Tuesday, 4 a.m.
The courage, I admire. To whiz around the track at ridiculous speeds while others whiz around at similar speeds, is amazing.
The skill, I concede. To balance such speed and such horsepower, must be like riding a lightning bolt.
The resiliency is staggering. For drivers to walk away from spectacular crashes, to gulp the air and settle the nerves and defy death, is rare.
So, yes, I can admire the components of a great race car driver.
It’s the rest of it that confounds me.
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I know, I know. A guy makes his living with an opinion about sports comes with the understanding that you will find majesty in all of them. And for the most part, I always have. Football. Baseball. Basketball. Hockey. Track. Soccer. Wrestling (not the pro kind). All the silly sports people embrace in the Olympics. I always thought the best thing about sports was the way the scenery constantly changed. By the time you were bone-weary of a sport, the season has changed and it was another ball being chased.
For whatever reason, however, I could never completely warm to auto racing.
Oh, the sport was good to me. I interviewed the actor Paul Newman about his love of auto racing, and he was warm and charming. The St. Pete Grand Prix always had good stories. And I covered three NASCAR races. But most of the time, I sped away from the track as fast I could. Fortunately, there was always someone else on staff who liked it more than I did; I let them have it.
I remember the first event I couldn’t get out of. It was in Talladega. The cars and I were younger models.
The exact moment I knew I was out of place came early in the race. Everyone on press row, in unison, rose to their feet and gasped audibly.
Now, understand this. The lead had not changed hands. There was not an accident. There wasn’t a gorgeous fan walking up the steps. Aliens had not landed. It was just a swarm of colors making left turns.
The last race I covered was a Daytona 500. I remember a press box conversation with the immortal Furman Bisher, the late columnist from the Atlanta Journal. Now, this was in the early 1990s.
Before the race, Furman looked at me and said “You know, I’m getting cultured as I get older. Last night, I was listening to a C.D. of these…Beatles. You know, they’re pretty good.”
“Keep listening, Furman,” I said. “Just wait til you get a load of the Rolling Stones.”
Bisher laughed, although he was just being nice. “No, I was at their press conference when they came to Atlanta,” he said. “I just never paid any attention. But I liked them.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “If they can stay away from Japanese women, they’re going to go to the top,”
Again, there is so much to admire about the men who build and operate these machines. I’m sure I’m just missing something. I’m the one missing out, not them.
On the other hand, vroom.