Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2006 | 7:23 a.m.
Matt Towery drives a three-year-old Ford pickup truck and wants to move his wife and four children into a bigger home. The Bakersfield homebuilder plows his profits back into land.
"There's not a lot of cash," he said.
But twice this year, the Russell Crowe look-alike paid $10,000 to drive Formula One race cars at up to 150 mph - in Las Vegas and Barcelona.
"It sounds like I'm a jet-setter," he said by cell phone while driving in the California desert. "It's not that at all. I'm just a reasonably common guy who is thrilled with the opportunity to do something extraordinary."
Towery, 48, recently talked about those high-priced thrills before a crowd of luxury sports car enthusiasts inside a ballroom at Wynn Las Vegas. He measured his words, uncomfortable among a group that flashes dazzling diamonds and large jewel-encrusted watches, plays on the French Riviera and owns Ferraris, Aston-Martins, Lamborghinis and second homes with eight-car garages.
"I don't think I could sell anything on the planet so I have to be passionate about this," Towery said. "It just blows me away. I could stand on any street corner and say, 'You have to try this! You won't believe it!' "
He used 300,000 accumulated airline miles to fly business class to Europe. He put the laps around the Circuit de Catalunya, site of the Spanish Grand Prix, on a credit card. By the time he got to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, he bought eight extra laps for $4,000.
"Man," he thought, "I'm giving myself birthday, Christmas and whatever other presents for the next three years to do this." Then he started coaxing some friends in California to come to Las Vegas to make their own fantasies come true.
The Formula One driving school is the brainchild of former test driver Laurent Redon. His European LRS Formula program allows clients to zip around Grand Prix tracks in France, Germany, Italy and Spain in the world's premier race cars. In January his friend, Pierre-Louis Moroni, brought the program to Las Vegas.
At the Wynn, the soft-spoken Moroni stood before an F1 car and apologized that a newer and sleeker model was stuck in customs at Los Angeles International Airport. He said there were few openings at Las Vegas in November and December and explained the high cost of the experience. One reason is that insurance is included. For another, the 700-horsepower Ford Cosworth HB V8 engines of the company's eight F1 cars are completely rebuilt every 1,000 miles to keep them in peak condition.
Towery said he was a "fish outta water" as he mingled with some of the potential LRS Formula USA clients at a posh after-party. "I'm not that comfortable in that kind of situation," he said. "Old money. I have no ability to connect with that, but I don't have to. I'm grateful for what I've got.
"This is within reach of a common man to do. That's the cool thing."
During Towery's first drive at Las Vegas, he and Moroni became friends. He told Moroni that he had raced off-road trucks in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and Moroni revealed his dream of one day taking part in the Dakar Rally.
When Towery later said he had to race again, Moroni told him he was leaving the next day for France. Fly out with me, Moroni told him, we'll stay at my parents' house in Toulon and then go to Barcelona.
Before Catalunya's barren stands, which hold 300,000 on race day, the group of 30 wannabe racers was split among English, French and Spanish. Towery was the lone American. A French woman, frightened by warm-up runs in a smaller F2000 car, feared piloting an F1 Benetton, which had raced in the 1998 Grand Prix season.
But the F1 car, because of its mechanical simplicity, is easier to drive, Towery said. The woman kept the rig in third gear all four laps, then jumped out of the cockpit. Incredible, she said. I can't believe how fun that was.
"It's so much fun to hear the car and feel the sensation, the down-force of the wings holding you down and doing things you didn't think in your physics class would have worked," Towery said. "But for some reason, it's working. You're going this fast on this turn, and it's sticking and you feel comfortable. It doesn't make sense."
The car's carbon-brake system surprised another driver - Michael Luzich, the president of a Las Vegas investment group. Pilots are strapped tightly into the cockpit, and Luzich said he felt the strain in his shoulders and chest for several days.
While downshifting in turns, Towery was instructed never to touch the brakes, to avoid gravel spin outs.
"It feels like you'll flip over the top," he said. "That in itself was more impressive than accelerating."
Towery also took home a priceless bonus: the raw high-pitched whine of the F1 engine on the DVD of his Las Vegas run lulls his fussy son to sleep.
"My 3-year-old says, 'Put the Vroom-Vroom tape in again,' " Towery said. "The 1-year-old calms down and stares at it, and finally falls asleep. It cracks me up. It's that special F1 sound."
Like father, like son.
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