Fascination, pipes are glowing in the heat
Am I the fastest one can I improve
Making a late run I still got the groove
Pole Position, I'm on the top prepared to win
Rising tension, the lights are set, the start begins
Smoking Wheels, I'm getting faster, take the lead
Shifting gears, the engines pushed up to top speed..."
Primal Fear-"Formula One"
Wasteful. Dangerous. Loud. Obnoxious. Boring. Not real athletes.
As an auto racing fan for pretty much my whole life, I have heard all the reasons why certain people don't understand or like auto racing. "It's bad for the environment. All they do is drive in circles. How much talent does it take to drive a car? You sit, turn a wheel, and press on pedals...how does that make you an athlete? It's just a huge cock measuring contest to see how fast a man can go! It's so dangerous! Why do people risk their lives to do it?" I'll get back to that in a bit. First, a flashback.
Many early memories of mine either involve music, sports, or a car of some kind. Be it dancing in my playpen to Linda Ronstadt records, Dad watching an Eagles game, or Saturday nights under the lights with my mom and uncle on the back stretch of Silver Spring Speedway outside of Mechanicsburg, PA.
Ahh...I miss those days. I can't remember how we would get there, or how long the trip was, but we would be sitting on a blanket on a grassy area near a fence that surrounded a muddy looking oval. I would remember dad saying "We're going to the races". I would be like "ok, what is racing? Who is racing? Why are we sitting here staring at a muddy oval?" All I would see is this old truck driving around wetting down the mud to make it muddier. Being a child who loved to get dirty, I wanted to play in that mud!
Soon, cars started coming on to the oval with bright numbers painted on the side of them. Some looked like cars, others looked like bizzare insects with funny looking wings on the top. The noise they made sounded like the buzzing of a horde of locusts sent by God himself when he unleashed the plagues among the Egyptians. It was so loud it made me cry and I had to stick my fingers in my ears. I did not like this. I wanted to go home.
Then, my mom pointed to a red and white car with a yellow number 42 painted on the side. "That's the car that daddy helps out with", Mom said. It was driven by Bob Stone, a friend of dad's. Dad worked on his pit crew as one of the mechanics.
Silver Spring Speedway, closed in 2005. A Wegman's and a shopping center are now at the site.
Naturally, he became the driver I rooted for. I think it is also the reason my dad bought me a toy version of Kyle Petty's NASCAR (Petty's number was 42). I don't recall if Bob Stone ever won a feature race...he might have won some heats and consis (qualifying races for the feature, which is where the big money and points were awarded), and frankly, I don't care. All that mattered was that my dad worked for his team. Those Saturday nights filled with noise, lights, flying bits of clay (the track surface was clay, not mud), a blur of colors, close wheel to wheel action, and the occasional crash, made me a fan of speed, cars, and racing for life.
As I got older, I watched NASCAR racing, the popular form of stock car racing in the USA, IndyCar racing (an American open wheel racing series), dirt track racing on ESPN, and Formula One (the premier level of racing in the world). My dad got me a slot car track for Christmas one year and one of my favorite memories was racing with him on that track. There was also go-kart racing aplenty when we would take our yearly trip to the beach. Yes, throughout my childhood I got a regular dose of speed (racing, not drugs). I would have been perfectly happy to have a career in racing, but you have to have money, sponsorship, knowledge of machinery and how an engine works, and the ability to operate a car with a manual gearbox. I had none of those things, although I am still pretty damn quick on a go-kart track.
When I became old enough to drive on my own and a job entitled me to my own income, some friends and I were regulars at Silver Spring Speedway once again, but this time, we decided to spend the money and get pit passes, which entitled you to access to the pit area. That is the ultimate place to watch a dirt track race, because that is the nerve center of raceday. All the teams and drivers are there preparing the cars to do battle on the track. We hung around a few teams and were allowed to lend a hand cleaning the race car of several drivers such as "Wild Bill" Heckert and Buddy Riggleman. Those were some fun times. Yet, I did not possess the mechanical know how that my father had, so there was no future in it for me. My friends would ridicule me for my lack of mechanical knowledge and that was when my dream to drive a race car in some way, shape, or form died.
Pit area at Silver Spring Speedway
Wheel to wheel action between two Super Sportsman cars at Silver Spring Speedway
My happiest memories of my dad always involved racing, be it on TV or at Silver Spring. His favorite NASCAR driver was Dale Earnhardt, the Intimidator, 7 time NASCAR Winston Cup Champion. Every year, my dad would host a party for the Daytona 500, the first NASCAR race of the season. In 1998, I could not join him due to working the morning shift at my nursing home job. Also, by then we had started to grow apart due to the fact that I was getting into music and just getting in to doing my own thing. When I got home though, it was the happiest I had ever seen him. This 46 year old man that always seemed so serious had the biggest smile on his face as he told me giddily "Matt, Earnhardt won!". Yes, while Dale had won 7 championships and many races in his career, the Daytona 500 was the race that always seemed to elude him. Finally, in 1998, he won it. My father was happy like a child, and so was I. I am close to tears thinking about how happy he was that day. It was the last time I ever saw him that happy, and probably the last great memory I have of us as father and son. Depression took hold of my dad that year as his marriage to my mother deteriorated, and he took his own life in September of 1998. At his funeral, I put a model of Earnhardt's Daytona 500 winning car in the coffin with him.
Dale Earnhardt's famous black number 3 car, sponsored by GM Goodwrench.
In 2001, Dale Earnhardt was killed in a crash on the final lap of that year's Daytona 500. You can go ahead and mock me all you want, but I had felt that my dad had died all over again. I haven't watched a NASCAR race since. However, I still keep several models of Earnhardt's cars on display and still wear some of my dad's old Earnhardt t-shirts as a tribute. So, if you ever see me wearing one, or one of his cars sitting on my windowsill, you know why. I still love racing, because I love my father and I still have a dream to drive a proper racing car. Call it childish, call it foolish, call it dangerous, but maybe after hearing my story you will see why this long haired, leather clad rocker still holds on to that dream. Rock and roll is beautiful noise. The sound of a racing engine at full bore is beautiful noise. The two are not unrelated. Beautiful noise creates beautiful music, be it a solo on a Fender Stratocaster or the roar of a Ford Cosworth DFV V8 engine.
Back to my earlier point...
So, why do people risk their lives to drive a racing car? Because it makes them happy. I am sure the star drivers of today, just like the legends of the past, have memories from their childhood that grew into a passion for speed, to be the best in the ultimate test of man and machine. Maybe they watched Niki Lauda or Richard Petty with their dad. Maybe their dad bought them a ticket to the local dirt track, or the Pocono 500, or the United States Grand Prix. Maybe their dad helped them build their first go-kart, like my dad helped build my first slot car track. Maybe father and son both watched in horror as Tom Pryce crashed into eternity at Kyalami, Gordon Smiley careened into his final turn at Indianapolis, or Dale Earnhardt hit the wall for the last time at Daytona. Maybe they cheered as Ayrton Senna won his first F1 world championship, or Al Unser Jr. won the Indy 500, or Alan Kulwicki did his famous "Polish Victory Lap" (Kulwicki was Polish, and he coined the term, so it's allowed) after winning the 1992 Winston Cup. Every racing driver, from the most successful to the backmarkers, all have the same dream that one day they will be remembered as a legend, just like they admired their heroes as a child. To achieve that goal, they accept the risk of death that goes along with it, even though racing has become a lot safer in the past 30 years: roll bars, survival cells, aircraft style fuel tanks, SAFER barriers, the Halo, the HANS device and many other devices and safety measures have greatly decreased the risk of injury and death, but the risk will always be there. Still, they strap themselves into the seat and put on the helmet, because the love they have for what they do far outweighs the dangers, and who are you and I to tell them to stop trying to go after their dreams?
As for me, I still have dreams, and that childhood dream of getting behind the wheel of a real race car still is in my heart. It might never be fulfilled, but that does not stop me from hoping that one day it will. Never, ever, let someone tell you that your dreams are not worth having, because you can not know or understand why someone has them. You cannot even pretend to know, and you do not know what joy those dreams give to the dreamers who dream them. There is someone in heaven who will be watching if that dream ever becomes a reality for me, and in that moment...father and son will be reunited in spirit.
Dedicated to the memory of Anthony William Bankes (1953-1998). I love you, Dad, and I miss you.
No comments:
Post a Comment