Why we race...

NewHemi · 09-07-2010, 11:47 PM

I don't remember seeing this posted here..But if it was, then I apologize for duplicating, and if this is the wrong place for it, I also apologize for that..

This is something my son Chris "Drooze" wrote about six months back.

Why we race.

After a nightmare of still startling imagery from last night, I thought today, hmmm, maybe I should write about it, not the dream, but rather the feelings and the conclusion. I had been reminded of the WWII films of "Why We Fight" and decided that for a title of this long winded scribe of my epiphany of last night. My writing skills are to be blunt rusty at best so please bear with the incorrect sentences and, and editorial contributions are not only welcomed but sincerely appreciated.

I have had rare occasion to put pen to paper over the last year, but after the dream of last night I felt compelled to. It was as many of us racers have, waking, in a cold sweat shuddering after some horrific calamity has befallen us and we are no longer able to race. As I woke, sweat cold on my brow the first thought that ran across my mind was "Why do I race ?" and like a 2:30 a.m. flood, it came to me , a question I have seldom if ever asked myself directly, I have of course been asked, by wives, by friends, by family, "Because its fun and I enjoy it" has always been my answer canned like a tin of sardines. But I have never thought "Why do I race ?" at least posed to myself with an honesty only I can know. I have never felt the direct need to I suppose, I just do. I like many others among our crowd have raced anything with wheels, (and even some without) since a young age whether it was minibikes with the neighborhood kids, or go-carts, later motorcycles, then into cars, we even blocked a street off once to race modified wheelbarrows, it did not end well.

I am far from a psychiatrist, although after I had been in two serious motorcycle accidents in a 4 week period I had one stop by my hospital room to I am sure see if it was intentional, or some something more sinister than bad luck like a suicide wish, only to have a friend barge in the room "Chris !" smelling like gasoline and leathers draped at her waist, and coming straight from the track, he shook his head as he looked at her from the corner of his glasses and said "Never-mind" as he wagged his head back and forth and made his exit and she managed to apparently ignoring my injuries hug me and plop in the chair he had just moments ago occupied. But It dawned on me at least for myself why I race, last night at 2:30 in the morning, not while lying in a hospital for a month, not at any other time in my life than after a bad dream at 2:30 in the morning. I am a mechanical aficionado, no ifs and or buts. I feel at one with the machine I am racing and even my everyday driver, I can feel every shudder, every pinch, every lope of the engine, every wind of the engine, at times I swear as if I feel the pistons scraping the oil from the cylinder walls, I feel the subtle pulse of the brake pedal as the calipers grab the discs, the gears mesh with the sncyronizers in the transmission, I feel everything a man attuned to his machine can. In a very real sense driver and car become one unit unable to perform their function without the other and depending on each other for the fulfilment of their task.

A car be it everyday grocery getter or our race cars are an extension of the driver. Our everyday drivers are a separate item and particular to a daily task or duty, but our race cars are representative of our very inner self. Most built by our own hands, with knowledge of every nut bolt and washer, a feel when things are right and when they are not. The hundreds of hours spent building, refining, dreaming of, and wondering how it will perform and what can be done to make it perform better are all extensions of our very real desires for success.

Most race car drivers I know are neither "Adrenaline Junkies" or seeking of glory from throngs of spectators. Every driver and car owner I know would be perfectly content to have a track in their back yard spending their days running solo with no competition or applause from the stands. It shows the singular nature of the man and his machine, together in nearly perfect harmony, a driver sitting at the staging lights, a thousand thoughts running through his head as his eyes dart from tach across dummy lights, to the tree all in a perfect symphony that only another driver can understand or appreciate. Don't get me wrong, cheers and whoops from the stands for our burnouts of spectacularly bad enviromental cause, and the joy of "shutting down" your opponent as you blaze through the traps to continue the concert of mechanical synchronicity as you pull the chute, drop the brakes as needed and shutdown for your turnoff. Or the thrill of everything going right, the knowledge that for that moment you are the best of the 2, or the hope that you will be next time. The adrenaline rush of a near miss or a losing traction are always good for an at the bar story of the close one, but those aren't the reasons most of us race. All these are a feel, a feeling that is almost primal in nature, there is no other worry, as you are hurtling at 150 miles an hour to the finish there is no voice of your wife asking how much you spent on this part or that, no wondering if there are going to be layoffs at work, or the state of world affairs in the Sudan, there is , for that moment only you and your car, and all seems well in the world.

I have had occasion and been fortunate to reconnect with many old friends as of late, very good friends I thought lost to the world and moving and the ins and outs of everyday life. Many have exclaimed "That's really cool you still race" or "Wow racing that sounds like fun" . Some shake their heads as if I were an adolescent that never grew up, which is in my case a foregone conclusion. And until recently It has been a long time since someone has actually asked me "Why do you race Chris?" , "Is there money in it ?", something that most of us racers are chuckling to ourselves "Yeah for the speed shop"

When a racer breaks his car, you don't see him cry, you seldom ever see tantrums, and if there are they aren't directed at the car but usually at ones self for forgetting or not feeling something was important enough to attend to. This anger if it can be called is once again not directed at the competitor, it is between a driver self and his car. The looks of our cars reflect this as well, or attention to the perfect detail of the parts that matter to us, its always interesting to look at the cars in the pits, bondo hardly formed dripping off the window rails, while the engine compartment , engine, transmission appear to have been put together by a mechanical savant, a watchmaker with every detail perfect, or the car that from top to bottom is nothing for appearance , but all performance, and the car that is a work of art in every aspect. They say an owner looks like his dog, I would fathom a race car is what the builder and drivers inner soul need to look like to themselves, be it a Mustang in white that one might as well expect to see at the stoplight leaving the track, or something so extravagant in paint and color as to make a peacock look as a mourning dove.

A racers car is in a primal sense a mechanical extension his very soul, his being, a suit of armor that makes him as agile as a cheetah with speed to match, as powerful as a lion taking down an elephant, as shrewd as a fox knowing what he is capable of and his prey is not, it is in every imaginable sense of the word , part of us. Our feeling at one with the car, our intrinsic, and instinctual knowledge of everything that surrounds us. Our cars are and become part of our being, part of ourselves for those few second that are inescapable. This is why we race, it is a feeling for a select few of us that cannot be matched in other aspects of our life, something where nearly everything, nearly every single thing of car and driver is not only within our control but of our own making, our destiny held only by our own hands and success or failure rarely a condition of our opponent. This is why we race, whether it be wheelbarrows, or cars, or motorcycles.

This is why we race.

David
The New Hemi Guy

hemidup · 09-07-2010, 10:32 PM

Chris couldn't have said it any better. He and I share the same passions...thats why we got a long so well together and thats why we race.

hemidup · 09-08-2010, 12:54 AM

David. You posted up this new topic at 10:47 PM. I replied shortly thereafter, however my reply was recieved at 9:32 PM?

Ed Fernandez · 09-08-2010, 01:04 AM

That's been happening for the past week.I'll let Kenny know about it.
Nice post David.Chris was a class guy.No he is a class guy.

Adger Smith · 09-08-2010, 01:46 AM

The same thing happend to me on the Greg Stanfield congrads that Jim Cimo... started.
It made me the first post and the poster when I was really after Jim..
Something bad wroing with the server, probably.
By the way David, Drooze got it right!

Alan Roehrich · 09-08-2010, 02:04 AM

They already know about the mixed up posts, Ken mentioned it yesterday. I think the server is losing and gaining time.

Ed Fernandez · 09-08-2010, 11:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alan Roehrich

They already know about the mixed up posts, Ken mentioned it yesterday. I think the server is losing and gaining time.

Wow,then Star Trek was real?

09-07-2010, 11:47 PM	#1
NewHemi Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Ohio Posts: 472 Likes: 0 Liked 1 Time in 1 Post	Why we race... I don't remember seeing this posted here..But if it was, then I apologize for duplicating, and if this is the wrong place for it, I also apologize for that.. This is something my son Chris "Drooze" wrote about six months back. Why we race. After a nightmare of still startling imagery from last night, I thought today, hmmm, maybe I should write about it, not the dream, but rather the feelings and the conclusion. I had been reminded of the WWII films of "Why We Fight" and decided that for a title of this long winded scribe of my epiphany of last night. My writing skills are to be blunt rusty at best so please bear with the incorrect sentences and, and editorial contributions are not only welcomed but sincerely appreciated. I have had rare occasion to put pen to paper over the last year, but after the dream of last night I felt compelled to. It was as many of us racers have, waking, in a cold sweat shuddering after some horrific calamity has befallen us and we are no longer able to race. As I woke, sweat cold on my brow the first thought that ran across my mind was "Why do I race ?" and like a 2:30 a.m. flood, it came to me , a question I have seldom if ever asked myself directly, I have of course been asked, by wives, by friends, by family, "Because its fun and I enjoy it" has always been my answer canned like a tin of sardines. But I have never thought "Why do I race ?" at least posed to myself with an honesty only I can know. I have never felt the direct need to I suppose, I just do. I like many others among our crowd have raced anything with wheels, (and even some without) since a young age whether it was minibikes with the neighborhood kids, or go-carts, later motorcycles, then into cars, we even blocked a street off once to race modified wheelbarrows, it did not end well. I am far from a psychiatrist, although after I had been in two serious motorcycle accidents in a 4 week period I had one stop by my hospital room to I am sure see if it was intentional, or some something more sinister than bad luck like a suicide wish, only to have a friend barge in the room "Chris !" smelling like gasoline and leathers draped at her waist, and coming straight from the track, he shook his head as he looked at her from the corner of his glasses and said "Never-mind" as he wagged his head back and forth and made his exit and she managed to apparently ignoring my injuries hug me and plop in the chair he had just moments ago occupied. But It dawned on me at least for myself why I race, last night at 2:30 in the morning, not while lying in a hospital for a month, not at any other time in my life than after a bad dream at 2:30 in the morning. I am a mechanical aficionado, no ifs and or buts. I feel at one with the machine I am racing and even my everyday driver, I can feel every shudder, every pinch, every lope of the engine, every wind of the engine, at times I swear as if I feel the pistons scraping the oil from the cylinder walls, I feel the subtle pulse of the brake pedal as the calipers grab the discs, the gears mesh with the sncyronizers in the transmission, I feel everything a man attuned to his machine can. In a very real sense driver and car become one unit unable to perform their function without the other and depending on each other for the fulfilment of their task. A car be it everyday grocery getter or our race cars are an extension of the driver. Our everyday drivers are a separate item and particular to a daily task or duty, but our race cars are representative of our very inner self. Most built by our own hands, with knowledge of every nut bolt and washer, a feel when things are right and when they are not. The hundreds of hours spent building, refining, dreaming of, and wondering how it will perform and what can be done to make it perform better are all extensions of our very real desires for success. Most race car drivers I know are neither "Adrenaline Junkies" or seeking of glory from throngs of spectators. Every driver and car owner I know would be perfectly content to have a track in their back yard spending their days running solo with no competition or applause from the stands. It shows the singular nature of the man and his machine, together in nearly perfect harmony, a driver sitting at the staging lights, a thousand thoughts running through his head as his eyes dart from tach across dummy lights, to the tree all in a perfect symphony that only another driver can understand or appreciate. Don't get me wrong, cheers and whoops from the stands for our burnouts of spectacularly bad enviromental cause, and the joy of "shutting down" your opponent as you blaze through the traps to continue the concert of mechanical synchronicity as you pull the chute, drop the brakes as needed and shutdown for your turnoff. Or the thrill of everything going right, the knowledge that for that moment you are the best of the 2, or the hope that you will be next time. The adrenaline rush of a near miss or a losing traction are always good for an at the bar story of the close one, but those aren't the reasons most of us race. All these are a feel, a feeling that is almost primal in nature, there is no other worry, as you are hurtling at 150 miles an hour to the finish there is no voice of your wife asking how much you spent on this part or that, no wondering if there are going to be layoffs at work, or the state of world affairs in the Sudan, there is , for that moment only you and your car, and all seems well in the world. I have had occasion and been fortunate to reconnect with many old friends as of late, very good friends I thought lost to the world and moving and the ins and outs of everyday life. Many have exclaimed "That's really cool you still race" or "Wow racing that sounds like fun" . Some shake their heads as if I were an adolescent that never grew up, which is in my case a foregone conclusion. And until recently It has been a long time since someone has actually asked me "Why do you race Chris?" , "Is there money in it ?", something that most of us racers are chuckling to ourselves "Yeah for the speed shop" When a racer breaks his car, you don't see him cry, you seldom ever see tantrums, and if there are they aren't directed at the car but usually at ones self for forgetting or not feeling something was important enough to attend to. This anger if it can be called is once again not directed at the competitor, it is between a driver self and his car. The looks of our cars reflect this as well, or attention to the perfect detail of the parts that matter to us, its always interesting to look at the cars in the pits, bondo hardly formed dripping off the window rails, while the engine compartment , engine, transmission appear to have been put together by a mechanical savant, a watchmaker with every detail perfect, or the car that from top to bottom is nothing for appearance , but all performance, and the car that is a work of art in every aspect. They say an owner looks like his dog, I would fathom a race car is what the builder and drivers inner soul need to look like to themselves, be it a Mustang in white that one might as well expect to see at the stoplight leaving the track, or something so extravagant in paint and color as to make a peacock look as a mourning dove. A racers car is in a primal sense a mechanical extension his very soul, his being, a suit of armor that makes him as agile as a cheetah with speed to match, as powerful as a lion taking down an elephant, as shrewd as a fox knowing what he is capable of and his prey is not, it is in every imaginable sense of the word , part of us. Our feeling at one with the car, our intrinsic, and instinctual knowledge of everything that surrounds us. Our cars are and become part of our being, part of ourselves for those few second that are inescapable. This is why we race, it is a feeling for a select few of us that cannot be matched in other aspects of our life, something where nearly everything, nearly every single thing of car and driver is not only within our control but of our own making, our destiny held only by our own hands and success or failure rarely a condition of our opponent. This is why we race, whether it be wheelbarrows, or cars, or motorcycles. This is why we race. David The New Hemi Guy

09-07-2010, 10:32 PM	#2
hemidup Member Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Minnesota Posts: 409 Likes: 0 Liked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: Why we race... Chris couldn't have said it any better. He and I share the same passions...thats why we got a long so well together and thats why we race. __________________ Jerry Williams NSS/A, E/S, PRO E.T. And the "Grandaddy" of Gen III Hemi Performance...The fire inside me still burn's.

09-08-2010, 12:54 AM	#3
hemidup Member Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Minnesota Posts: 409 Likes: 0 Liked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: Why we race... David. You posted up this new topic at 10:47 PM. I replied shortly thereafter, however my reply was recieved at 9:32 PM? __________________ Jerry Williams NSS/A, E/S, PRO E.T. And the "Grandaddy" of Gen III Hemi Performance...The fire inside me still burn's.

09-08-2010, 01:04 AM	#4
Ed Fernandez Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: NOO JOISEY nexta NOO YAWK Posts: 5,879 Likes: 38 Liked 100 Times in 45 Posts	Re: Why we race... That's been happening for the past week.I'll let Kenny know about it. Nice post David.Chris was a class guy.No he is a class guy. __________________ Former NHRA #1945 Former IHRA #1945 T/SA

09-08-2010, 01:46 AM	#5
Adger Smith VIP Member Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Texarkana Ark/TX Posts: 2,416 Likes: 517 Liked 760 Times in 291 Posts	Re: Why we race... The same thing happend to me on the Greg Stanfield congrads that Jim Cimo... started. It made me the first post and the poster when I was really after Jim.. Something bad wroing with the server, probably. By the way David, Drooze got it right! __________________ Adger Smith (Former SS)

09-08-2010, 02:04 AM	#6
Alan Roehrich VIP Member Join Date: May 2006 Location: Murfreesboro TN Posts: 4,970 Likes: 1,137 Liked 1,221 Times in 315 Posts	Re: Why we race... They already know about the mixed up posts, Ken mentioned it yesterday. I think the server is losing and gaining time. __________________ Alan Roehrich 212A G/S