"Baby, You Can Drive My Car!"

When we got our invitation to the Classic Car Club (CCC) of Manhattan's "Ride Fast with Class" event featuring local aspiring Indycar driver Luca Forgeois, our hearts went into overdrive!  We have been by the Tribeca CCC on numerous occasions to peer in the windows and drool over the incredible automobiles inside. Join us as we tell you about one of our most unusual escapades.

Star of the evening, Luca Forgeois, is only 18 years old and hails from Long Island. He is young, handsome, well spoken and quite personable. Everything you'd want in a race car driver, right? Luca's personal story is quite inspiring. He attributes his love of car racing with helping him in his long term struggle with ADHD and hopes his story will inspire others to overcome the same or similar hardships. Since breaking into Indycar requires a rather sizable start-up investment, he is actively exploring ways of building a nest egg to help fund his 2015 Indycar racing debut. Check out Luca's website for his coverage of the event.  He was quite a good sport too as evidenced by his posing with our card!

The shell of his sleek white Indycar, sans engine and electronics, still looks mighty imposing and -- most importantly -- as if it were "built for speed"!

Ever ready to go that extra mile for a story, your intrepid bloggers did actually climb into the cockpit and try it on for size!  We were told it was very narrow and hard to get into, but after we saw a muscular guy get in, we figured we were a cinch.  Valerie did it on a self-dare - if you can't get into this, she admonished herself, you need to start working out. For someone who never drives, she looks surprisingly at home behind the wheel. All we needed were our Union Jack motorcycle jackets and goggles from Patricia Fields and our faux-hawk helmets from Target!  (Jean kept hearing Bette Davis' voice in her head advising her to "Buckle up. It's going to be a bumpy night.")

Before trying it herself, Jean waited not only to see if Valerie could clamber into the cockpit but also get out without sacrificing too much dignity. Truth be told, Valerie easily climbed right into her seat and glided out again when she was done!  (Hey, if you can climb up a tree at 8, how can you not climb into a car at - um -uh - well, MORE than 8?)  However, once Jean was firmly ensconced in the seat, her active fantasy life kicked into high gear and she could feel the wind racing through her, er, turban as she drove like hell around the circuit at the Brickyard in Indianapolis.

We met Peggy who reps for Dosha Pops, terribly chic tea-flavored lollipops. Take our word for it, they are tasty little suckers. (We also savor the opportunity to work the phrase "tasty little suckers" into our blog while keeping straight faces!)

Another guest we met that evening is the lovely Jacqueline Cruz-Towns who works at Rutgers and was in Manhattan to attend the event with her son, Karl.

Little did we know that Jackie's son is 18 year old local basketball phenom Karl Towns who is planning to attend and play for Kentucky next fall. Karl was born in the Dominican Republic and at the age of 16, played basketball for the Dominican Republic's Olympic Team. A New Jersey high school senior, Karl was the state's Gatorade Player of the Year in 2013. According to the 2013 Nike Big Man Skills Academy, Karl is 6' 11.5" tall, and has a wing-span of 7' 3.5" and weighs 235 pounds! Karl posed with Jean and another guest, Edward Macomb. Needless to say, Karl dwarfed everyone in the room. And he is an absolute sweetheart.

Of course, we had to get a shot of his fabulous B-Ball Bling! His championship rings are hard to miss.

We were joking with Poppy Kavanagh from the Classic Car Club of Manhattan that it's our nose prints they keep having to wipe off the windows in front of this gorgeous silver Cobra sports car. We just stop by and press our faces to the glass for a better view. What an amazing driving machine! It is one of our fondest dreams to be photographed in the car. We don't even have to drive it. We'd be satisfied just to be able to sit behind the wheel. You have to admit, we have good taste, right?

The setting for the party was pretty amazing. It is way cool to be surrounded by such select automobiles, like this silver Porche Spyder. Car fans - and movie fans - will remember this as same model car that James Dean was driving in his fatal crash.

The Spyder looks just as good going as it does coming. There are two leather fasteners that lash the back trunk to the frame. Very old school cool! Something else that really impressed and intrigued us -- who has the guts and skill to parallel park outrageously expensive, precious one-of-a-kind cars like this within inches of a radiator? Now, that takes nerves of steel!

As children, we were always raised not to touch things, or to touch everything with the utmost delicacy, and all of that came back to us while among the cars.  The look here is "I'm just casually leaning up against this car", but the feeling was "I won't put all my weight on this, and I'm only doing it till I see the flash go off."

Somehow, Jean kept gravitating to the silver automobiles.

All too soon, it was time to call it a night. Amid all this splendor, we walked - walked!  can you imagine?! - to the train and headed homeward.

 Until next time, kiddies, drive carefully -- and buckle up!