People tell me being a travel writer is a good gig, and most of the time, I’d have to agree.  But I have a buddy whose job and resulting lifestyle, makes mine seem almost pious: he writes about fast, sleek cars.  So, not only does he also get flown all over the world (Business Class – the car companies have the budgets), put up in swank hotels and wined and dined within an inch of his life, but he also gets to test drive newest cars on some of the world’s best racetracks and speedways.  Not only that, but on any given weekend, he can call up a car company and have one of their new models delivered to him for his personal use (the theory is, he’s test driving it on everyday roads).

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve never owned a car and only learned to drive one at age 30 to enable my travel writing.  Still, I’d say I drive about five times a year tops though some of that driving is likely to be in Australia on the wrong side of the road, or in Tahiti on the harrowig freeways of Papeete.  Thus, the whole American obsession with cars and “car culture” have remained a mystery to me.

But last week I had a rare opportunity to jump the fence when Audi invited me to join their first ever all-female “Audi Lifestyle Summit”.  Apparently, Audi has figured out that single women are 51% of the car buying market, and even women in couples tend to be the decision makers when buying the family vehicle.  The event would take place in Northern California, and the itinerary was plush, including a private screening of the Robert Downey Jr. film, Iron Man, (his character in the movie, “Tony Starck”, drives a customized Audi A8); stays at the St Regis San Fran and The Solage in Calistoga; lunch at Etoile at Domaine Chandon and a private wine tasting at the Francis Ford Coppola Rubicon Estate in Napa; a private seminar with Timothy Ferriss, author of the 4-Hour Work Week; and finally, taking the new Audi A4 for a spin on the Infineon Raceway.  And it would be attended by 35 other women, all reporters and editors from various womens magazines and lifestyle publications.

Now, if you are not a girls’s girl, the idea of spending a weekend with 35 other females might freak you out.  But I have always liked other women and had very close female friends.  I have also seen firsthand working for publications like Glamour and InStyle that even those “skinny bitches” that popular culture likes to make fun of, are massively hardworking and far from dumb.  But all this doesn’t mean that I wasn’t just a little bit worried about what to wear.  I mean, the all-out glamour of this trip encouraged me to pack the designer shoes and handbags I so rarely ever get to wear, much less pack when I’m traveling.

Though I didn’t get to chat with all of them, the other women were great.  We seemed to divide right away into the 20-somethings and the 30-somethings, and the east coast and the west coast (since the east coast people began to nod off at 9pm Pacific Time), but it was totally fun and easy.  I mean, what did we have to not be happy about?

As for Iron Man, well the reviews are mixed, but we got to see it drinking champagne and munching on gourmet popcorn sprinkled with exotic spices.  Plus, I love Robert Downey Jr (so sexy!), and enjoyed the attempt to give a summer blockbuster a coherant plot.  I saw friends in San Fran and fell in love with wine country (more on that in the next blog).  I even enjoyed meeting Tim Ferriss, who is smokin’ hot (he has purple hair right now) and super-smart, though listening to talk about how he outsourced his internet dating helps you understand why, despite his obvious charms, he’s still single.  But the highlight for sure was driving the cars at the Infineon Raceway.

We didn’t get to actually drive an Audi until the final day of the trip (a good thing since we had been drinking so much!).  That morning a fleet of cherry red Audi A4’s showed up at the Solage so that we could drive ourselves to Infineon.  A lot of the women were nervous, and I was sort of amazed that I was among the more confident (since I had driven the exact same car during my road trip in Southern California two weeks before).  One of the editors I had become friendly with, Casey Gillespie from Zink, and I decided to test the Audi’s GPS and went a totally different direction from the pack.  Zipping around through Napa, it was a great moment when we found our way and later joined up with the dozens of other red Audis on the freeway.  The other cars around us must have been wondering what the hell was going on!

Arriving at the track was also intoxicating.  After signing a disclaimer, we went up to the viewing area to watch other racers zooming around the two-mile track that hosts annual events including the NASCAR Winston Cup and NHRA, Superbike, and American LeMans series races.  There is a lot of the color red at Infineon: I decided it must be the color that stimulates speed.

The car writer buddy I mentioned earlier had warned me that Infineon is a difficult course  It has a series of hills leading you blind into sharp turns, and there are very little flat straight sections of road where you can comfortably pick-up speed.  Luckily, for us, we had a morning of driving instruction that included notes on how to sit, steer, brake, turn and manuever for accident avoidance.  It turns out that there is actually an Audi Forum Sonoma Racing School, a 2 to 12-day customized program, at the track that anyone who is interested in racing can attend.

After a massive sushi feast and a snazzy presentation about the new Audi A4 debuting in September 2008 (at $49K with all the bells and whistles, this is seem as the entry level car, or the first luxury car you’re likely to buy), we were outfitted with massive alien-head silver helmets and hit the track.  I was so nervous, my hands were sweating, but we were led follow the leader style around the track.  There were cones along the sides of the track indicating where you should start and come out of each hill or turn and we were coached on where to speed up or brake.  After a few spins, it wasn’t so bad, until the instructors started to go faster!  But it must be a universal human thrill – the need for speed.  I find I’m kind of a leadfoot on the road anyway, but in an Audi, you barely feel like you’re going 40 and you’re going 80.  This might be the problem for me with luxury cars.

And here is the cheesey sex reference, but yes, afterwards, I took off my helmet and sat on the sidelines and felt all sweaty and spent, watching the next round of racers go for it.  I’m not ultimately sure this will make me a better or worse driver on regular highways, but it was fun times for sure.