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LEARNING TO DRIVE A PACE CAR IS FRIGHTENING, FURIOUS FUN

- Chris Cantle

LOTS OF TRACKS get fogged in. Few seem so determined about it as Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca on summer mornings. While race cars crackle to life in the infield, Robert Orcutt steers a Mazda6 out onto the circuit. A bank of lights flash yellow across the roof and light up the haze. It’d be beautiful if only we could see where this pace car is going. “Good morning, race control,” Orcutt says into a two-way radio, a declaration more than a salutation. It’s 7:45 a.m., and the chief pace-car driver’s long day is just getting started.

On Saturday morning, the first race day of the Monterey Pre-Reunion the week before the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion main event, I thought I had an idea of what it’d be like to drive a pace car. I’ve followed one around, after all, and watched them dart into traffic too many times to count. I thought I knew Laguna well, too, and believed that after many track days and driving schools I’d become reasonably quick there. By 8 a.m., I’d disabused myself of all those notions.

For 20 minutes you can’t see a thing. You can’t see the next corner. You can’t see the flag stands. You can’t see traffc or the two other pace cars circling in the mist. These early morning sessions are run for a reason: Asking someone to race in these conditions, on a wet and slippery track, would be damned dangerous. As the fog burns off and corners emerge, it takes an experienced set of hands to make the call when the track is ready for a race.

That’s Orcutt’s call to make.