At the end of a week-long trade conference on brand licensing where we were on the hunt for new cool things for the Speedstyle store, we, the speedstyle crew (design, logistics, projects), jumped at a ‘when in Rome’ opportunity to drive different supercars at SpeedVegas, 30 mins south of the Las Vegas strip.

Our morning long experience was high on a personal experience bucket list, in the RACING category. We also saw this as the high time to put some newly printed Speedstyle T-shirts to some actual racing action testing. Results and details at the end.

Back in February, when I knew we were going to a trade show looking for new licensable ‘speed stuff’ for the Speedtsyle Design store, the thought of renting a supercar while in Vegas crossed my mind. There’s a couple different ways one can rent a supercar in Vegas and I decided I wanted to drive one as fast as possible for as long as they would allow. One can rent a supercar and go cruise the strip and around Vegas but the real desire for me was for driving a super car on a race track at race speeds.

Our driving experience was booked online a week prior via a helpful SV chat session, and we arrived at SpeedVegas early via a Lyft on Friday morning to a fairly quick sign-in process. A sim racing colleague recommended SpeedVegas a month ago and said that when or if going, that we should go early on the day. We’d recommend the same about arriving earlier in the day, and in our case, it was best to pre-book.

The SpeedVegas facilities are spacious, typically appointed with all things racing, and at 8:55AM there was already a dozen customers ahead of us in the general line-up and another dozen milling about. It seemed there were about 100 people (drivers and guests and staff) throughout the facility that morning, it’s definitely a busy place. Once you are checked in, you are able get up close to look at the supercars and get ready for your turn at hot laps.

A total of five cars and a superkart were involved in a scorching hot morning of high speed exploration and testing for the three in our group, where there were dozens more supercars to choose from.

Our half day started with a 2023 Porsche Cayman that used for a 2-lap track familiarization run, one lap travelling under 60mph and no brakes per se, and the second lap was a full speed ripper from a four-door sportscar SUV. This must be what a getaway car feels like after just robbing a…..

The last car of the day will be the Porsche 992 for a 10 lap stint, preceded by an Acura/Honda NSX for a 7 lap stint in the middle session, and the first car is a Mercedes AMG GTR for 7 laps, which were all raced for 34 laps in total. Finally, a Lamborghini Huracan will be used for a couple of hi-speed passenger ride-alongs for 4 laps. Our stats for the day show 42 laps total, which probably included cool down laps.

One thing that stood out for us was how well we were received when we arrived, and once briefed, guided by our host to a VIP area while we waited for the driver briefing to begin. SpeedVegas staff had the reception part nailed and it shows as a well run and very efficient speed experience.

We’d next find out how well the actual driving experience would go. There wouldn’t be much waiting as the morning stints moved fast.

Supercar Lineup and Performance
Each car seemed very new, well maintained, and pristine. Many cars, if not all, still had that ‘new race car smell’ you’d notice when you get in, and all definitely smelled like a race car when brought it back after a half dozen hot laps. The instructor walks us out to past the row of at least eight bright red Ferraris, ready to run, and a pair of white Porsche Caymans that are used for track familiarization runs with four people in the car.

Again, I’m going to hot-lap in an AMG, an NSX, and a 992. There was one particular Ferrari I should have added to my list but didn’t.

It’s now 9:20 am-ish and It’s hard to wipe the happy-dumb look on my face off at this point. I’m aware of how all of this is feeling in the moment, there’s not a negative thought in my head… I’m in the moment.

Note to self: I’ll need to look back in my watch health details to see what my heart rate and resting was.

All cars are equipped with really good video recording systems, so don’t worry about shooting your own. They’ll sell you a video memory of your drive that includes the driver, the front view, and the audio. I’ll spend quite a bit of time reviewing my videos and will hear again and again the instructors telling me everywhere I got it wrong which I’ll use to remember for the next time.

I still don’t realize at this point that I will need more laps but I will.

First up for hot-lapping is the Mercedes AMG GTR, in a vivid matte green, and parked in a canopy covered spot amongst two dozen other super cars. The aforementioned row of Ferraris is in the background of this photo. Walking up to and through so many incredible cars becomes a slo-mo replay in your head when you think about it again and again. Thankfully there’s real video.

Anyway, getting an already large size pumpkin into the car, now with a helmet on, was the only real issue. Expect to tap your helmeted melon on every thing you climb into. Once in the car though, the seat is a snug fit and highly adjustable. There’s an incredible amount of visual and tactile information to take in if this is your first time driving one of these cars. The instructor is saying stuff but his words are not fully registering as I am overwhelmed with visual data and stimulation for a few minutes. “Uh huh, Yup……uh huh….” becomes my reply for the next few minutes of explanation.

When sitting in an AMG like this for the first time, one should consciously take the time to take it all in, as I am trying hard to do. The inside fits and smells like a glove, the interior is well appointed but not much takes your attention away from what you see out over the dashboard, a huge green hood that covers a twin turbo V8 engine, undoubtedly lovingly hand built by Dietrich und Gunther.

A moment in my head was oddly playing. I imagined myself as sitting in this car in the AMG showroom and am just about to break the law and drive away. I snap out of my getaway driver daydream. I just want to start it and go.

Could. Not. Wait.

… so let’s GO!

As I pull away from the parking area, my instructions are to stay to the left between the two cones at the entrance on the right side of the track. I’m rolling up like I’m pulling up to order a burger, figuratively tip-toeing to the line. After waiting just a few seconds that felt oddly long, I’m told by the instructor I can now enter the track and make my way over to the far left side…. in which I heard GO GO GO.

I have the accelerator matted. Slowly yet so very quickly the AMG is gets up to 175 kph in a few seconds. I mosey the car on over to the left side of the track, with a smooth 3 lane wide lane-change. Looking ahead to the next thing, a braking marker, I can now see the upcoming right turn still seems a long ways off and suddenly it’s not.

“Use all the track” is the one tip you will hear over and over again. I already know for this first right turn that I want my left tires touching the left curb (kerb). I am about to blow by the braking markers and start my out-lap with a poor setup into the first sweeping right turn. Getting all the things, like where you start braking, and how much braking, and for how long you brake correctly is no easy trick to master, all while learning those same tricks.

I’m through the first few corners and the AMG is loud now. My body is actually getting tossed around in my seat a bit but oddly is very snug still, like I am loosely wearing the car as pants.

My instructor yells/tells me a blast of information which I’ll slowly work out in my head and process as we drive the next 7 laps, pushing harder and harder each time around. At every key point on the track, he’s calling out what to do again because I may have just missed it, which I did my fair share of. He’d be constantly yelling out ‘braked too late’, ‘missed your turn-in’, ‘get closer to that apex’, ‘this side of the track’, ‘other side of the track’, ‘wait’, ‘harder on the brakes’, ‘coast’, and the lap would repeat again and I would try and knock the list down.

A lap at this SpeedVegas track starts with a slow roll out from the pits onto the front straight, flooring it on this straight and watching as the speedo hits 120mph (~200kph) before it’s HARD on the brakes for 40-50ft, and then an easy not-so-easy, sudden-yet-smooth turn to the right, apexing the kerb on the front right tire, and then a just as sudden turn to the left onto a short straight that ends banking off an odd way, making it very easy to miss the start of this turn, and not do well through the next series of turns, the back esses.

Whenever the car is pointed in a straight line, it’s either hard on the accelerator or hard on the brake, racing up to 140 mph and doing a hairpin turn at 40mph. Doing a self-check about what I feeling, I do again notice that the seats do a great job of holding me in which makes feeling the car much easier. I just need to work on being smooth, hitting my marks everywhere instead of missing them.

FINDING THAT ZEN MOMENT
Driving fast on an unfamiliar track is a difficult task as I mentioned earlier. Remembering as much tactical and strategic information as I could in as few laps as possible, left me with at least three, maybe four decent laps where I was able to feel the right things in this AMG and still drive faster. If you are a golfer, the sound the club makes when you tee up and have cranked it is the closest way I could think to describe what is happening when a lap comes together. There’s a sound and a feeling that it’s all together. One corner exit correctly done allowed for a better entry into the next, and so on. Chasing that hooked-up feeling was a no-win situation as it wouldn’t take many little mistakes to eat away at a poorly placed entry into a corner, or a late brake when an early and long brake is actually faster. If there were just more laps.

Suddenly the laps in the AMG are over. I’m told to head off track and as I’m cruising back to the pits, I can feel that I am coming down from 7 minutes of racing pleasure. It didn’t last long enough. Oh geez the best feelings never do, do they?

Next up was the Acura (Honda) NSX, which for racing comfort and ease of driving, was the top car of the three driven. It wasn’t fastest, or I should say ‘it wasn’t driven as fast’, but it truly is an incredibly advanced race car. This car is full of the latest hybrid technologies. It is so balanced and hard to drive wrong. Everything on the NSX seems power assisted or enabled. To me, the NSX drives and feels like it’s levitating, it’s so smooth. It has incredibly sensitive but powerful brakes. All of it’s 573hp is sitting mid chassis and gets evenly distributed to the wheels. Driving this car helped me understand how grippy this car is, how well planted it is through the esses. Getting this car slowed down from 200+kmh on the front straight and flicking it right into the T1 chicane is done with zero drama. Going through the esses fast was easiest for me in this car. This NSX was a pleasure to drive.

I won’t remember the NSX for being overly raw but much more for how technically refined of a supercar it is. I find it amazing and I can sometimes be found in awe of what Honda is capable of in building incredible well balanced machines, no matter how complex.

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All drivers have their lap times posted in the paddock staging area and are up for all to see. As I didn’t see this before leaving for my first run, it was a nice surprise to walk into the paddock area after the first stint to see that I set the daily record. As we found out later after the 2nd stint, also set the fastest time of the week, for all drivers. Suddenly seeing the leaderboard stirs up the competitive nature I have, a little like dangling string for a cat.

I’m eager to improve my time, and my race craft practices. I have always been self-driven to improve whatever I have just done, and this leaderboard really stirred up the desire to hop right back into any of the cars and bang out some faster laps, learning where I can drive differently or better. I should have added more laps when I booked the whole thing and will think about this for months to come.

As it turned out and according to the stats package I was emailed, all three cars were driven in the 00:57 second range for almost all of my laps. That’s not bad consistency. If I had done another dozen or so laps, I think that I could have gotten any of the three cars into the mid 55’s or low 56’s. Shaving a whole second or two could come from me being much smoother on and off the brakes, and not missing my turn-in and braking references. I did have some challenges that slowed me down but I think with additional seat time I’d be up in the top ranks.

Each car had an incredible amount of feedback coming through to the driver just by sitting in the seat and driving. I shouldn’t be surprised as I am aware of how much engineering goes into these machines but I still am quite surprised. The dashboard and cockpit on each had a ton of information if you were looking for it, and the main inputs like the seat position, and pedals, and steering with paddle shifters become your direct connection to each car. Each car fits differently, like your favourite shoes all feel different. There were definite differences between the cars when it came to road feel and handling and inputs.

There’s the instructor beside you with their near constant instruction to help get the best time out of you. Then there is the sound of each car, from inside the car, has its own story or soundtrack. Speaking musically, the AMG is a bass riff, the NSX – a rhythm guitar rattle and hum, and the Porsche 992 was lead guitar and shredding sound, it can scream.

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The final car challenging me as new driver for 10 hot-laps was the Porsche 992 GT3. This is the car driven most right now in the Speedstyle race simulator, and was the one car we’d like to get the closest feeling from in the sim.

While driving, this Porsche 992 simply felt fast and extremely nimble. To me, this car felt less filtered than the AMG or NSX. I could feel the difference in size, horsepower and smoothness. Only once did I almost spin it. Steering on the 992 is very responsive as you chuck the car left and right through the esses on the backside of the track, turns 4 thru 9. The suspension on the 992 takes the kerbs much better than the instructor does. Taking the kerbs aggressively in a sim can often have disastrous effect as you don’t really have a feel for the bump, and in real life pushing this 992 I might have gotten a little aggressive driving over kerbs. The instructor called it out a few times. The car didn’t seem to mind a bit. This is such a well engineered rear-engined go fast machine. Going really fast through corners is this car’s bread and butter.

While continuing to push harder each lap, all while being acutely aware that I only have 10 fast laps and counting down fast, my mind is working on all the things the instructor is yelling at me, all the sounds the car is making, when it suddenly occurs to me that I am not hearing the tires squealing and holy-phuck does this car ever stick to the ground. Once I had a rhythm going through the corners with the 992, time seemed to change a bit and it felt in the moment I had more time (additional milliseconds) to react or get setup for the next segment. My brain was so full but it was slowly processing all the things and I would, for brief moments, catch a wave dude.

If I had pro-athlete kind of money, I would race a 992 for fun. I don’t have that kind of money but have built a top level sim to learn to sim-race. The visual aspects of driving the real car match up well in the sim. Recreating the physical aspects of the real 992 into the simulator is difficult.

After finishing the laps, there was nearly a call home to say “honey, we bought a Porsche.” as I was convinced I wanted to buy a 992 after the 10 laps were done. I can now see why this is such a popular car to race in club racing and higher. This is an incredible race car that one can buy from a showroom. Driving this car has made question many of my life choices, including where in my life did I go off track toward owning one of these.

Nailed the colour of the Speedstyle Design + Racing T-shirt though. At this point, the shirt is standing up well to the 16 laps so far. It was 32˚c at this point and not sure it was 11AM yet. Medium weight 100% cotton T with a wholly-appropriate speedstyle athletic print, smart choice. I’m sweaty but it’s a goooood sweaty.

Speedstyle has a whole section of Porsche related designs in the store.

The Track Experience
The track at SpeedVegas has 10 turns that include a hairpin at T10, a combination at T4-9, and T1-2, and in-lap area and and out-lap area that their SpeedVegas drift car used as a launch strip. That drift car guy has a very cool job, he’s a little bit rodeo clown and stunt driver all in one. He puts on a good show of knowing how to ride that thing.

It would have been fantastic, so 2024ish, to be able to download a laser scanned track to our racing simulator and then be able to learn the track before arriving, and to be able to tune our simulator based on our driving experience. That’s a project suggestion and marketing idea for Assetto Corsa and iRacing.

I struggled on the entry to T3 almost every lap and if I was able to practice on the sim, I’m sure I would have seen the turn in point differently. I’d either turn too soon or too late with very different results but missing the apex most of time. Practice is how one fixes this problem. It would be a helpful exercise to have SpeedVegas as a scanned track mod.

Overall I liked the track and each of the cars offered its own distinct interpretation, each car handled quite differently and adjustments to my driving needed to be made for each.

The two others racers in our speedstyle party, Jessica and Cailey, were originally not as confident driving a super car like I did and chose a pro driver ride along in the Lamborghini Huracan. Two high speed laps around the track with a Pro driver convinced them both that next time they said they’d also try the drift ride-along.

We finished the morning of speed with a Superkart Race. Although fun, this wasn’t the best part of the day for any of us, as we all encountered issues while kart racing. We probably should have said something to management but didn’t. I got a yellow flag for not slowing near a stopped kart, and got the electronic nut cuff to the engine and was forced to putter around for a lap, while other racers whizzed by. Jess and Cai got spun while racing, essentially the entire speedstyle design racing team got taken out of the action in a single race.

Personal Reflections
As I had never really driven these types of cars before except in our racing simulator, learning how to be a fast and smooth driver in a sim took thousands of hours. This trip and discovering success on the track by setting a weekly track record validates that investment in time and hardware. This validation happened in 57 second chunks today and the personal satisfaction will last until I come back again and better it.

One technical goal of this trip was to learn what’s needed to close the feeling gap of what the real cars feel like, and find out how close we could dial in the haptic feedback on the simulator, knowing how hot-lapping these cars feels now. Hopefully the videos that SpeedVegas sent will help us with that task a little.

The biggest highlight of this experience was setting the fastest laps for the day and the week, which indicated to me that my thousands of hours of sim racing in the last three years actually helped me get settled quickly.

There was no nervousness in any car, just a constant internal voice checking in to say “you’ve done this, you’ve got this!” and an excitement to get going fast, faster. Having a lot of previous visual experience co driving over 200 kph helped immensely to being able to keep looking far enough down the track. Where I had challenges was in deep turns at the T3 and T10, either too soon or occasionally too late. With more laps and without the coach calling things out, I think a faster lap was definitely possible.

The coaching from the instructors was really helpful in every car and allowed for me to drive harder than I would have sooner.

Not buying enough laps to get my lap times down is the only lingering disappointment. Next time I’ll try a full day experience.

Overall, if I was to compare what my expectations to what the experience felt like, I’d be happy to say that the total experience exceeded my expectations. SpeedVegas runs a great operation based on my half day interactions and experience.

5⭐️, would definitely recommend.

Photography at the track
Jess and Cai shot almost all of the photos and videos from the paddock of my driving, and of my giddiness. I shot the fewest photos but did get some great video of their Lambo adventure. If you go, you definitely want to make sure that you take lots of photos, take closeups of all the odd things. I’d even suggest that you create a plan about what you want to shoot before you arrive, and ask your host about the best places to get some of these shots. The racetrack offers a decent video package add-on to race experience.

All the Speedstyle shirts on this trip are the same lighter weight 100% cotton in black and heather, with different colours of Speedstyle Athletic printing on the front. Lots of new T-shirt and poster ideas will come from this trip.

Impact and Insights
Our shirts looked fab throughout the morning and for the ride back to the hotel. We definitely had the correct weight of 100% T-shirts on, as it was a scorcher that day.

We were going to go with our new premium heavyweight 100% cotton T, which is best T ever…. but we would have cooked.

‘The whip’ we rode in to the track in was a gold trimmed white Chrysler 300, that was so Vegas and Miami style pressed into one ride. This Lyft ride was memorable and ironic.

Conclusion and Future Plans
We will definitely end up in Vegas again at a convention or trade show in the next 24 months and will absolutely go back and try SpeedVegas again. This time I’ll buy more laps, and bring our latest styles of different Speedstyle T-shirts.

Having been bitten by the hot-laps bug, I am looking forward to trying this in other areas. Share your recommendation of places like this in the form below.

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