Eddie Arnold, his son, three grandsons and one great-grandson gathered at Pocono Raceway recently to take on the 2.5-mile “Tricky Triangle” racetrack with the Stock Car Racing Experience.

“It was a good time, but I would not want to be a race car driver. It is hard work to maneuver those turns,” said Arnold when he got out of his #90 race car.

“I joked that they gave me this number because of my age,” Arnold said.

At age 91, he was likely one of the oldest participants that Jesse Roverana, founder and president of the Stock Car Racing Experience, and his team has had.

Arnold was joined by his son, Vaughn Arnold; Vaughn’s three sons, Keane Arnold, Matthew Arnold and Joshua Arnold; and Vaughn’s grandson, 23-year-old Jack Arnold.

Roverana and Arnold met at Cherry’s Diner about three years ago and have become friends.

“I got started talking about doing this experience. Then I asked my son, and he thought the other four would enjoy it. So here we have four generations racing today,” said Arnold.

They had driver training class on a Friday morning, put on their racing suits and helmets, and got in their respective cars to take eight laps, which is 20 miles, around the track.

“There is an instructor in the lead car as they depart pit lane. They continue to gain speed each lap and wind up at 120 mph,” said Roverana.

Passing is allowed but it has to be signaled by the lead car and there are only certain times when passing can occur. The participants learned about this during their training session.

Matthew Arnold has driven this track before, but it was on a motorcycle. He is part of the California Super Bike School, where he is training to be a coach.

“Nothing beats a motorcycle on a track, but the G-force I felt today in this race car was insane,” he said afterward.

The Arnold family had a cheering section. Members of Polk Township Volunteer Fire Company, in which Eddie is a founding member, were there. So were some people from a Race Picks group that Eddie is part of that meets weekly at Beltzville Bar and Grill.

“This is definitely exhilarating. I could not believe we were done already when I saw the checkered flag,” said Vaughn Arnold. “We’d all do it again.”

The Arnold family was among the 100 participants that Friday. There were five groups of 20 people throughout the day.

In 1978, Roverana began working for the Bertil Roos Racing School. He stayed 20 years. Then in 1998, he started the Stock Car Racing Experience.

They run 30 events between mid-May and mid-October each year exclusively at Pocono Raceway.

“We have driven over 2.5 million miles on this racetrack since 1998,” he said.

On event days, he has 30 employees. On non-event days, there are six employees in the administration office and three mechanics.

“In 1998, there were at least a dozen businesses similar to mine. Now there are three of us left,” Roverana said.

The NASCAR Racing Experience and Rusty Wallace Racing go to other tracks around the country to host events, he said.

“A majority of our participants are men. But we have seen a larger number of women participating because we have introduced six automatic cars. Automatics perform just as well as the manual-shift cars,” said Roverana.