A NEW FOUND RESPECT
Before tonight I had never sat in the seat
of a race car of any kind, except for those in the virtual world. I have raced
quite a few laps at the Sahara Speedworld featuring Indy cars on moving
platforms and have run a few 220+ laps around the Las Vegas Motor Speedway while
trying to avoid the "amateurs" who think the object is to take out the
other drivers. Was the racing real? No, but don’t tell my knees that. The adrenaline
pumping through my veins and the wobbly knees when I climbed from the cars told
me it was pretty darn close to real.
For the past four years I’ve raced virtual
cars on the internet, starting with NASCAR Racing 2 and have progressed to
NASCAR Racing 4, running in leagues most of that time. I’ve enjoyed many
thousands of laps against many very good drivers and have even raced a few times
against Dale Earnhardt Jr. He is every bit as good on the virtual track as he on
the real tracks of NASCAR. I’ve drafted him to good finishes at Dega and watched
morons do everything they could to beat him, including putting him into the wall
at IRP on purpose. Was this racing real? Not really but don’t tell that to some
of the guys I race against.
For the past two years I’ve funded and run
a two go-kart racing team for my son and daughter who run in the Las Vegas Kart
Club at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. They are not exactly showing championship
potential but they have a whale of a time and I get to spend a lot of great
Friday and Saturday nights with them at the track, watching them do their best
not to become lappers.
I have been reluctant to get a kart of my
own because I suffer from a very aggressive case of arthritis, which had
progressed to the point of making it very difficult to get out of bed and go to
work each day. I figured that high speeds in the real world and my physical
condition would not mix very well, so I was content to be a team owner and
observer. Keep my racing in the virtual world.
Then something happened about six months
ago that has changed my life. I was referred to a rheumatologist who was
appalled at the treatments that I had been receiving for my condition for the
past 20 years. All prior treatments had been aimed at killing the pain, with
none targeting the disease itself. The first thing she did was tell me to stop
taking pain pills altogether because they were not doing anything good for my
stomach. And the pain was not being killed so it was pointless for me to keep up
that kind of regimen. Then she went after the disease and put me on a handful of
prescriptions that were going to attack the damaging elements that were present
in my joints. One new medicine, an injection I give myself twice a week, has had
the most noticeable effect on my body. I now roll out of bed each day and have
absolutely no pain. I have regained a range of motion that I haven’t had in over
ten years. Strength has returned and I feel better now than I have in the last
twenty years. Life is good.
Then, all this feeling good affected my
brain and for some reason, I began to think it might actually be fun to buy my
own kart and join my kids on the track. Heck, it looked easy and they were
having a great time. Feeling as good as I did, I had no doubt that I could now
join the real racing world and become an owner-driver.
So I bought myself a used championship
chassis, picked up an engine in parts in a milk crate, a clutch and some new
wheels and all of a sudden, I had my own little race car. My friend, Chuck, did
all the work of getting the kart into shape and even went so far as to take the
kart out and break it in so when I got to the track all I would have to do is
warm it up. My dad, my kids and I built ourselves a nice little trailer, capable
of hauling three karts to the track with all the necessary gear to make a
successful team go fast.
And … tonight was the night I sat in the
seat of a real race car for the first time.
WHY DIDN’T YOU KIDS TELL ME THIS WAS SO
DARN HARD?!?! GOOD GOLLY MISS MOLLY!!!
I never dreamed it was so hard to control
one of these little beasts. I got my first inkling that something was up when I
took to the track for the first time and I went from the front stretch to the
backstretch, on a crossover, in less than two seconds. Whoa Nellie! Slow down
for this turn. Oh did I mention, that for my first excursion onto the track I
waited until they closed the track to the adults and let the micros (5-7 years
old) out? There was only one there for practice tonight. A cute young lady by
the name of Danielle Coop. I waited for her to get about a half a lap ahead of
me so I wouldn’t catch her too fast.
Then I had my eyes opened to the world of
real racing. Ninety degree turns and U-turns at 30 or 40 miles per hour proved
to be a little more difficult than I had first anticipated. After I put in a
couple of laps I started to pay attention to things like my line into the turns
and where my braking points needed to be. I was starting to get the hang of
things. Then I noticed something that was terribly wrong. As I would go through
a couple of the hairpin turns I started to notice that Danielle was beginning to
run me down.
Whoa, this would never do. Even if I was
an out of shape 43-year-old race fan, on the track for the very first time in
his life, I could not let some 6 or 7 year old girl catch me and pass me on the
micro track! This called for drastic measures. I could hear the guys in the pits
laughing now and I was determined to not let it happen. Get on the gas a little
sooner in the turns and brake a little later going in.
I held my distance from her for a couple
more laps until I made the fatal mistake most beginners make and I knew better
not to make. Don’t brake while turning the wheels toward the turn. Whoops! Here
we go! I came around 180 degrees and stopped in the middle of the track. Engine
was still running so I moved the kart off the track, into the gravel and got to
watch Danielle go whizzing past and pretty much make me a lapper. Oh the shame.
I moved back up onto the track and
proceeded to make more laps, trying to make certain I was doing things the way
they should be done. My lines were starting to shape up and I could feel a
little more control happening over the kart. All went good for about three or
four laps until I looped it again. Yes, while braking in a turn. This time I
killed the engine and I knew my "fun" was over. A couple of kids
pushed me off the track so as not to be a hindrance to Danielle’s awesome lap
times and Richard brought out the flat bed to haul my sorry butt off the track.
First time out and I come back to the pits on the "hook".
I never dreamed it was that hard to
control a race car of any kind. Some may scoff and say a go kart is not a race
car but, I submit, that when you’re covering a 500+ foot straightaway in less
time that it takes to breath twice, with your butt only an inch off the ground,
it’s a race car. That front straight looks a lot longer from the grandstands
than it does from behind a helmet visor. Fly past the flag stand and before you
know it, you’re wondering if the tires are going to hold the track or are you
going to shoot off across the dirt and into the chain link fence?
I now have a much greater respect for the
guys who can do this for a living and be good at it. I don’t think that Mark
Martin’s technique of regripping the wheel while going through the turns is
quite so quaint anymore. I found I had to do it myself. My piddling little two
or three Gs in the turns and struggling to drive hard out of the turns must be
nothing compared to what these guys go through every single lap they race. Now I
understand why they put a head support up on the right side of their seats. It
is quite the chore to make a left turn under power while gravity is trying to
fling your body out of the kart to the right.
I can now see how a person like Tony
Stewart or Jeff Gordon can master these little racing machines and use them as
stepping stones to bigger and better things. While I have no notions of trying
to take any of their jobs away from them, I will struggle to learn what it takes
to go faster and keep Danielle from lapping me.
And anyone who believes that race car
drivers are not athletes needs a serious reality check. Each time I came off the
track, I was soaking wet, winded and exhausted. It is a wrestling match folks
and tonight, I was the one who got pinned. And tag-teamed and stomped and
generally beat up. And I’ll be right back out there Saturday night, giving up my
goal of staying on the lead lap and trying like hell not to get lapped more than
once. I need to seriously look into an exercise program and I need to begin
learning how to set up my kart to make it a little easier to drive. In short, I
want to be a race car driver.
So, to all you guys in NASCAR, the IRL,
CART and every other racing series, my hat’s off to you. I now understand what
it is to go fast and turn left. And right. Now I just want to go faster.