It's a Gas Gas Gas!

Shapiro teeters into another straightaway, 25 mph. Blurs go by: Lotus, Mustang GT, Corvette. Was that a Honda?

Shapiro, nervous, voice bright, takes her right hand off the wheel: "I'm relaxing! I'm relaxing! See? I'm wiggling my fingers!"

"Look for this turn!"

She puts the hand back on the wheel, and Hirtes helps steer into the Karussel, the banked left hairpin turn that leaves you looking out the passenger door at the track below. Shapiro hangs in there, negotiates the Corkscrew, the Big Bend and makes it onto the back straightaway. More cars blow by. Hirtes guides her around the last turn, then back around the track once, twice more.

We pull back into the paddock. We seem to still be alive.

Shapiro, delighted: "Klaus, I'm going to take you home with me."

Hirtes, unmoved, pulls out an evaluation card.

"You have to give me a gold star!"

"I don't," he says politely, "and I won't."

He points out her driving technique checks on the scoring grid, which goes from one to 10. "Michael Schumacher would be a 10. You are a 1."

"Yes. I'm a novice. I'm a beginner."

"Yes, you are."