It's a Gas Gas Gas!

For example, you have to look where you want the car to go, and not look at what you're afraid of hitting or running over (in a crisis, this is harder than you think). You don't use the brakes in a skid -- unless the car rotates 90 degrees, which means you're not going to be able to recover, and then you slam on the brakes and stop trying to steer.

The facility has three tracks; today, students are running the Shenandoah Circuit, 18 turns and five straightaways in a two-mile loop. Phew! Decisions have to be made so fast that instructors set up orange cones on the entry and exit points of each turn, to train drivers' eyes where to look.

"I'm very, very nervous," Shapiro is saying. You will not be surprised to learn that she's accompanying her husband, Mitch, who's really into cars. He's on the track in a 2006 Porsche Carrera. She drives an SUV, but you can't drive that on the track, so he lent her this monster of a 2008 Beemer.

She pops in the driver's seat and announces in a bright voice that she's "not really good with a stick shift." She straps on her helmet and invites us to ride in the back. This car has a top end of around 200 mph and can go from zero to 100 in 10 seconds flat. We are overcome with an urge to check the death and dismemberment clause of our insurance coverage.

Instructor Klaus Hirtes, a slender, silver-haired 20-year veteran of driving instruction (he's retired from the airline industry), slides in the passenger seat. He has a slight, vaguely European accent, and tells her to relax, that this is going to be like a drive to the grocery store. He guides her to the edge of the track. It's loud, cars blowing by, engines roaring. Shapiro eases out onto the track as if she's pulling out of a parking space. She's also looking down at her feet.

"What are you looking for down there?!" Hirtes shouts over the din. "Give it some gas, a little gas -- make sure that's the clutch! Go go GO GO!"

Cars roar up to her bumper. The car wobbles. "I'm a little directionally challenged," Shapiro confesses.

"I'll help you with the steering." Hirtes reaches over and helps drive with his left hand. Now we have three hands on one steering wheel.

The car shimmies. We're in third gear and doing 40 mph. Cars blow by at more than 100 mph: Whump whump whump.

Hirtes: "Don't fight me when I try to turn the wheel." Pause. "I'm guiding you, but you have to let me guide you." Pause. "You have to let me help. Here's the turn. Brake brake BRAKE!"

The car pulls into a 180-degree turn called the Hook.

Hirtes: "Where's the cone? The cone? The cone! Go go go go! No, no! No braking! No braking!"