The Richard Petty Driving Experience at Walt Disney World Speedway uses 350-cubic-inch V-8 Chevrolets on the tri-oval track. Betsa Marsh photo

Employees help with the signing up and suiting up at the Richard Petty Driving Experience. Betsa Marsh photo

Hazel Harkness of Lansing, Mich., prepares to climb in and take the wheel at age 77. Betsa Marsh photo

Juan Rivera leads the drivers’ meeting before everyone hits the track. Betsa Marsh photo

Cinderella is generous enough to open her Castle Suite for winners in the Year of a Million Dreams contest. Betsa Marsh photo

Cinderella’s crown glitters in a case just outside the door to her suite. Betsa Marsh photo

Nightly fireworks explode in rainbows over Cinderella’s Castle. Betsa Marsh photo

Cinderella’s carriage is molded of white chocolate and filled with strawberries and red rose petals. Betsa Marsh photo

The clock in Cinderella’s foyer never quite strikes midnight. Betsa Marsh photo

No one wants to leave the Cinderella Castle Suite. Betsa Marsh photo

Cinderella’s own 1950 animated feature film plays on the flat-screen TV above her fireplace. Betsa Marsh photo

Princess for a Day, On the Track and Under the Turrets

By Betsa Marsh

Richard Petty, meet Cinderella. The King of stockcar racing is suddenly hanging with the Queen of fairytale endings, and I’m suspended somewhere between them in a limbo land of hot laps, cool blue satin and anything my heart desires. Disney World is all about fantasy, of course, but I’m suddenly whiplashed between tearing around the track and dressing for the ball.

I’ll spend my afternoon at the Richard Petty Driving Experience and my evening, thanks to my lucky friend Susan and Disney’s Year of a Million Dreams, under Cinderella’s turreted roof.

At the Richard Petty Driving Experience, hot rod passengers and drivers hug the mile-long tri-oval at Walt Disney World Speedway. Petty, stockcar’s all-time leading driver with 200 wins and seven season championships, is the inspiration to zip up a Nomex racing suit and pull on a helmet in the blistering Florida sun.

I’m going to ride shotgun with one of the track hot dogs, taking eight laps riding high on the straightaways and low on the curves. Others are going to take the wheel themselves, drafting behind their instructors and trying to top that 120 mph mark.

Suited up, it’s out to the track for our glory moment, even before we’ve done a jot of racing. We get to ham it beside one of the logo-plastered stock cars, grabbing our helmets, giving the thumbs up and acting like we’re already in victory lane. The only thing verboten? Blocking Richard Petty’s profile on the side panel.

Now, down to business. The crew picks out a giant white helmet that squeezes my head, leaving just a little horseshoe opening for the face. My cheeks puff out—well, since this is Disney—like Chip ‘n’ Dale’s.

Soon, they flip the switches on the dashboard, and that unmistakable race car roar, the scream of a thousand lions, vibrates out from under the hood.

Time to pretzel myself in through the window, ready to be latched into my adult-size kiddie seat. Derek the Driver asks if I’m ready, and with a nod, we’re accelerating out of pit lane for real laps on a real Nascar track.

Between the helmet, neck restraint and kiddie seat, there’s no room for 360 gawking. It’s straight-ahead racing--left turn, left turn, left turn, pit.

It’s frustrating that there’s only concrete and chain link fence, no little trees to blur by so I can appreciate our 122 mph top speed. No screaming fans, either, and I’m absolutely convinced that Derek and I deserve them.

But after eight laps, I do have the satisfaction of a genuine checkered flag semaphoring over my head. All the way back to pit lane, I imagine paparazzi racing out to snap our photos and grab a quote. A hunky model will bring me my trophy and all of Disney World will lie at my feet. Hey, a girl can dream, can’t she?

She certainly can, if she’s spending the evening not just dining at Cinderella’s Royal Table, but sleeping in Cinderella’s Castle, too. Forget our prowess on the race track—the real championship moves come in racing back to the hotel, scrubbing off Nascar grit and slipping into silk and sequins to meet the Princess of the Evening.

That, of course, would normally be Cinderella herself, all blue satin gown, headband and white evening gloves. But tonight she’s sharing center stage with my friend Susan, who won the night in the castle suite and asked five of her girlfriends to come along. In a heartbeat, we’re the Sinderella Six.

We’ll have several castle concierges at our command throughout the night, and it is Steve Skobel who unlocks the unassuming Gothic-gabled door in the breezeway beneath the castle. Thousands of people walk past the door every day--who knew what Shangri-La lay just beyond?

First, a tiny foyer, just princess-size, with a grandfather clock whose hands never quite reach midnight. Then it’s up the elevator to our private Brigadoon, ours for less than 24 hours. But like the Sinderellas we are, we intend to make the most of every nanosecond.

We tumble out of the elevator into another small vestibule, lined with original cells from the “Cinderella” film. One panel, disguising a hidden door, is curious for its oversized filigree key.

“What’s this?” the Sinderella Six wonder.

“That’s the Key to the World.”

Does it get any better than this?

But we’re not even in Cinderella’s suite yet. Once again, the door inches back silently and we have our first glimpse of true princesshood. Cinderella’s own movie is playing on the flat-screen TV atop the stone chimney breast. Below, a little make-believe fire sizzles, and on the fireback, miniature fiber-optic fireworks pop out of the blackness.

That’s it, I’m sold. Have the Disney lawyers never heard that possession is nine-tenths of the law?

Yet this is the merest appetizer to the Sinderella feast. Tapestries hang between carved stone pillars and stained-glass panes. Intrusions of modern life--mini-fridge, digital clock--are hidden behind wood and brocade.

It seems that Cinderella herself has left the chocolates on our beds, with little cards hoping our dreams come true.

But there’s no dreaming yet, because we want to march down Main Street with the hoi polloi and see our castle backlit by fireworks. It’s all we can do to keep from nudging every tank-topped tourist and telling them, “Hey, that’s our castle.”

Fireworks fading, concierge Julian walks us back to our secret sorority house. Pixies have been busy molding a pumpkin carriage and horses from white chocolate, and filling the coach with strawberries and red rose petals.

Our trio of concierges reminds us we can call anyone anywhere in the world for free, and they’re on duty all night to fulfill our slightest whim.

Six guys once had the Cinderella Suite for the night and played "Stump the Concierge." So it was demands for turkey legs at 11 p.m., red-velvet cheesecake at 1 a.m., chocolate-covered pretzels at 4 a.m.

Each time, their wish appeared within 20 minutes.

Chocolate-covered pretzels? “We broke into the bakery on Main Street.”

The men set a high bar, and some of the more thoughtful Sinderellas had already packed Cheetos and champagne for our slumber party. But by 3 a.m., everyone needed caramel corn, and by 3:14, a discreet knock on the door meant Cracker Jack was here.

Before the Sinderellas crashed, after 4 a.m., the princesses ordered Starbuck’s and fresh scones to sweeten their brutal 7 a.m. wake-up call.

In between, there was plenty of time to fill Cinderella’s whirlpool and soak all 12 royal feet—while the Sinderellas’ battery-powered Mickey Mouse ears twinkled in the twilight.

Most of the Sinderellas bypass the free phone calls, wondering how amusing the people back home would find a 1 a.m. fit of giggles rippling down the line. But one Sinderella thinks of her friends in Spain and boldly dials--soon the legend of the Sinderella Six leapfrogs to Europe.

I have an obscenely early flight, so I can’t wait for coffee and scones. I slip out of the room, not long after the last Sinderella finally crashes.

I click a quick mental snapshot of them, curled up sleeping like the little girls they once were, with dreams of Cinderella, Fairy Godmothers and Prince Charmings dancing in their dreams. Richard Petty’s not even in the field. 

This Globespin was last updated in June 2007, and all information was accurate at that time.