The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 86

26 Friday, August 24, 1979 Philadelphia Inquirer It you always wanted to drive a racer, step up and strap on helmet Philadelphia Inqurar EDWARD J. FREEMAN One driver enters the circuit, while another watches the electronic lap-time tower, accurate to a hundredth of a second 1 pT By Dick Pothier inquirer Stall Writer It's probably the ultimate Walter Mitty trip: Foot to the floor, the car's engine screaming, you power your scaled-down Grand Prix racer through a series of sharp S-curves, expertly flicking the racing-style steering wheel from side to side as the racer roars into a brief straight and takes the checkered flag. Instantly, as you slow the car, you look over at the electronic-timer board as it flashes your track time, down to a hundredth of a second. It's your best time yet 59 seconds to race the clock over a half-mile of tight hairpin turns and twisting S-curves but you head out onto the track again, determined to knock at least a second off your next lap time. And the best thing of all about this latest new pursuit of thrill-seekers is that it's almost impossible to get hurt except maybe for your pride.

All this real-racetrack-style excitement is available to any licensed driver at the new Malibu Grand Prix track in Mount Laurel, N. where scaled-down Formula 1 race cars capable of speeds of up to 60 miles an hour on a straightaway are roaring around a half-mile track day and night. The Malibu track is part of a nationwide circuit of more than 30 mini-tracks that offer nonprofessionals the closest thing yet to the thrills and challenge of Grand Prix auto racing. The fun will cost you, to be sure between $1 and $1.50 for each lap of the Grand Prix-style course, plus $2 for a laminated, photo-ID "Grand Prix" driver's license. But since the Malibu Grand Prix track opened up in Mount Laurel a week or so ago, business has been so good that there's nearly always a wait of 20 minutes or so to get into one of the streamlined Formula" cars that race around the track all day and until midnight on weekends.

Here's how the Malibu Grand Prix works: After paying $2 for your Grand Prix license and pre-paying for your track laps (laps costs between $1 and $1.50 each, depending on time of day and how many you buy), you're ready to race. Attendants fit you with a helmet and give you a few simple rules about the mini-Formula cars, which are worth about $15,000 each. The cars are powered by 28-horsepower Wankel rotary engines, and have automatic transmissions so there are no gears to worry about. There is a gas pedal and a brake pedal. After getting into the car's narrow cockpit, you fasten the seatbelt and drive up to the start line, watching a race-track style array of lights that pro racing drivers call the Christmas tree.

light is red at first, then a yellow light blinks on, and in a second you get the green light. The electronic timer starts and it's time to race. You put your foot to the floor, powering through the first series of curves, braking where necessary, but driving as fast as you can. There is nothing to hit out on the track, and if you spin out or leave the course, alert track attendants will get you going again. Although maximum speeds on the twisty road-race track probably do not exceed 35 or 40 miles an hour, the sensation of speed is overwhelming as you pour it on, hurtling through curves, switchbacks, and short straights.

You simply go as fast as you can while staying on the track. The only barrier is a Derm, a shallow concrete shoulder that feels like a curb if you bump it. The record time at Mount Laurel's new Malibu Grand Prix is a very fast 52.55 seconds, turned in by one of the track's mechanics. My f.rst lep time was something of an embarrassment, about 70 seconds or so, but after a few laps I built up speed and technique and worked that down to about 60 seconds. But it wasn't easy.

Fast lap times on the I 5 jHKv i flip'' iff 1 AV 'fi 1 1, 414f ill I a -Ipt' II lIMB'' (' -v fa i'im i it Pat Gaff ney takes a spin at the Malibu Grand Prix track in Mount Laurel Behind wheel: Al Soupios, race driver Outdoors New Jersey. That track, with similarly high-powered cars and computerized lap-timing, costs $1.50 a lap, with the fifth and tenth laps free on weekdays. Information: 201-827-2000. Mount Laurel's Grand Prix facility is open from 11 a.m. to midnight Friday and Saturdays, and 11 a.m.

to 11 p.m. on weekdays. To avoid a wait, the best time to visit is on a weekday. On weekends and evenings, the wait to drive can reach a half-hour. There is a minimum purchase of two laps, which cost $1 each on weekdays with a 10-lap purchase, or $1.25 for less than 10 laps, before 7 p.m.

After 7 p.m., laps cost $1.25 each for 10 or more, or $1.50 each for less than 10. Malibu Grand Prix is at 501 Fellowship Rd. in Mount Laurel, just off Route 73. Information: 609-234-3319. From Philadelphia, it may be reached by taking the Ben Franklin Bridge to Route 70, then north on Interstate 295 to the Route 73 exit in Mount Laurel.

The Walt Whitman Bridge may also be taken to 1-295 and then north to Route 73. ing the car as fast as you can steer it though fast-reversing curves, all the time aware that each time you bump a berm or take the wrong line through a complex curve, you add a few hundredths of a second to your lap time. And when you're done racing, Malibu Grand Prix offers a "Pit Stop" for snacks, along with a busy game room equipped with more than 50 electronic games, video games, and pinball machines. The Malibu Grand Prix tracks originated in southern California in 1975, and a few years later had become so successful that Warner Communications Inc. bought the circuit for more than $4 million.

Today, there are 30 Malibu tracks in a dozen states, and a dozen more are under construction throughout the country. But Malibu tracks are not the only ones available to dedicated motor-sports thrill-seekers. There is a similar "Lola Grand Prix" track at Action Park, the new amusement center at Vernon ValleyGreat Gorge Ski Area in north Grand Prix course require driving with a kind of fearlessness that comes hard after years of (mostly) cautious road and city driving. The Malibu Grand Prix cars, equipped with Goodyear racing slicks, simply cannot tip over, because of wheel geometry and design. But they can and do skid and "drift" around turns, and the Malibu cars are as far from "go-karts" as a racing motorcycle is from a motor scooter.

Out on the track, it's just you and the car against the clock. The sophisticated electronic timing and start mechanism separates cars by at least 10 seconds, so there is no car-against-car racing. And it becomes apparent within 10 seconds that skilfully driving a race car quickly over a twisting road course is far from easy. Out there, you're fighting centrifugal force, power.