After a season of racing, Ceegar and I finished almost the same number of laps, but I finished two more than he did. After my engine issues in Seattle, after his dropped mirror in Spokane and flat tires and the wreck in Portland, it came down to two laps.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m headed north this weekend to get some sort of award for that. It doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019m the best driver, because I\u2019m not, or my car is the fastest, because it\u2019s not. It means I finished with two more laps over four or five races, and it’s a chance to get together with friends.<\/p>\n
The organization we race with is letting cars 15 years newer join the fun. I\u2019m all for it if it brings more people out to play, because our sport is dying. But part of me doesn\u2019t think it will make much difference.\u00a0Kids don\u2019t grow up to be gearheads anymore.<\/p>\n
Strange, because we live in a time when the most amazing cars ever sold are coming right from the factory, cars with 600+ horsepower that handle better than the most sophisticated race car of 40 years ago. Better than much of what we run on the track on race weekends.<\/p>\n
Putting that kind of firepower in the hands of the untrained is stupidly irresponsible. Eventually enough bad things will happen that nobody will be able to buy these machines.<\/p>\n
Instead, Google electric cars will drive us safely to buy crap from China we don’t need sold at whichever shopping mall we programmed in and while we play with our email until we get there. Won\u2019t even have to look outside.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s probably time for me to think about slowing down, but I saw a T-shirt years ago that said, \u201cThe faster you drive, the slower you age.\u201d Maybe that\u2019s something from Einstein, I don\u2019t know. But for those of us out there every season, it seems to be true. Or maybe we\u2019re just a bunch of aging adolescents who believe it\u2019s true by avoiding the mirror.<\/p>\n
At some point, reality is going to catch up with us. I worry about that a little bit. It\u2019s not just kids today who have access to power and speed that might exceed their ability.<\/p>\n
Cowboy\u2019s building a new car, Canuck will probably have his finished. Beater will be ready to go in his new Frankenvette. Ceegar will get it done with his Mustang, he always does, and I\u2019m not exactly sitting out here in MiddleofNowhere Oregon waiting for the sun to set.<\/p>\n
We may be building cars that are faster than we are. I wonder if something bad is going to happen one of these days because of that. We\u2019re not fly fishing out there. If we coax these thundering, howling beasts up from 160 mph to 167 mph, what might happen? Those are speeds that professional drivers would have loved to turn not that long ago.<\/p>\n
Do we have the chops for that? The judgment? What happens if we build bigger engines but don\u2019t have bigger brakes? If parts fail that we amateurs don\u2019t want to spend money on?<\/p>\n
I suppose that\u2019s the nature of the game, and we\u2019re still playing. Bigger motors, wider tires, faster cars. Ready or not, here we come. It’s not about awards. We\u2019re still out there because that\u2019s what we do, the cars are faster because that\u2019s what it takes, we keep looking for more because that\u2019s who we are.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s never enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After a season of racing, Ceegar and I finished almost the same number of laps, but I finished two more than he did. After my engine issues in Seattle, after his dropped mirror in Spokane and flat tires and the wreck in Portland, it came down to two laps.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m headed north this weekend to get some sort of award for that. It doesn\u2019t mean I\u2019m the best driver, because I\u2019m not, or my car is the fastest, because it\u2019s not. It means I finished with two more laps over four or five races, and it’s a chance to get \u2026 Read more\u2026