It's Race Week. The Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix is revving its engines and waving its flags, and this year I'm actually paying attention. My doctor says I'm not getting enough exhaust.

Sunday, while you were mowing your lawn or working on your melanoma, I was at the BeaveRun Motorsports Complex, getting a crash course in how race car drivers do the course without crashing.

This weekend, the races come to Schenley Park, but last weekend they were up in Wampum, where you can floor the roaring Beemers, Porsches and classic American muscle cars without ending up as a smear on a picturesque stone wall on Serpentine Drive.

By you, of course, I don't mean you. I mean trained, certified and inspected drivers in fire suits.

I was just missing my earplugs when my Speed Racer, who has been volunteering with the Vintage Grand Prix since he was in checkered diapers, escorted me over to the parking area where spectators were lining up for a ride in a race car. A lap or two around the track -- at speed.

It was lunchtime, and it seemed like a bad idea to ask a driver who'd been racing all morning to chauffeur me around on an empty stomach. When I'm hungry, I get cranky, and the last thing I want is some nervous stranger in my car, weeping and trying to climb under the seat.

"No thanks," I said.

"It's so cool," he goaded.

"It will be scary," I told him. "Scary is bad. You know I don't do roller coasters."

"This isn't a roller coaster. There are no loops." We were still marching inexorably toward the ride queue.

"Look," Speed taunted, "There's like a 7-year-old girl in line. If she can handle it, you can!"

Of course children want to do this. A 7-year-old's concept of grievous bodily harm is falling off a swing.

"OK," I caved. My heart began to pound and my better judgment, vetoed yet again, went off to sulk.

A few minutes later, I shoehorned myself into a blue 1973 Porsche 911E driven by a kind-looking guy from Ohio. It took some effort and years of yoga to get all my limbs into the reinforced cage that was the passenger seat. I had to be careful not to cut my leg on the prominently placed fire extinguisher.

Does your car have a prominently placed fire extinguisher? The effect is sobering.

"Hi, I'm Ted," said the driver, shaking my hand, which was already shaking.

"I'm Sam."

"Ever done this before?"

"Nope."

"Oh, it's great. You like roller coasters?" I knew it.

"I hate roller coasters."

"You do? Then why are you doing this?"

"I'm really not sure." And away we went.

He took it relatively easy for the first lap, though on the straightaway he announced, "That's 100." Noting I had not wet myself, he sped up for the second lap.

We'd see a curve up ahead and he would punch the gas -- definitely not what you learned in driver's ed. As the curve got closer, we'd go faster and faster, and I'd think, "Slow down. Slow down. Slowdown slowdown SLOWDOWN SLOWDOWN AAAAAAA!" And every muscle in my body would try to climb out of my skin and go someplace safer, like a firing range.

And then we were slowing down, and pulling off, and Ted said, "You made it, and you didn't even scream!"

Scream? I couldn't have said anything even if I hadn't been afraid to distract him, because my mouth had gone all dryer lint.

"It was terrifying," I confessed. "In a cool way."

"It's what we live for," he said. "Actually, I feel safer doing this than in rush hour."

I can see why. In rush hour, everyone's yapping on phones and sugaring their lattes and putting on mascara.

A prominently placed fire extinguisher would be a terrible temptation.