Scott Fowler, buckled in and ready to ride. SCOTT FOWLER (originally published in The Charlotte Observer) CONCORD - Until I climbed inside a race car and sat alongside TV announcer and former driver Wally Dallenbach on Saturday, I never totally understood stock-car racing. Then Dallenbach said: "Have you done this before?" "Nope," I said. "First time." "All right!" he said. And he punched it. We sped out of the pits and onto the track at Lowe's Motor Speedway, a few seconds away from reaching our top speed of about 170 mph. We were the only car on the track. It was six hours until the real race began, and the speedway gates weren't open yet. In the passenger seat, I had put on a fire suit, a helmet and a HANS device -- all in case Dallenbach crashed. As the wall started coming closer, I began to understand things really fast. Lesson No. 1: There's little time to think in a race car. If you're fortunate enough to do a ride-along in a two-seat car provided by the Richard Petty Driving Experience, piloted by Dallenbach and designed to mimic those on the Nextel Cup circuit, you can't overanalyze it. The best thing is to stop clenching your fists inside your fireproof gloves and enjoy the ride. On our first lap, he flew through Turn 2 and charged down the straightaway. Suddenly, I saw a plastic grocery bag floating directly into our path. For some reason, that unnerved me. "Watch!" I started. Now the grocery bag was 500 yards behind us. "Out," I finished lamely. Lesson No. 2: Speed thrills. It kills, too, of course. I'm not advocating that anyone go onto Interstate 77 and get it up to 100 mph tonight. But speed is intoxicating. Those four laps around Lowe's Motor Speedway felt like the world's best roller coaster. It was 100 times better than watching the tiresome race that followed. I listened to the radio tape of my ride with Dallenbach. I sound like an 8-year-old on "Thunder Road" for the first time. Not much intelligible came out of my mouth. (I know, I know, that's nothing unusual.) Mostly, it's a lot of "Whoooaaa!!" and "Yeeeaaahhh!!" In the turns, which loom every eight seconds at that speed, there's just my delighted laughter, as Dallenbach manicured the walls with such offhanded skill it wasn't even scary. Lesson No. 3: Going fast isn't for everybody. Dallenbach, 42, broadcasts for NBC and TNT. He takes a celebrity out for a ride-along almost every weekend this time of year for his TV segment called "Wally's World." Occasionally, a local journalist gets a ride, too, after the celebrity is finished. On Saturday, the celebrity was an actress named Lake Bell who stars in the new NBC alien drama "Surface." She went first and did fine. Although no one has ever been hurt, some bigger names haven't done well on "Wally's World." Lisa Marie Presley took a ride with Dallenbach this year at Daytona and was angry afterward, convinced he was trying to scare her. Hey, Lisa Marie was married to Michael Jackson once. She frightens more easily now. David Spade, the comedian who has attained some fame for repeatedly saying "No" in a series of commercials, got some more practice with Dallenbach. Said Kurt Roberts, who often supervises these weekly ride-alongs with Dallenbach: "Spade didn't like it. Apparently his people didn't tell him what he was getting into. They were pulling out of the pits and he was waving, `No, no, no!' " Director Quentin Tarantino and actor Ben Affleck loved it. Jennie Finch, the Olympic softball pitcher, told Dallenbach she'd like to give him some chin music. Dallenbach drove more than 59,000 laps in NASCAR's top series in 226 career Cup starts. So this is tame stuff for him -- just a clever publicity stunt, really. For me, though, it was exhilarating and useful. I'll never look at a race quite the same way again. Or a plastic grocery bag.