedvegas.com, exoticsracing.com, drivexotic.com, miamiexoticautoracing.com and indianapolismotorspeedway.com
