What Racing is all About
It's about money, of course; for most it's about finding it,
finding enough of it, and then finding more. It's about guzzling
money like water, about living with the guilt of burning up so
much hard earned cash. But it's much more.
It's about supremacy, being top dog, king of the hill, head
honcho, the big kahuna; standing out above the crowd, being number
one, the best.
It's about speed. It's about riding the fastest, scariest,
hold-onto-your-hats-geez-I'm-gonna-wet-my-pants-best-damn-roller-coaster
ever invented.
And it's about power. It's about leading the charge of a thousand
screaming banshees, having your body wrenched and twisted and
tossed about by the hands of great unseen forces; and it's about
taming a blind raging Herculean monster, and bending it to your
will.
It's about brilliant colors, flashes of light, ear-splitting
shrieks, and bone-rattling rumbles. It's about the unforgettable
smell of burning rubber, smoldering brake pads, and gear oil.
It's about reaching through the steering wheel all the way down
to the tires and feeling the road slipping past your fingertips.
It's about sensing the weight of the car shifting from tire to
tire, like water in a pan. It's about the tug of the shoulder
harness across the collar bones, and the cramp in the leg from
pressing the gas pedal through the floor.
Racing is about all of these things, and much more.
It's about passion; burning desire, insatiable hunger. It's
a perverse yet overwhelming love affair with steel, glass, and
rubber. It's about a relentless courtship with speed.
It's about conceiving and nurturing a child--the benefactor
of your skill and wisdom, and a victim of your ignorance. It's
about saving a rusting pile of disregarded scrap from the crusher
and making it stronger, faster, more real and alive than it ever
was, or ever deserved to be. It's about caring for your creation,
loving it; pushing it to its limits, exalting in its greatness,
and forgiving its weaknesses, because they are your weaknesses.
It's about dreams and hopes and fears. Dreams of glory; dreams
of carving out a small niche in history, like Mario, and Sterling,
and "King Richard". Hopes. Hopes that the many long
winter hours of lonely toil in the cold, dusty garage will bring
smiles come May, and a nod of approval from the brutally indifferent
stopwatch. Hopes that the brakes will be there on call, as you
hurtle without recourse into the unforgiving concrete canyon.
Hopes that, in the end, you'll be able to look back on the whole
experience and find it worth the price, while living with the
fear that it won't be.
It's about determination, perseverance, and the strength of
resolve. It's about patience and discipline. It's about putting
in the time, double checking, attending to the critical details.
It's about concentration, and focus. It's about controlling the
overpowering urges, sticking to the game plan, and keeping your
head when the unthinkable happens. It's about testing, and measuring,
and worrying, and sweating the small stuff.
It's about faith; faith in yourself, in your crew, in your
fellow competitors, in the workers, and in the men and women who
designed this car, these tires, and this track. It's about believing
in your roll cage, and your safety harness, your nomex suit, and
the fire system that has never been put to the test. It's about
knowing that no matter what happens, you chose.
It's about deep and lasting respect, caring, and friendships;
about sharing joys and disappointments, pitching in, and easing
the load.
It's about living life on the cutting edge of a razor, hanging
it all out there, going for broke. It's about knowing, without
doubt, by-damn, that you're alive. It's about putting your heart
and soul into something and letting the whole world see what you
can do. It's about knowing that in the midst of the confusion
and emotion and heart-stopping action, you were the one that mattered.
Anonymous---
Copyright -- Huish Properties 1995 -- Revised 02 Feb 96