Story, photography and video: Will Sabel Courtney

In New York City, winter can go on forever. At least, that's how it feels when you're stuck here, surrounded by endless gray: gray skies, gray buildings, gray sidewalks and streets.

Just when it seemed like cashing out my savings and booking an emergency trip to Puerto Rico was the only way to maintain my sanity, salvation arrived on the wings of an email. A chance to fly out to California and try out General Tire's new G-Max rubber at Infineon Raceway? To lap the road course in a Mitusbishi Evo, a Chevy Camaro, a Ford Mustang and an Audi S5? A karting competition? Dinner at a winery? There is a God, and he looooooves automotive journalists.

Check out the photo gallery here.

Two interminable weeks and one six-hour Delta flight (product placement!) later, I was sucking in the sweet air of wine country while staring across the twists and turns of Infineon. Then they started the fifteen cars parked in the pits in front of me, and I was sucking in a heady mix of high-octane gasoline fumes. I didn't care. I was here, and I was about to go racing.

And of course, I'd brought my little friend the Go Pro Hero along with me. I strapped him on the roof of one of the Mitsubishi Evo X MR that General had brought to the track, and the three of us—car, camera and driver—went to work.

Then it turned out the folks at General Tire had rigged up each Evo with a multi-angle Video VBOX system to record our runs, which was a nice added bonus. Since the mike was inside the car, it didn't cut out due to wind noise, so you can hear all the Gallic-accented radio chatter being issued by our instructor (the guy leading us in the Audi S5); however, that means you won't get the ass-kicking Social Distortion soundtrack we laid over the Go Pro footage, either.