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FeedAdrenaline Adventures
Where to get your high-octane fix.
(page 2 of 2)
Whitewater Rafting
Whitewater Challengers, White Haven, PA
(800) 443-RAFT
$36.95—$54.95 depending on day
ADRENALINE RATING: ★★★★★
“Dam release,” they advertised. “Damn good,” I thought. In fact, I hoped I wasn’t under-qualified to partake in such an excursion. On the big day, I arrived in eastern Pennsylvania at a campground swarming with whitewater enthusiasts. I picked up my lifejacket and a bagged lunch, and hopped on a school bus down to the river. There, I jumped into a red rubber raft about 12 feet long and five feet wide with three other people, as did the rest of three school busses full of people who had joined us on our excursion. Inside the raft were two buckets—one for protecting our lunches from the unruly waves and one for bailing out the boat. “Bailing out the boat,” I thought. “How cool is this?”
Onto the river, in my bathing suit and polypropylene T-shirt, I went. We sailed, gently, down a patch of tree-lined waterway as I anticipated the rushing rapids to come. But, after 30 minutes...nothing. In fact, the only adrenaline rush came from playing “splash wars.” This was a game in which water that had found its way into the raft was scooped up in the bucket and thrown at riders in other rafts. I took to this game and could be seen standing in my raft with bucket in hand ordering my “crew” to attack “boat thirteen.” I could also be seen negotiating alliances with other rafts to help throw our collective streams of dirty H2O at seafarers who had been particularly successful at dousing me. Still, the water was quite tame.
But there were exceptions. At one point, my crew and I came to a particularly rocky rough spot where, finally, water splashed above our heads and we had to paddle around imposing rocks that jetted out of the water and occasionally wedged themselves under our boat requiring the lot of us to jump up and down in attempt to scoot our raft back into the rapids.
And, towards the end of the journey, things did get exciting. My heart jumped as the leader of our tour told us that we were approaching an area that was dangerous enough that our boats had to go down it one at a time. However, this proved easier said than done. The boats went crashing into each other while floating down these narrow and quick rapids, causing one of them to start to flip. My crew and I, sensing a chance for adventure, paddled over and tried to steady the boat. But, as we grabbed on, another raft crashed into its back and into the air it went. “Nooooo!” I yelled as the semi-terrified face of a 50-year-old man turned sideways as he plunked into the water. (He ended up A.O.K)
So adrenaline-filled? Not so much—unless at the expense of others.
Go-Kart Racing
Grand Prix New York, Mount Kisco, NY
(914) 241-3131
$25 per person
ADRENALINE RATING: ★★★★★
At a 120,000-square-foot Grand Union warehouse-turned-race track in Mount Kisco, riders get to dress up in spacesuit-like riding gear and get behind the wheel of $8,000, four-stroke, 6.5 horse-power Honda gas-powered race cars that can reach 40 miles per hour. The feeling of competition is pretty heart-pounding, especially when you go with a group of friends and pride is on the line. (And when isn’t it?)
As the green flag fell on my 12 laps, I sped my way up the course’s six-foot incline, attempting to overtake the first-place car. For seven laps, I pursued the leader, bumping up against walls and getting so close that I could smell the fumes from his engine. But then…tragedy struck. On lap seven, I spun out so viciously that a track worker had to reorient me in the right direction as car after heart-rending car passed by me, dragging with them my hopes of a first-place finish. Alas, I finished eighth.
As for adrenaline—the race is too short (and too costly per run at $25 a pop)—for a long-term rush, but hell, adrenaline is all about quick trips sometimes.
Car Racing
Monticello Motor Club, Monticello, NY
(845) 468-7039
$125,000 resident membership plus $9,000 in annual dues
ADRENALINE RATING: ★★★★★
I promised myself I wouldn’t tell anyone that I almost had a reversal at the Monticello Motor Club. But, alas, this article is full disclosure. In all fairness, I had just spent 10 minutes driving at nearly 150 miles per hour around a 4.1-mile race track with a 25-year professional Indy Car driver in a Ford GT. (The Lexus was in the shop!) But it wasn’t the speed that got to me; I like speed. It was probably the 50-mile-per-hour hairpin turns we took, which caused the back wheels of the car I was in to skid out in both directions (I’m convinced simultaneously). Oh, and we weren’t even going full-tilt. There’s only so much adrenaline the motor club will provide without a full membership.
Make no mistake about it: the Monticello Motor Club is not a stop on a daytrip up north. This is a high-end club, with a full clubhouse, dining room, spa, helicopter pad, car storage lot, and a series of autominiums on site. What is an autominium, you ask? Why it’s just like it sounds, a condominium in which you can store up to 12 cars, which can be seen through glass walls inside your condo.
Adrenaline junkies, this is nirvana. Yes, you can bring your own car, or, more likely, cars, and race them on either the full track or one of three smaller tracks into which the full track can be divided. Yes, you can play around on the skid pad practicing what to do when your Corvette starts to skid. You even can let your kids practice here so they’re prepared incase the ol’ Mercedes starts to skid on Mamaroneck Avenue. Yes, your kids can use the go-karts on-site, too. Yes, they do have track pros on-site who have undeniable cred, including Brian Redman, who drove a Porsche 917 with Steve McQueen in LeMans. Yes, you can get a massage on-site when you’re done. And yes, you can watch the videos of Mario Andretti christening the place.
But can you visit just to try the place out? No, unless one of your friends is a member and grants you one of his six yearly guest passes, or unless you opt—for $2,500—to become a member for a day to test out whether you want to upgrade to full membership. Now, if that’s not motivation to go make it rich, what is?
I highly recommend you try every activity I tried—except, if you’re going to go whitewater rafting, find a better part of the country in which to do it. But definitely pick up a paintball gun and head north. I’ll see you on the field. I’ll be the one without much paint on my jersey shooting at you!
Freelance writer W. Dyer Halpern is...still alive. Thankfully.
