Mom's the best. Apple pie is fine.
But if you really want to make an American's heart pound, you're talking white-line fever -- horsepower, cubic centimeters of displacement, bucket seats and a wild, swinging needle on the tachometer.
For you Americans who love cars, central Florida is the place to go.
You can settle into Orlando for a heavy dose of internal combustion or head in almost any direction -- east to Daytona and Edgewater, north to Ocala and southwest to Sarasota.
Piston-heads, prepare to be dazzled. You can get a close-up look at how manufacturers such as General Motors Corp. really test their cars. Get some insight into the Daytona International Speedway. Test your mettle at a top-ranked stock-car-driving school. Wander through museums featuring Corvettes, dragsters or classic cars. Or munch burgers at a flashy, Hard Rock-style restaurant for people who dig stock cars and drag racing.
Of course, in Florida go-cart tracks almost outnumber the cloverleafs off Interstate 75 and Florida's Turnpike.
Orlando
* Disney Fast Track: Disney World last month opened its newest, longest, fastest ride at Epcot. Test Track, created in partnership with General Motors, takes visitors on a simulated 5-minute proving-ground ride in automated six-passenger vehicles being "tested" for performance in braking, handling on 34 turns, hill climbing and 100-degree temperature ranges and accelerating to speeds up to 65 mph on a nearly mile-long track.
Phil Guarascio, vice president and general manager of marketing and advertising for GM North American Operations, said: "Test Track is the next best thing to a proving ground experience. Walt Disney imagineers have done a masterful job of emulating the rigors of vehicle testing that all our brands go through. They've created an experience designed to captivate and thrill Epcot guests."
Here's the rundown: Six passengers will get into a computer-operated test car -- a car leaves every 10.5 seconds -- to shoot off into a series of exciting tests.
This electric test car is no wimp. It can develop 250 horsepower and zoom from 0 to 60 mph in 8.2 seconds.
First, you'll climb a 15-degree, three-story-high hill and bump over various road surfaces.
Next, you'll make two passes through a set of cones: first, without anti-lock brakes, where you spin out and knock over the cones; second, with ABS, where you cleanly snake through the course. Then you zip through two temperature test chambers. In one, heat lamps will broil you (briefly) at 120 degrees. In the second, you'll shiver as the temperature drops 100 degrees.
Next, you and the car are sprayed with a yucky, green corrosive mist followed by a test where you almost suffer a high-speed crash into a barrier. From there, you'll zip uphill on a switchback mountain course -- in the dark.
Finally, your car zooms outside on the test track, where you will rocket to 65 mph on a 50-degree banked track.
The entire ride will take 5 minutes and 34 seconds and you will travel just short of a mile: 5,246 feet.
A preshow, to entertain the people waiting in line, presents many of the tests, based on actual tests performed by General Motors at the test facility in Milford, Mich. The preshow has nearly two dozen displays, of which 16 are animated.
A heavy weight slams down on a car door, a simulated human butt wiggles on car seats, robot arms repeatedly open and close car doors. Dummies will suffer simulated crash hits on various parts of their bodies: the head, the knee, the chest.
After the ride, you can see how an auto plant stamping machine makes oil pans and how a robot welds parts. Then you will be able to test-drive simulators using modern gizmos that show your location, tell you where to turn and alert you to whether other vehicles are near your car. And, of course, you go through the inevitable gift shop.
For information, call 407-824-4321 or visit www.disneyworld.com.
* Sci-Fi Dine-In: If you remember the 1950s, when kids still talked about necking and drive-in movies were called "passion pits," you'll get a kick out of Disney's Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater Restaurant at MGM Studios.
Yes, this restaurant that simulates a 1950s drive-in is a little crowded for much more than hand-holding. But you could get a bit nostalgic as you sit in brightly colored convertibles while a carhop brings sodas and burgers. Meanwhile, the big screen shows black-and-white trailers from flicks like "Cat Women of the Moon," "It Conquered the World" and "Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster."
For information, call 407-824-4321 or visit www.disneyworld.com.
* Race Rock: This is for folks who like their dining turbo-charged. In this day when every other themed restaurant is a Hard Rock-wannabe, Race Rock is the one for racing fans -- drag racing, stock-car racing, Formula One racing, motorcycle racing, hydroplane racing, any kind of souped-up-engine racing.
It's got mannequins decked in racing suits and helmets worn by stars such as Richard Petty. Hung on the walls are dragsters, race cars and speedboats including Miss Budweiser. Big Foot, the world's largest monster truck, is out back. Televisions show races -- and crashes. The waitresses -- who all have a sort of Up-With-People perkiness -- are decked out in black racing coveralls and the hostesses are in yellow.
The restaurant's 12 big-name investors include Petty, Jeff Gordon, Don Prudhomme, Scott Parker, Michael Andretti, Ernie Irvan and others.
The food is, well, basic bar food: burgers and sandwiches with names like Fully Modified or Super-Stock and a variety of salads and pizzas.
Two more Race Rocks are expected to open later this year in Las Vegas and New York.
Orlando's Race Rock is on International Drive north of the Beeline Expressway. It is open daily from 11:30 a.m. to as late as midnight. No reservations needed. Call 407-248-9876.
The very word "Daytona" means car racing.
It all started March 26, 1903, when Alexander Winton in his Bullet raced Ransom E. Olds in his Pirate over 23 miles of packed sand between Daytona and Ormond, Fla. It ended in a tie. The top speed: 57 mph.
Attached to the famed Daytona International Speedway is the nifty museum Daytona USA, which gives the history of racing in Daytona and the race course. From 1936 until 1958, it was a 4.1-mile course -- half on the beach and half on Highway A1A. To keep people from sneaking through the palmettos for a free look, race course officials put up signs that read: "Beware of Rattlesnakes."
The present tri-oval course is 2.5 miles long, 40 feet wide, banked at 31 degrees at the east and west turns (cars need to go at least 70 mph to keep from slipping down), 18 degrees at the start-finish line and 3 degrees on the back stretch, just enough to let the rainwater flow off.
The museum is terrific, not only for its history and display of cars, but especially for some first-rate hands-on experiences.
You can actually join a crew for a timed pit stop where you change tires, fill the gas tank and so on. The five visitors I saw did it all in a respectable 27.51 seconds. You can sit at a microphone and broadcast a race and even take the tape home. And you can drive in a simulated time trial.
Daytona USA also offers a tour of the Speedway where you get an up-close look at the track, the pits and all the infield buildings.
The museum is in Daytona Beach on Highway 92, also called International Speedway Boulevard, east of Interstate 95. Cost for the museum: $12 for adults; $10 for those older than 60; $6 for children 6-12; 5 years and under are admitted free. The Speedway Tour is $6 for anyone 6 or older. Hours: 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily. Call: 904-947-6800.
* Klassix Auto Attractions: This is 'Vette lovers heaven. The museum first gained fame because it had 60 Corvettes, including one from every year the car was made. But after four years of wall-to-wall 'Vettes, the museum began looking for diversity. It now has 25 Corvettes all of which are special models or with some historical value.
But do not lose heart, 'Vette fans. The museum still has every body style ever made since the sports car came on the market in 1953. Just don't expect to see a 1983 model. There really is no 1983 Corvette. It seems the 1982 Corvettes were made until February 1983 and soon after the 1984 model was introduced.
For those with a bit of TV sentimentality, you can expect to hear the theme song from the old "Route 66" show playing in the background.
In expanding its car collection, Klassix now has some wonderful classic cars, including a 1950 Ford Woody station wagon and a 1958 Impala convertible. Other interesting mobiles include a collection of George Barris cars such as the Batmobile, the Dragula from the "Munsters" and Grease Lightning from the motion picture "Grease." Not to mention more than 30 racing cars from the early beach days to the present.
Klassix is about a mile from Daytona USA on Highway 92, just west of Interstate 95. Hours: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. Prices: $8.50 for adults; $4.25 for children 7 through 12 and $7.50 for seniors. Six and under admitted free. Call 1-800-881-8975.
* Finish Line Racing School: Described by several racing magazines as the No. 1 short-track school in the country, this Edgewater school is where wannabe racers come to learn and veterans come to tune up their skills.
The chief instructor is former NASCAR-modified driver Mike Loescher, who started the program with his wife, Kristal, also a first-rate driver.
"If a student has any talent at all, he'll be running fast enough at the end of our three-day course to qualify for any late-model race," Loescher said.
Finish Line also offers ridealongs for people who just want the experience of being in a stock car, and half-day programs where you drive 12 laps with an instructor. The costs, respectively, are $99 and $499.
Then you get into full-day courses where you drive by yourself for $1,099, a two-day course for $1,999 and the three-day course for $2,699. You drive actual race cars and supertrucks and are supplied fire suits and underwear, helmets and gloves.
You need to have a valid driver's license, though Loescher has coached kids as young as 13 who have tremendous talent. The oldest drivers in training are in their 60s. Loescher offers a 100 percent money-back guarantee of satisfaction. "And I've never paid," he said.
The school is on Highway 1, just south of the Edgewater business center. Classes also are given in Orlando; Martinsville, Va.; and Atlanta, Ga. Call 800-946-7223, for a taped message.
Ocala
Known as Big Daddy, Don Garlits is a legend of the drag strips, since 1952. He won time after time, breaking his own speed records again and again, always in cars named Swamp Rat.
His museum of drag racing truly is for dragster wonks. For those who can't tell a hemi from a slingshot, it's likely to be a long couple of hours.
The museum has 90 dragsters including funny cars, sleek-looking, but not fast, streamlined cars, and the familiar needled-nosed dragsters with huge, fat tires in back and bike wheels up front.
And for the true aficionados, the museum has an entire room with just engines.
Garlits also has a classic car museum with more than 70 antique, muscle and classic cars including lots of Ford roadsters from the 1930s and '40s, big-shouldered Dodges from the '30s, one of the 151 Volkswagens shipped to the United States in 1950 and, one of my personal favorites, a 1954 MG-TF.
Garlits is 8 miles south of Ocala in Belleview, just off Interstate 75 at Exit 67. Admission to the Drag Race Museum is $7.50 for adults, $6 for seniors and $3 for children ages 3-12. For the Classic Cars, it's $5 for adults, $3 for children. A combination ticket is $10 for adults and $3 for children. Don't bother getting the $3 audiotape, the signs on the exhibits tell as much. Open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Call 352-245-8661.
Sarasota
Sarasota Classic Car Museum, formerly Bellm Cars & Music of Yesterday, is a funky, but absolutely charming small museum with more than 75 classic cars. Guided tours around the auto displays and music exhibits are given every 30 minutes.
Museum highlights include four cars owned by circus king John Ringling, "Christine" from the Stephen King classic and Bruce Willis' 1958 Desoto.
The second part of the museum has an interesting collection of player pianos, music boxes, calliopes and band organs like those on carousels.
After Martin Godbye, a Sarasota businessman, bought the museum in July of 1997, the museum became a nonprofit organization and was extensively renovated. New attractions include a 3,800-square-foot garden atrium where visitors can enjoy a picnic lunch, a fully renovated Great Music Hall, antique arcade area and redecorated gift shop and snack bar.
To get there, take Interstate 75 to Exit 40, go west on University Parkway until it stops at U.S. 41 and the Ringling Museum. Turn right and you're there. Open: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. Admission: $8.50 for adults, $7.65 for seniors and $5 for children 6-12. Children 5 and under are admitted free. Call 941-355-6228.