Month: March 2015

Driving a Supercar

Earlier today I cashed in one of the presents I got for Christmas: a Living Social deal for a 3-lap driving experience from the folks at Motorsport Lab. While it’s not travel, I figured I’d throw out a quick review on it. Note that my review is for the Charlotte event, I can’t speak for any other location.

When you register on Motorsport Lab’s web site, you get to choose the type of car you want to drive. For this event, there were 3 options when I registered in late December:

  • Lamborghini Gallardo
  • Ferrari 360 Modena
  • Ferrari F430 (upcharge for this one)

Being a life-long Lambo fan, I chose the Gallardo. After you register, you’re sent a link to the participation form you need to fill out and bring with you to the event. As I saw called out in the many Yelp reviews of this company, this is a rather long form (16 pages), filled with all kinds of scary language warning about possible charges for things like damage and exceeding various RPM levels among other things. They offer insurance for each possible problem at the charge of $20/$30/$50 per waiver, depending on the item. That, and the form calls out suggested tip levels very clearly, which I admit is something I find a bit tacky. I’m fine letting people know the instructors work off of tips, but suggesting amounts like that can be a bit of a turnoff. After reading a few of the Yelp reviews, I see I’m not alone in that. I also saw a number of people mention that the added insurance wasn’t needed for most locations, so when I filled it out, I declined all of them. I’m glad I did.

Several of the reviews I read were negative, with some people even saying they skipped the experience entirely after being scared off by the language in the form. This is completely unnecessary in my opinion. Even if you don’t believe me, go early and watch a few people run the course before you sign in so you can get an idea of exactly what is going on, you might be surprised. With all the negative reviews, I figured it was only fair to throw in a positive review since we enjoyed the event.

First, did I spend any money beyond the cost of the Living Social deal? Yes. Totally by my own choice and it was worth it. I asked about getting a ride along for Bayley, who is home for spring break, and took him up on the offer to get her laps with the instructor for $50. That fee and the tip were the only added costs for us. They weren’t being pushy with anything, and were up front in saying that people should tip what they were comfortable with. When I checked in, the guy at the table looked over my forms, saw I’d declined all optional insurance, and moved on without trying to change my mind. I even heard him tell the guy in front of me that most of it wasn’t needed for a course like this. Don’t be scared or turned off by all the language in there around damage, I assume most of it is to ensure that people thinking they’re going to treat these things like rental cars are talked down off that ledge. There were a few other complaints in other reviews that could have been addressed by people doing a little research beforehand, so I’ll call a couple of them out here:

(Note: If you want to read those reviews, just search for the company. I’m not a big fan of Yelp so I’m not linking to them)

  • This experience is on an autocross course. It has the words ‘autocross’ and ‘agility’ in the experience name, so arriving to find a course of cones shouldn’t be a surprise. It’s not going to be on an oval or on city streets, even if the event is held at a track, like it is in Boston. You’re not getting the cars up to 100MPH. Even the straight on our course was too short to get up over 50MPH-ish (had it been dry) unless you’re really experienced on these types of courses. If you want something faster, maybe try the IndyCar or NASCAR experience. I’ve done the IndyCar one, and you definitely go a lot faster with that, but you’re on an oval.
  • The Lambo wasn’t put in to automatic transmission mode as some reviews mentioned, but we never got out of 2nd. You do get to shift, but basically only from neutral to 1st to get going, and to 2nd pretty quick after that. Once in 2nd, you stay there the rest of the way. You’re not getting close to the 6500RPM limit in 2nd on this course unless you’re planning on exiting over some cones and paying the price.
  • Scheduling can be a pain. I don’t disagree. Once you buy the deal, register as fast as possible to ensure you have options. I’ve learned this the hard way with other LS/Groupon deals in the past (namely my IndyCar one), so I registered shortly after opening this present. Even with that, the list of available dates was limited, but I got something that worked for me.
  • Some people said your time in the car isn’t that long, and that’s true. The deal is for 3 laps, and being an autocross course in a parking lot, that means a relatively small track. They do offer more laps as an add-on, or if that’s not enough, you might want to check out one of the companies that use real road courses or take you out on streets.

Back to the review: After checking in, we hung out under the canopies they’d put up (due to rain) and waited for the event to start. There weren’t a huge number of people for our 9am session, I’d say 7-8 for each of the two cars at most. Those driving the Ferrari got a nice upgrade at no cost, as the 360 was in the shop, so all they had was the F430 (both the F430 and Gallardo are 2006 models, BTW). They take you out based on the time you checked in, which they’d written on your wristband, so I was 3rd for the Lambo. With the ground being so wet none of us in that first three pushed all that hard, but I really did enjoy it. I’ve driven some fast stuff, but never something so well balanced in the corners. The instructor (or ‘sherpa’, as they call it) who was with me was really good, too. Very nice and talked you through the whole thing, and was far more helpful than the spotter I had with the IndyCar experience. He gave me pointers on corner entry/exit, and when to give it power exiting a turn. It ended faster than i’d have liked, which wasn’t a big surprise. Three laps is a bit short in my opinion, but I knew what I was getting in to, and I’m sure if I’d asked I could have upgraded to six for a little more. It was enough to give me a taste of what a well balanced supercar felt like, so it was worth it to me.

After I went, my daughter was up for her ride-along. When I bought it, the guy said that the cost is $50/lap, but they normally go ahead and do two laps for that. She actually got three, and he seemed to really be enjoying himself behind the wheel out there (who wouldn’t?), intentionally kicking out the rear in a few corners. Just for fun I gave him a heads-up that he had her past experiences to live up to, as she’s done an IndyCar 2-seater ride as well as the Audi ride-along at Daytona. He definitely pushed it, and she loved every second of it. I’ve got video of her laps up on YouTube if anyone wants to see it.

When it was all over, we both agreed that we had a blast. All of the employees were very friendly, and the car was a blast to drive, even in the rain. For the Living Social price it was definitely a fun morning, but I wouldn’t have done it for the listed price of $549. Not really sure if anyone actually paid that this morning, though. I do think Jen made a bit of a tactical error in buying this for me, as now I want to move up to one of the events on real tracks, like this one. There are a couple of cars on their list I’d absolutely love to get behind the wheel of, like the McLaren, so I’ll be keeping an eye out for deals with them, too 🙂

 

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Hotel Review – Staybridge Suites St. Petersburg

We spent last weekend in St Petersburg attending family weekend at Eckerd College. In an uncharacteristic move for us, we waited until the last minute to get a hotel, not actually booking anything until a couple of days before the trip. Being so close to the trip, not a lot was available near the school, and nothing along the beach (gulf-side) that fit in to our budget looked all that appealing. After a bit of hunting, we finally found something in downtown St Pete that looked promising, and more importantly was in our budget, Staybridge Suites. Oh, and it had one other requirement we needed since we were taking our dog, it was pet friendly.

Upon arrival late Thursday night, my wife got us checked in and we headed to the room. One of the first things I noticed was the use of NFC-based room keys, and not the usual problematic swipe cards that most hotels use. I loved this. Just tap the card on the pad, and the door unlocks. It was easy and reliable the entire time, regardless of where I kept my key in my wallet. I actually didn’t take it out of my wallet until we checked out, I just tapped my wallet against the reader. Hopefully more hotels (and cruise lines) embrace technology like this to get rid of the frustration of key cards failing during a guest’s stay.

The room itself was nice, good sized for the most part, and clean. We’d asked for a room with a sleeper sofa when we booked just in case Bayley wanted to come hang out for a night, but the room we ended up with didn’t have one. No matter, when we asked the next day, the staff gave us a rollaway at no extra charge. Problem solved!

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In a couple of the pics above, you’ll see something I take with me wherever I go, our Belkin mini power strips. We first bought these for cruising, since many rooms only have two outlets and cruise lines aren’t fans of corded power strips, but hotels oftentimes don’t have a lot of open outlets either, so bringing these allows us to be able to charge as many devices as we need to.

Back to the hotel: As mentioned, the room was nice. The beds are pretty stiff, so be aware of that if you prefer a softer mattress. We sleep on a fairly firm memory foam mattress at home, so this felt good to me. What I wasn’t a fan of were the pillows. They were really soft, which I like, but they were at least partially down, which I’m allergic to. As long as I take some OTC allergy medication I’m generally fine, but I’d totally forgotten it on this trip, so we hit up a drug store the next day to rectify that. I’m sure I probably could have asked the desk for replacements, but they were soft to my liking, so I was fine dealing with it. My only other issue is that the walls seemed a bit thin. On one side of us we had someone who we could hear pretty clearly whenever he talked, and on the other side we had someone who had a nasty coughing condition that kicked in every morning around 8 or so. It wasn’t a huge issue though, and pretty much matches my experiences at other hotels in class. As far as the bathroom, it was pretty small, and having a door that opened in to it was a bit of a pain (see the pictures above). Also, for those that prefer a bath to a shower, our room did not have a tub. No complaints about that here, neither of us would have used a tub, and I was happy to see that I wasn’t going to have to step in an out of one to take a shower.

The hotel’s location was pretty good for us, although I’d have preferred to be closer to the water. The hotel is off of 175 right when you enter downtown. It was an easy 5min drive to and from Eckerd. There was plenty of food around there, too, as the downtown restaurants are generally only 5-10min away by car. There’s also a little park next door (between the hotel and school) that provided a great place to walk the dog. The hotel did have a pet waste disposal stand or two on property, but the one we checked never had baggies in it. No matter, we had our own.

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For those looking for accessibility, Staybridge seems to have you well covered here. There didn’t appear to be any stairs/steps to deal with anywhere in the lobby or breakfast areas, and the pool had a lift, too, as shown in the first picture here:

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Frankly, the outside area seemed kinda cool as shown above in the second picture, with a fire pit and seating to hang out there day or night.

Food-wise, the only time we ate there outside of me grabbing complimentary cookies, was breakfast. It was included with the room, and they had a decent selection of warm food. On the first morning, I had an omlette, bacon, and a waffle. They had three waffle makers, more than I’m used to seeing at a hotel, and we never saw a wait to make them while we were there. The quality of the pre-made stuff (omelettes, bacon, eggs, etc) was good, and pretty much on-par with other properties I’ve stayed at that offer complimentary hot breakfasts.

The staff was great the entire time we were there, very friendly and helpful. Considering the quality of the service, cleanliness of the hotel, and proximity to Eckerd, we wouldn’t hesitate to stay there again.