Lets go to K1 Speed! somebody says. I wince. A 40-year career of road testing doesnt leave you many excuses for second place. But there I am, an hour later in a wheel-to-wheel dogfight with a random 15-year-old kid, trading fastest lap punches. A single K1 race like that costs $22.95. And like munching a single Lays potato chip, it triggers a chain-reaction race-repeat-race reflex thatll only end with a call from the bank asking whats going on. Now, scale up this very same addictive K1 Speed recipeidentically race-prepped cars you can amble up to, climb in, drive like crazy, then stroll away from without doing any of the dirty workand you have the Saleen Cup Racing Series. The season is 14 races over even weekends at iconic tracks like Watkins Glen, COTA, and Road America. Youll need to comb $300,000 from the sofa cushions, but youre not racing 15-year-olds. Minimum age is 18. Recently, the Saleen team invited a few of us out to Thermal Club near the Coachella Valley concert moonscape to sample the car, the Saleen 1 . Sure, I said, but I had two reservations. One: All I know about that track is once seeing a blueprint of it. And two: Well get to that. Right now Im trying to wriggle into the Saleen 1 Cup Car through its monkey-bar safety cage. I pop through, plop down, and look around; it certainly looks its racing car part. Disembodied hands are reaching in, cinching my belts tight. I huff an unintentional exhale from the final yanks, as Im virtually painted into the racing seat. The Saleens stark, sheet aluminum interior looks like the Lunar Excursion Module. Steve Saleenof Mustang-modification fame is standing outside, watching. Were looking at each other, both probably thinking the same thing: Well, hes older; salt-and-pepper and wrinkles now. We havent seen each other since the late 1980s, back when we sometimes bickered. He grins a boyish smile as I flip a switch and push the starter. Time beaches bruised egos. Im actually happy to see him. Driving the Saleen 1 Cup Car on Track Theres a sudden, loud thrumming behind me from the cars mid-engine, 450-hp, 2.2-liter, turbocharged inline-four. Whats this engines origin? Saleen is a bit opaque, but Im told its DNA traces back to Ford , though its now an in-house thing. The rest of the car descends from a defunct, Lotus Evoralike sports car called the Artega GT; its carbon-fiber body shape was originally drawn by none other than Henrik Fisker. The engine is small on displacement and big on turbo, meaning it needs a lot of revs and clutch-slipping to get out of the pits. I undershoot both, and poof stall it before I can get the wheels turning. Restarting with a couple of whaa-whaa-whaas, I get away with way too many of both, but I get away. The clutch isnt needed after that. You just paddle shift. Through the first couple of left corners, Im nervously glancing toward the side mirror. Its partially blocked by the roll cage, making the turn-in into left corners total guesswork (once misjudging and locking up), but I still touch 1.4 gs at 73 mph in one of the faster ones. My rear view is via a video stream displayed on a central screencritical, because this is an open track day with no passing in the corners and holding your line if somebodys approaching. On the pit straight, the screen is washed out by the sun. But when my trajectory changes a few degreesjust enough to de-sheen the screensuddenly theres the nose of a Porsche 911 GT3. It goes by on my right. Finger tugging the left-side aluminum shift paddle behind the steering wheel rim detonates another sharp jolt against my racing seat. Thats top gearsixth. But my right foot mutinies on the next throttle stamp. Far down the track aheadlooking very tinyare the sequence of brake markers. On the asphalt next to them are black spaghetti streaks where other cars have locked up and lost control. This car has no ABS. And my eyes are straining. Heres that second reservation I mentioned earlier. Nearly two years ago, my right eyes retina suddenly detached, and the operations to repair it included burning the back of my eye so scarring would reattach it, while replacing the gel in my eye (yes, I just said that), inserting a plastic lens due to a cataract, and later laser-punching a hole behind it. Looking though my new bionic contraption, I can read those approaching brake countdown numbers. But the trust isnt there for judging how fast theyre approaching. The foot goes down again for another laggy whoosh forward, but at 120 mph, I start braking sooner than I could have. Often, before a young editor sets off on their first big press trip, I offer three pieces of elder statesman advise: I repeat Dont crash three timesslowly and deliberately. Nobody cares about your lap time. I pull in to pit lane and shut off the engine. Steve encourages me to go out for a third session. But Im fine, thanks. I take a sip of Coke and look around. This is a helluva place. Thermal is a Riviera Country Club for road racing, where your driver isnt a Big Bertha but a Bugatti or a Pagani. The neatly uniformed car caddies are professional and polite, and the restaurants menu looks delightful. The world of $300,000, Gulfstream-in racing series in Steves cars (at $45K per race, if you choose) is a 1-percenter dream. Of course, everybody is really nice. If your lifes in the miraculous sweet spot of young wealth before things like your eyesight falter, heck, go for it. But I felt like a frauda member of the Parasite underclass Kim family masquerading in the elite Park familys trophy home. What Ive learned here is that my someday-racing would be in hot-dog-eating, T-shirt-wearing karting instead. In the meantime, I wouldnt mind finding that irritating 15-year-old for a K1 rematch. --> The post Saleen 1 Cup Car Track Drive: Experiencing the Newest One-Make Racing Series appeared first on MotorTrend .