Consider Jan Otto the car freak's Santa Claus. The founder of Supercar Life charges more than the jolly old elf, but how many Decembers have passed without a Ferrari or Lamborghini in your garage, or better, the racetrack?

Otto charges $5,000 to put more than 2,500 hp and five supercars (Ferrari F430, Mercedes-Benz CLK63 AMG, Lamborghini Gallardo, Porsche 911 Turbo, Aston Martin DB9) at your disposal--that's about $2 per horse. Or, as software developer and SCCA racer Jim Rueff explained his logic for attending, "You get to drive all these cars for much less than a down payment on one."

Rueff falls into what Otto calls the "aspirational" client group, guys who had the Lamborghini poster on their walls growing up and see this as their only chance to drive an exotic car. But Otto says many attendees own exotics and, because dealers rarely offer test drives, come for comparison shopping. Dr. Jose Olivencia is a repeat client who enjoys feeling the potential of exotic cars without risk to his own cars or license. Otto also gets his share of adrenaline junkies.

For safety, every car in Otto's fleet has a sport-shift automatic transmission and traction control; turning it off is forbidden.




Otto's program is administered by racing professionals with experience in Indy car, NASCAR, Grand Am and ALMS. Some have marquee-level historic cars on their résumés. Darius Grala is lead instructor, with Matt Plumb coordinating track proceedings. During our day at Auto Club (nee California) Speedway, they were assisted by Hugh Plumb, Guy Cosmo, Anthony Lazzaro and Mark Hamilton Peters.

After a briefing on car-control basics, driving begins. Drivers gain familiarity with the capabilities and idiosyncrasies of each car by rotating from one to another through a slalom course and 0-to-60-mph-to-0 runs. Confidence and enthusiasm building, they then ride with instructors in each car to learn the course; at Fontana, that incorporates portions of the banking and the infield road course.

Hot laps follow lunch. Attendees rotate from car to car, first riding with an instructor, then on their own chasing that instructor in the same type of car. Students set the pace by maintaining a two-car-length gap from the instructor's rear bumper. This lasts about three hours, which is plenty.

You can reach fifth gear and nearly 140 mph on the banking. The big fun is watching people's reactions. Even the most reserved emerge from the CLK63 wearing ear-to-ear grins. And the Ferrari's racing DNA soon outpaces the Gallardo's hyper attitude to emerge as the crowd favorite.

There's no pressure, so everyone goes home a hero--a bunch of happy kids with shiny toys, just like at Christmas.

For more, visit www.supercarlife.com.