Stephen Balint

Review of Dream Racing

On 1/31/15, I had the opportunity to go to Dream R...

On 1/31/15, I had the opportunity to go to Dream Racing Las Vegas and give their Dream Racing F430GT package a run through. Bottom line: as a fan of automobiles of all kinds, and fan of racing, this has gone right in to my top life experiences list. I went in to the day fully expecting to be wowed by the car, and I was, but it wasn t the most impressive thing during my time at the track. The whole operation, from the awesome location in the infield of the LVMS, the beautiful reception area, the courtesy of all the staff, as well as the professionalism of the instructor, was the most impressive part. Not only did I get to drive a car that defies the my best attempts at description, but the whole time I was on site, the fantastic staff made me feel comfortable and the professionalism of all the instructors left me no doubt in their abilities to coach me around the track. The reason I make a big deal out of this is it only gave me one thing to focus on driving a very extreme race car around a track as fast as possible. Not being worried about the level of coaching or anything else left me only to drive, confidently, safely, and beyond what I thought my level of competence was. Speaking of the driving: The time in the simulator was a great familiarization to the track. Knocking through a few laps on the simulator really help me prepare for the drive. And when actually driving, my instructor, Julian, was an amazing coach for the limited about of seat time in the car. And I don t mean limited in a bad way, I mean limited as in I came here to drive a car fast, and Julian helped me to learn and work through all the corners so I could drive the car quickly. He was able to work me, a complete novice (I ve never driven on a track, or on slicks, and my daily driver is an SUV.) to get the car beyond all of my expectations for grip, speed, and cornering ability. The communication was quick, and he was encouraging enough to allow me to push further out of my comfort zone each lap. The car was amazing, and very hard to describe. It was fast, gripped like nothing I ve experienced in a car, and stable. I was expecting more drama in the ride, but I m so glad there wasn t. I was able to focus on each corner, my line, and the coaching. The car did its job, and did its job well. If the car was too much of a handful, I probably wouldn t be writing such a good review. Now: the real test of how good this experience was Would I recommend it to a friend: Yes. Yes I would. I would even encourage my not-car-people friends to give it a look. At the very least the drifting ride along looked like a fantastic experience. Im a Vegas local and have friends come in to town quite a bit. If they wanted to do an experience activity, I can confidently say that this beats shooting machine guns or going for a helicopter ride to the Grand Canyon. I ve done all those things before, and they each left me wanting something more out of the experience. This didn t. The only thing more I wanted was to take the car home and I don t think I could have gotten away with that one.