I went and did this at Chicagoland Speedway, but for the life of me can't find a place to review. That should be suspicious in itself.
I'll break this into parts to give some background:
Driver Meeting: 5/5
Starts about 15 minutes before your scheduled session. Lasts about 45 minutes. Guy who led it was great and funny. Good start to the day.
Wait: 0/5
There is about 40 of us in the 12:00pm group. We get out to the track about 12:30 and get a quick run down. Apparently people who paid the most go first, so you have the people doing multiple 8 minute sessions, then 8 minute sessions, then 5 minute sessions. This was not communicated but makes sense. I originally purchased a 5 minute session and went to upgrade when we got down there. The wait to upgrade with 5 people in line was about 30 minutes, frustrating to say the least.
There was ZERO communication as to who was going when or where we were in the waitlist. Because of this, everyone waited outside while the real feel was 100 degrees outside! There was an air conditioned building about a one minute walk away, but since any one of us could be called at any time we all waited in the scorching heat in our firesuits.
By the time I got called into the car it was 2:45. My session was over by 3:00. We then had to wait 45 minutes to get my ID back and the "certificate" that I did not care for. Overall we spent 4 hours at the track, and they clearly state you should only reserve an obnoxious 3 hours for the 8 minute experience.
Experience: 3/5
Getting in the car and sitting in there was such a thrill as a life long NASCAR fan. Getting on the track and racing on the speedway was definitely fun.
Honesty: 0/5
However, I had low expectations about the speed knowing I obviously wasn't going to go full speed. I ran in iRacing around at 140 to see a lap would be about 38 seconds. When timing the cars going around, the ride alongs had about 45 second laps and the drivers were anywere between 50-55 seconds. They say they bump you up 200 rpms each lap, but don't explain that that stops at 5000 rpms because of the chip, which really only lets you get up to about 4800 rpms and it starts clicking.
When getting back into iRacing at 4800 rpms in 4th gear, which is about 115 mph which aligns with the lap times everyone was running. I got a certificate saying my top speed was 149?!? Do they really think we are that stupid? No wonder they don't give out lap times, they are literally trying to deceive everyone there.
Operations: 0/5
Whoever is in charge of operations at these facilities at these events should be fired. There is no equipment check in or out, I could've easily walked out with whatever I wanted there, including firesuit and helmet. They have no process for returning drivers licenses when done, and printing certificates off one by one in pit road and walking them one by one to the trailer makes absolutely no sense. Also, even though they had three full sessions booked for the day they had one computer and maybe a handfull of employees, obviously super understaffed. The fact that they had a list written down but there was no communication also completely ruined our experience. How difficult is it to put up a list of the order we will go in (that they have) and give us estimated times of when we are going to go? As someone in IT, it seems too simple to implement something to assist people.
Onsite Staff: 5/5
Through all the frustration we all had there, the staff stayed positive and friendly and added to the experience. It was understood that the management there must be awful but they all did the best they could given the position they were put in.
Overall: 2/5
It is cool to get behind the car and drive on the track, but their description of what they offer is clearly a lie and should fall into some sort of malpractice.