Citrus Golf Trail; Fire Up a Sebring 12 Corvette and Hear Her Roar!

1Admittedly I am not a muscle man or a muscle car man! Never been to a professional car race. Always a golf guy that got a thrill out of hitting a drive, iron, or putt on the sweet spot and seeing it fly true and straight on course or rolling true and straight on course before dropping in the hole! Sweet & solid, but rarely straight is what I am trying to say!

But then John Story, Senior Director for Marketing, Business Development & Communication for the Sebring International Raceway, home to the Sebring 12, let me sit in his Corvette and turn of the ignition! WOW! What power! Put me in John and let me race her around the track once or twice! Pretty Please!!!

CLICK HERE to Hear this Baby Get Fired up! Hear her Roar!!!

So I once was a passenger in a Corvette going around the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas (courtesy of a Gino business meeting) and we got her up to 187 miles an hour! The slope on the racetrack was amazing! More severe and gratefully more uniform than the slopes of that buried elephant on the 14th green at Augusta National.

2My second racing story has to do with Watkins Glen International, founded and organized in 1948 by Cameron Argetsinger, not far from my hometown of Binghamton, New York. My high school buddy Mark knew the “Judge,” Mr. Argetsinger’s eldest son, the retired judge J.C. Argetsinger. We spent the day at the International Motor Racing Research Center just talking with J.C. checking out the collections and watching some old videos!

3What is most memorable of the day and the funniest thing to me is that at the end of the day J.C. suggested we take a ride around the old yet original 6.6-mile circuit that wind through the streets of Watkins Glen and out into the country a bit. Judge had a pick up truck and I had driven Mark so as fate would have it there I am driving the son of the founder of Watkins Glenn around the race track in my 2008 Honda Accord!

I took it slow as J.C. pointed out all the famous happenings of the race where so-and-so went off the road here and so-and-so passed so-and-so there! If it was golf it would be like walking by the 16th green at August where Mr. Nicklaus made that putt in the 1986 Masters, then around Pebble Beach where Tiger won the 2000 U.S. Open by 15 strokes, then being on the 18th green at Winged Foot when Davis Love III won the 1997 PGA Championship, and finally a quick trip across the pond to see Mr. Palmer, a 2-time Open champion, wave goodbye for the last time on the Swilican Bridge on the Old Course at St. Andrews!

Vivid imagination; yes!

I wish I was on the Sebring Racetrack at Sebring when I was revving up John’s corvette!

PS: Mr. Greg Wise would later win the Closest-to-the Pin on the last at ‘The Twelve’ at Sebring International Golf Resort on the Citrus Golf Trail fam trip. His prize? A ride around the track in a corvette, hopefully driving! A master of hitting fairways, let’s all hope (and pray) that he keeps it on the track!