Where would we be without the dreamers?

In all things great and small, each journey to the better life starts in the imaginary world of dreams. If one follows their heart and pursues what they seek, the dream can come true. Landing on the moon was the work of dreamers. A man once sailed to the west because he dreamed the world was round and so he wouldn’t fall off the edge of a flat world. Right on down to each of us who saw and pursued the love of our dreams or pursued to success what people said couldn’y be made, dreams  drove us to the reality of accomplishment.

Oh, the life of the dreamer! They call us fools, they call us “cheerleaders” when we speculate we can succeed. Let them do it. If there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s that skeptics never produced a single worthwhile item in any time. Most who need skepticism need it to validate their own laziness; they are too weak to work towards any goal.

So what do they do? With their imbalanced attitudes, they pompously work to demonstrate dreamers will fail in their efforts. If they succeed in this negativism, all that will be on the shelf is less of what might make a better world. What a product!!

Where would the world be if the French Impressionists who changed our visual comprehension–thereby starting decades of design enhancement–listened to the scornful disparagement directed at them and gave up? They didn’t, and our world became a better place. We are all better for the dreamers whose vision blossomed and presented us with the things we enjoy every day. We forget much of what we enjoy is the product of a dreamer, an Edison, a Ford, a Firestone, a Carnegie.  Beginning with the simpliest of products, games, foods, much of what we enjoy was born in the thoughts of a dreamer.

We are now in the most delicate time of our economical history. One third of this country doesn’t even know what’s happening in the economy, another third has their hand out, and then there is the last third–the people who are expected to pay for everyone’s recovery. The world appears to have borrowed more money than exists. And we are told we will tax our way out of this? With what? Taxes are the product of work. Work is the product of needs and produces renumeration, which is what supports all of us–and pays taxes. And what about that remuneration? Well, now we’re seeing its suspension, people putting off fufillment of needs and decreasing the work to be performed. The result? No sales equals no income which equals no money to pay increased taxes.

In a world where all things seemed possible, when for decade the opulence from over consumption dominated many lives, we now see the largest of companies failing or gone. They built what they could not sell. Many borrowed what they could not pay back. What will happen to the giants who successfully climbed to the top as in the story books but are now sitting on the roof baying to be rescued? What will happen to all of us in the face of the real adjustment needed in all things? It will take a dreamer to create the something we will need, something more complex than a moon landing. It will take optimists doing careful but imaginative planning to return us to stability. But in all of the travail reorganization and recovery will involve, there are two things certain. Those sitting in the wagon instead of helping to pull it out of the mire of failure will only add to the burden of the pullers. The second is, Americans will not give up. 

Those left from the wonderful world of our departed ChampCar must all pull together in a common realization of where in this economy we are. The thrill of open wheel racing could well be found–but at a more modest level than we have known. The highest level takes the most cash. Therefore an affordable ladder series may the only thing left which will keep the green flags falling. While some call such a series the bottom rung of the ladder, it has the best chance of staying on any ladder. Those fat cats on the roof may well find they have no way to leave without fallllling all the way down! 

The lesson I learned this year is the events, the gatherings, and the friendships made with the fan sitting next to me are serving to keep my dream of this sport alive far more than the things we all thought were number one assets.

For the men who seek to keep the racing we love before us, who accept challenge requiring extreme forethought to discover what will survive in a troubled economical future, there is never going to be too many dreamsand hopes, too much support and acceptance to help them keep our dream alive, the dream of American open wheel road racing again becoming part of our lives..

I’ve heard a man named Ben Johnston seeks this. The effort he is undertaking is his dream, our dream, our mutual cause, and when realized will do something of which we all imagine–release from the nightmare we have endured this year, return to pleasures we knew just yesterday. Many will call Ben’s dream undoable. Many will be skeptics, And these attitudes are productive of what?

I’m going to Savannah just to be there. If I meet only one ChampCar loyalist, it will be enough for me. The two of us will find two more, and then, and then,  and then  someday there could be thousands and thousands again watching what he and we created. And then?,,,,,paper

P.S. FWIW, the complete season of the Mazda Atlantics series on DVD is incredibly better excitement than what our top series produced. What can I say? It was better!

Bring back the fun!!

Has the partisanship which is touching all things extinguished the simple joys of fun? Has the intoxication of number one-ism conquered the relaxed pleasures found in experiencing things for what they are?

This week a very close friend of the last 7 years told me her son, a presently un-employed superstar, was called out-of-the-blue and offered a substantial amount plus a very generous travel package to go to Dubai and test in a new series called SPEEDCAR. Now while I was hearing the happiness and joy one person removed, the joy she felt was obvious; for this surprise offer pleased and excited not only my friend and her son but should please all of his fans. I was certain everyone would join together in their happiness and wish the best for him.

So why my “Where did the fun go?” speculation?  Well, as I watched a ChampCarFanatics string I started about the potential of SPEEDCAR, I saw some fans were belittling this new league. They called it a “retirement home” for DTM and F1 drivers. So, I went to SPEEDCAR’s website and saw the most amazing collection of great drivers from the last 20 years. Yeah, they are guys past prime age”–as determined by post teens, many of whom are part of someone’s trust fund used to secure a “pay driver” seat–but they are also guys who in most cases don’t need the cash. They are there to have what used to be the prime experience for all drivers, teams and fans. They are there to have fun–and I will bet the farm they will have the time of their lives.

It will be old friends racing again. It will be the last gathering of drivers who typically worked their way up, not bought their way in. They will be racing for the joy of racing, just as I’m pretty sure this series will be about race fans gathering to have a good time watching their friends race. This will be an event filled with real fun, not a bunch of fans banging their chests in front of some face on a cereal box screaming their series, their driver is Number One. As far as I can see, the world has a surplus of that.

In a world where people from the new generation say they would rather be famous than rich, there is the refreshing possibility of a new series where participants just race out of fun and don’t worry about whether fame finds them. If I’m right, that would be the most pleasant thing to roll down a straightaway in years. If fame does come to the series, it will be built on excitement and fans experiencing the fun that made them fans in the first place–not what some snake oil blender is trying to sell while chanting, “We are the tradition, look at how big we are!!”

I’ve watched that mantra ruin hamburgers, diners, most sports, politics, car companies. The list is endless, man!!!. You know, I have a hunch what we all want deep down is some just plain fun and SPEEDCAR with its graybeards and Greenprix with its young lions from Atlantics, drivers left in the vestibule of ChampCar who only had a glimpse of the altar. If those two fly, they could start the return to what we all miss in these corporate times, the simple pleasure of having fun.

And on the old guy thing? I still can take more Clapton, Jagger; and Mario was still the most amazing guy, even surrounded by kids, until the last piston fired.

Here’s to the fun we all used to have that many were not there to see!!! Hats off to the SPEEDCAR and Greenprix people for seeking something that can bring us back together., ,,,,,,,,paper

I will never forget the first time I met Tyler Tadevic. Tyler is the owner and team leader of Pacific Coast Motorsports.

The anxiety in waiting

As the days, weeks, months, years, as season after season passed by, my whole life was blessed with a series bringing me endless enjoyment. It was a heaven of escape, a dose of intrigue, a lesson in life which showed every element of reward, setback and recovery. Although we of the racing fandom came from different times, we all became family, a family of fans propelled into each haven on the same day. There are as many stories as fans in the connections which formed the essence bonding us. However the most amazing story is how without our series running this year we are still together experiencing shared anticipation in anxiously waiting to hear, see, and relive even one moment of our series again. The impact of when and how it comes will create a unique expression within each one of us. 

Some people will forever chant a “I’ll believe it when I see it” mantra. Others lament, filled with disappointment from a horrible day last February that crushed their hopes. They fear having their expectations raised only again to experience betrayal from a so-called merger to achieve unity which they knew was instead a sell- out more resembling a late night burglary than a joint effort for real unification. Then there’re the ones left still filled with passion to rebuild with the remnants, who see possibilities. Those people intend to take us to the very root of what we miss most, intend to rejuvenate, recreate, intend to bring us back together. 

When–cut off bluntly from a series that filled my life’s imagination–I look back over 5 decades from today’s exile, I see a sea of changes which proved we fans can adjust to anything if what kept us coming back remains the same: all of us together hearing the intrinsic value of the sounds, watching the motion of the cars, feeling the excitement of the competition. This experience gave us a lesson in rewarded success, bonded us to a personal choice we saw come forward and capture the goal of victory.

The first drivers I saw are now very old men. The first cars I saw are now embellished in legends of magic, antiquated relics of another time. The first tracks I enjoyed were clay. Everything has changed many times, but there was always each spring a more enthusiastic return and after the last checkered flag fell a sadness. Each year the anxiety for the next season was even larger. But this year the next year didn’t come.

I could write forever, you could write forever, about how and why what we had was destroyed; and we all could listen to excuses, rationalizations, and incomplete summations. But after the last period is put to the last sentence in the last paragraph, what still looms before us is there is nothing to replace what was destroyed. Instead of reliving the battles of yesterday, we must access our imaginations and rebuild our expectations, must start over, must bake from the basic recipe–we don’t want to lose the recipe again.

I know many are exhausted. I know many lost patience. I also know many wish to try again. Remember, please, what can be a new love cannot immediately be the full one lost. This rebirth must start with the first kiss, the one that speeds the heart, re-nourishes the soul, and implants the faith to love again.

Every spring when attending the first tests at Sebring, I felt a rush when passing the credential booth to go over the bridge I heard a ChampCar running through the gears. Each minute of sound made that minute better than the last. It didn’t matter who drove the car. From unknown rookie doing testing to famed driver polishing skills, it was perfect. The wandering aroma of methanol, the whistling of the gearbox, the unpainted carbon fiber, all distilled into the essence of the whole racing experience. Now the still-in-our-hearts essence is all we have left.

Or is it? Savannah, coming to Savannah will give all of us us the chance to gather one more time to embrace the simple ingredients forming the bond we still share. Aftewards, who knows what’s next? Who knows where ”next” may lead? One thing is for sure–there are many who will feel a rebirth, even if only for one more time, sharing all we now miss will be a new start towards a return. The anxiety felt waiting for what we wish to exist has not been eased by any substitute. The mystery of that is no mystery at all. The essence of the true American series was had only by the one which started it, maintained it, and evolved it for almost 100 yrs. Come to Savannah if you can, be part of the party celebrating this truth.

There is a somebody who thinks he can sell a series. There is a somebody who thinks he can make a new one claiming it is the real series. There is nobody who can erase the deep understanding we exiled ChampCar fans possess and then make us buy into his claims. Right now we only can sit in anxiety awaiting the re-birth of sincere racing that will mock the pretense we passingly see in most laps of the bogus series before flipping the channel. The sincerity we seek was nurtured for 9 plus decades. Can we bring it back? I’m in for trying, are you? Let’s try together,,,,,,,,,,,paper

The connection,,,,,

Oh these times, these times! I watch an election divide us further. I look at my own business with 75% of my last quarter being postponed. I hear of major clients removing investment money from the stock market in anticipation of a higher capital gains tax. I talk with many in the building trades and learn my breaking even is far better than they are doing. One client, a major supplier of gears for fortune 500 companies, saw his entire last quarter postponed. We all talk constantly of the problem. We all live in times when the only thing keeping us from a even greater level of concern–and in some cases depression–is our connection with each other as friends, clients, and participating citizens joined in a common desire for stability. That stability is now on thin ice.

There is a similarity between this big picture scenario and my personal connection as a fan of five decades to a racing series called by many names. When it was called ChampCar, I experienced the gathering of like hearts, minds, and souls. At one time during those decades we found our strength was in our fame. Building on fame, we gained increased funding, manufacturers’ participation, respectable TV ratings, and wide spread respect. All who participated realized the peak of success. Now the series is gone. The money stopped, there are no TV viewers. The peak of fame eroded into a flickering memory. There will not be an event next Sunday. All that’s left is the connection we all shared, still share, that introduced us to the sport, each other, and life moments of thrills, satisfactions.

In that connection lies the true seed of a future bringing us back together. We must cultivate this seed with the same concerned care as that of the world’s governments in their rebuilding of the destroyed economy in which we live. Both can be done; however the rebuilding must be done with real patience, real expectations, and real discipline. We must constantly keep in mind the journey to accomplishment will take time but will bestow more reward than joys betrayed by a  complacency which allowed failure to birth. In both situations, invincibility was too many times assumed. Much like earning entrance to heaven, attainment is not  given away but rather is the product of constant attention. Fans taken for granted mean empty seats, product apathy, and an exodus to other supports. Only by constructing on the foundation of our strong passions can this be done.Building on the exiled but still strong, still alive remaining connections will be the first step for any series’ bringing back the Sundays we all miss. 

Is there anything you have done this year for your sports’ fix rivaling an idling turbo cosworth, revs spiking at 8 am on a Friday morning? Has there been anything like when you walked through the just opened gate knowing the next 3 days would be beautiful and make that ChampCar event a lifetime event? Is there anything like reflecting back to every last second of each race weekend? For some it goes back to CART, for others it is back to Billy Vukovich, and for a few to Mauri Rose. All of us smitten with the beauty of the growing connection were bonded to something far greater than any race. We were bonded to each other. This connection, birthed from an evolving racing series of 9 decades, grew stronger as together we offered our support to keep this very essence of family alive–even while others wished, worked, and finally destroyed the truth in our connection.

This year the seats were empty, the motors silent. Our hearts, though, did not miss a beat; for we continued to feel and express the even-now growing passion for our series. Many slam us as “living in the past”. They fail to understand that for ChampCar fans our connection to the series, our love of hearing, seeing, and experiencing in our memories its sounds, sights, and surprises is still growing strong–even without a car being started. Our connection to each other, our hope to hear and see those beloved cars again will forever create a potential stage. Our connection to ChampCar, our passionate respect for what it is to us, will never let it die, will forever be the foundation for rebuilding. Don’t leave go of our ChampCar past, my family of fans, participants, and friends. It may just live yet,,,,,,,,,,,,,,paper

Living in the past,,,,

Yesterday I found a post on the IRL forum refering to “paper takes”. It started in a tone of reserved respect and concluded with a suggestion that if I would tone down my dissent from a series which created far more division than unity I would then be welcome–but only after throwing out the usual pre-juvenile “living in the past” insult. I guess I was suppose to read that, shake in my soul, and instantly repent holding such opinions. Well, guess what? I do live in the past, I don’t need to go back. I  do, on the other hand, find reflecting on what made better times better a valuable activity and as a result have those opinions.

Why? Because they were better, and I forever hope those reflections illuminate the very failed present. In these temporal reflections, I hope honest understanding emerges so a better future might be created. We open wheel race fans have not seen preperations for a better future–even though we are told it will come, the groundwork is being put in place, it’s on the way, just be patent–be patient. We are also told we will have to be led there “kicking and screaming”. Somehow I don’t see any kind of better future emerging out of this IRL recipe. What we all must face is the IRL is mired in a redundant present where the only offering of change is scrambling back to a generic CART without concern for original IRL fans who did the heavy emotional lifting being left behind. 

Sermons spoken by the typical IRL fan key off their leader and are filled with cliches: “there‘s blame on everyone“, “get over it“, and of course the ever used, ever trite “stop living in the past!” Those based on the last one are just plain ole’ bad sermonizing. Reflecting on the past reveals to the present what made our sport that to which we were drawn in the first place. Only when we regain the recipe for authentic open wheel racing now buried in the past and blend together the called-for ingredients will we remove the arrogant mindset that says of the fan/customers, “let them eat IRL cake“. 

In the present I see agendas built upon blindness and fumbled messages to fans and conclude most IRL fans do not care whether or not what is supposed to be a ”rescue” mission is again wandering from the big solution, which now is to fix what wasn’t even close to broken. Those fans jumped on a wagon of ovals, pulled hard to escape from street racing, foreswore motor leases, and cheered American short track racers put on The Road to Indy. You know the rest. You know what actually was done. They then with hat in hand and knees bent had every last thing they opposed shoved onto their backs. Accusing others of “living in the past“ is really a mantra of  criticism they chant to avoid facing their “vision” has become their nightmare and a past they are too embarrassed to face.

Irrespective of our serious differences, we know these folks are good people. I met a number of them a few years back at a funeral for a great friend of racing. In the conversations we had, I heard those IRL proponents forever bragging of “their INDY” while I told them of ChampCar’s committment to satisfying the desire of its fans. I understood then and still understand their pride in “their Indy”. At the same time, it amazed me then as it does now to see their lemming support of a management that caused the steady decline and fading reputation of “their” once great Indy 500–now but the first of three events at the once exclusive and hallowed Brickyard. 

To me, it is a disaster for any scheme, visionary or otherwise, to degrade the racing-world wonder into which Indy evolved. The folks I met who opposed as an act of treason any opinion contesting out of love what was being done to Indy produced in me a great sadness. They could not–and still can’t–see the real treason is any planning and executing that diminishes Indy. And that is what they were and still are embracing.   

I grew up around the Speedway. I so cherish I got to see it when we didn’t care who owned what! Then it was racing, it was innovation, it was dreams coming true for many. Now,,,, It was an American icon. It was the goal for young American drivers. It became a goal for European champions. There was no civil war in the sport. There was just Indy. Now,,,, Now the scars and wounds made by an insensitive attitude from a management betraying both sides’ preferences are making the dreams of fans but the dreams of fools.  Now American open wheel racing lies upon a cold, rocky field.

But now is the time the rocks must be removed, the soil tilled, and the best seeds from the last crop planted. Now is the time to begin satisfying the assembly of fans who preferred the true Champ Car model. not the one the IRL seems about to imitate after the assassination of our series. Satisfaction for us is not something grown from press agent’s hypeing mediocre drivers as superstars. In fact we do not even need the real superstardom CART once had. What will satisfy us is recovering from the past the racing recipe steeped in decades of racing history, not some manipulated tradution designed to entertain once-a-year “fans” busily chewing chicken legs. 

I will continue “living in the past”. Doing so provides what I know is a sensible opportunity to reflect upon what made things far greater than what I see in this failing present. Many fans don’t know what it used to be–just as many citizens don’t know what this country used to be–a time when people didn’t lock their doors, when politics was less divided and hostile, when we knew of much less divorce, crime, when shaming bad behavior was not an extinct reaction. There was even a time when news was not a barrage of “ how things don’t work today”. I hope we never see those who remember a better time stop reminding all others that only through constant respect and reflection can we present those better times to those yet to come.

In the trivial, elective world of motorsport, does anyone see a better world that should be sustained and presented to future fans? Or do you see a manipulation that continues to produce our sport’s decline, the product of a group lost in arrogance: “Now ChampCar is eliminated, we can return to ChampCar racing”. In other words, the new Vision will be to minic the racing that group for thirteen years worked to destroy in the name of the old Vision. If this is the present, I suggest we all take a good look at our past and rebirth the things that made us fans.

Some one will figure this out, hopefully someone is figuring this out right now; but only through constant reminder will we ever find the recipe again.

Now excuse me, I’m going to listen to some Jimi Hendrix, remember French fries as a vegetable, and muse upon a time when women typically were more feminine in heart. ,,,,,,,,,paper (lost in the past) ,,,,,,,

Who will romance the fans?

Years of concentrating on the athlete has left us at an altar of truant emotion. 

We have been smothered in endless disputes over contracts, questions of who is paying whom, battles for control amongst amongst leaders which became much larger than the fight for a championship. We know of drivers being forced to choose between not working or working in a series lacking in prestige while abounding in danger. We watched a 98 year old series that evolved the American Indy car demeaned by a  battle dealing more with the name of the cars than the racing. Is it any wonder we are all left with broken hearts mourning a beloved sport, are now no more than tolerated by its illegitimate substitute? No matter which side of American open wheel racing we were on, we today all want the self absorption of the power struggle that occurred to vanish. We want those who are the sport’s leaders to recognize it is we the fans who are at the core of the sport. Who will romance us–the fans?

Who will return us to the passion many of us once held? That passion is not lust but one beckoning with the mysterious attraction of love which holds no plan; it just is, something we struggle to define but recognize the instant it is experienced. Someday there will be a series with just such an intensity, a series reuniting feeling fans with each other. It will be about the bond grown over decades–not some personal fantasy in which a few tell us what we shall love in the sport. Instead we will be free to love it for its honesty.

Once upon a time there was much more of that honesty in our sport. Our sport, though, was targeted for destruction by outsiders but finally betrayed by one we supposed would be a protector. While it was with us, we who in honesty embraced it reinforced the honesty of those who struggled to keep it alive. Our sport was never all about drivers, it was never all about teams; it was all about deeply felt emotions coming from the honesty and integrity in which we fans of ChampCar bonded. It was because we the audience knew ChampCar was the true caretaker of the American Indy car tradition. We will never regain those emotions as long as we in the audience are recognized with respect, something denied us by naive spinmeisters who think some full page ads, manufactured racing, and phony claims will fool us into the same emotive support we gave ChampCar. Hasn’t happened, won’t happen. Most of all, it doesn’t deserve to happen to a business that spoiled something based in the integerity of sincere emotions.

Who will romance the fans? At this point in time with world economic crumbling, threat of a world war, political unrest possible, and terrorism a daily concern we all need gatherings reminding us of the basic elements that made friendships among us, nurtured our loves, put smiles on our faces, and placed joy in our hearts. The next level of innovation doesn’t have to be there for this to happen. The number one version of whatever doesn’t have to be there either. Success will be found just by our returning to the simple joys we once felt before mega bucks, power grabs, ego trips, and temper tantrums were placed ahead of what made American Indy car racing possible,,,,the audience.

How many bands continued when the music sucked? How many sandwich shops continued with stale bread and no consistent service? There is still open wheel racing only because some who coveted a success which is yet to appear and every year is more and more distant are still investing in their fantasy. It has not smacked them yet that they are pouring money into a now lost situation, what has become a veritable fantasy of adolescence. 

Who will romance the fans? Who will put us at an ease in which we will willingly return to racing events and with true excitement share our time and money even if money is very tight? It will be the one who brings us together to share the best parts of American Racing, not someone issuing a pronouncement to take what is given even when we are “kicking and screaming” over what is being ordained. It will be the one who comforts the fan, not challenges the fan.

I think I speak for more than myself when I say I want all of us to be together again. I just want to be with you to see one more green flag start the field towards the checkered, hear the mighty turbo and whistling gearbox, see the extreme acceleration, sense the lightning quick breaking of a road course car. But most of all I want to be able clearly to remember the event, not be beclouded by questions of who is paying whom, who controls what, and who is leaving if they don’t get an extra cookie because he or she is “The American”. 

Fans, drivers, workers, we are all in this together. The emptiness of what at present poses as American Indy car racing will be removed only when there is joined together we who remember and still feel what our racing was, how it felt before a handful of people and several companies raped the goodness from a wonderful thing. Who will romance the fans? The person who brings to us the feeling we had, the feeling we miss. And you know what that is,,,,,,,,,,,,paper.

What we really want?

Way back at the beginning of my fanship, when I was a kid, almost no one my age knew what the ChampCar trail was. They knew about the Cincinnati Reds, the Cincinnati Royals, and football anything; basketball of course was king ,queen, messiah, and the second coming for every Hoosier. In my case, love for auto racing  was a certainty; because my dad loved the sport, brought me with him to our local track.

Richmond Speedway, just a short distance from home, was a one fifth mile paved track that had nightly events in the 1930s. It, just like Indy, sat silent for the war years, grass growing over its surface. After the war there were races again, but times were harder than they once were. The grandstands shook when everyone stood up. No one remembered when it was last painted, but then I don’t know if anyone cared. 

Some of my earliest memories are from there, ones of Dad driving one of the “push trucks” that started midgets from where they had been pushed onto the track. For me it was everything.  Dad would let me sit in the back, and there I would be, looking out the back window at the cars as they were lined up to be pushed-off. To be on the track, in the truck pushing those midgets off to start the heats and then the semi and the feature was overwhelming.With almost the whole field of 24 midgets waiting behind me and me staring at the cars with the widest open eyes you can imagine, men in t-shirts with left arm in the air waving, Offies, flathead Fords, drivers ranging from pre-war veterans to kids who would go on to be stars, all this coming together in our outlaw event–it was perfect, it was forever a life moment.

There was more respect for sportsmanship then, for how you played the game, than the soon-to-come “winning is the only thing” or “second is first loser” mantra Vince Lombardi implanted. Being Number One, winning even at the cost of how the game should be played, somehow birthed a new attitude in sports fans, became more important than the game itself. Was that verson of life what we wanted, needed? As the years went  by, this attitude infected every sport. Now don’t get me wrong; winning is the best outcome in any sport. Let’s remember though, pursuit of victory irrespective of cost at times diminished the very character of participation in the sport, indeed of the sport itself.  

This small world had no headliner events, but I still felt an un-surpassed, humble excitement watching these guys race their hearts out for 50 bucks to win. As I reflect back, that innocence reminds of what brought all of us to this sport. It was the experience of seeing people happy even while being competitive, of working to do something the right way; somehow it was possible everyone in that kind of atmosphere had a good day. However back at my high school each day after the 500, it amazed me how many had no interest, didn’t even know who won, and thought it was just some grease monkey sport!

Dad and I had years of fun in that “grease”. We didn’t miss a single sprint car show at Winchester for 8 yrs. Whether IMCA or USAC we were there. USAC would not allow their drivers to run anything BUT USAC, whether it be midgets, sprint cars, or Big Cars (remember Troy Ruttman was suspended for running non sanctioned events). IMCA guys were outlaws. They were fellows with regular jobs who could not support their families on a racer’s winnings. They drove cars ranging from USAC legal down to old race cars found in abandoned in Midwestern fields that were canabalized and the result somehow made to run again. The motors could be anything, any size. These guys were not Number One anything–money, fame, success–but they displayed the most passionate love or racing you could imagine. Isn’t that what we all really want?

As I look back at this the first year of my life without racing, I see a racing world characterized by a continuing battle for popularity supremacy. But hasn’t that striving to be number one in popularity brought more grief than joy to all of us racing fans? I certainly loved ChampCar’s rise to increased fan awareness over my 5 decades,  but what I learned as we were reduced year after year by the split was I didn’t care how we ranked in popularity so long as we were racing. What matters to me was not our popularity standing but for the feeling birthed on the back of a ’51 Dodge pick-up to go on forever. It wasn’t any Number One thing; it was just plain admiration for people doing what they loved. Is there any of that kind of innocent in the Number One world? And if there isn’t, is what we instead have what we really want?

There’s an old expression which just might explain something: ”If you love something , let it go; if it comes back, its yours; if it doesn’t, it never was”. What has been placed on the tracks as a substitute for what 5 decades implanted in my racing heart is but a facade. It’s not even a substitute that can temporarily take the place of what I have known. Only a new love can replace the lost one .

So as the future becomes our present, we who have felt emptiness after the assassination of our series must probe deeply within ourselves to discover the salve to sooth our loss. For me it will be the beauty of what I saw on the back of that pickup truck in 1954. It will be the humble delighting the appreciative. It will be sounds I grew to love, cars that stroked my eye, continuation of soul–not extension of wallet.  As I in life learned many times, it’s not what you do but how you do it that gives meaningful joy.

Will we see this someday fellow fans? Do you see things done that invite you back to the track? What do you really want? I want a collection of all things I see missing in all that’s left. It doesn’t have to be a blockbuster. I’m not looking for a Number One. It just needs to be something that takes my hand and gives me what I once enjoyed–but saw replaced with a cold, disrespectful substitute struggling to be the Number One Tin Man. Is that not the experience so many of us race fans really want?,,,,,,,,,,,,,,paper

The missing essence,,,,,,,

Oh, the invisible essence surrounding what draws the heart–the excitement it brings, the comfort it provides, the delight when it returns! It can flow from the simplest of things: an image, an offering, a smile, a memory built upon a life of growing experiences. This essence can only come when there is honesty grown in an all-embracing  innocence. It’s like love. It has to happen. It can’t be like shopping–a checklist and a plan. This essence fortifies the enclosing innocence, nourishing one’s love forever. Now that ChampCar is gone the essence is absent.

For this fan, ChampCar produced that essence for 5 decades. Beginning with childhood trips to the Indianapolis Speedway, it spread out from the simplest moments within those experiences. From the first Offy to the last Cosworth, from roadsters to DPs, from Vukovich to Vasser, the essence of what grew the life of racing’s soul never diminished, never changed. Day after day, year after year, career after career, people changed; but the essence of ChampCar remained, pulling at the hearts of people as it had done for almost 100 years..

The new supposedly united series fails to do this for many. It is without essence, substituting instead an aroma born of the forced continuation which mimicks all that preceeded it. That series is more like a date planned on some internet love organizer site than the unplanned encounters where a spontaneous attraction occurs with first glance and then matures into true love. There will never be the essence ChampCar in sincerity worked to maintain. You see, the essence which provides real intrinsic value must build from the heart, not the mind–and most definitely not from a failing business plan. How from what substitutes for our assassinated series can there ever come the true essence which made us, the fans, devoted to a racing series? The wholesale destruction of what produced the essence I sensed my whole life can only be revived one step at a time by true believers who work and support the very heart, soul and personality we all find missing in the mere substitute.

I’ve watched ALMS this year, and it has been outstanding. For all of its wonderfulness, though, deep inside, it’s not, it can’t be, the love of my life. I went to the St. Pete IRL during its Saturday happenings to visit my refugee friends from ChampCar. Only one tried to put on a happy face. It was very sad. I saw a very neat track. I saw cars vaguely similar to ChampCars. The ingredients were there, sort of; but the essence that can only come from time and memories was missing for this fan. Why? It was contrived. What I saw was something wandering away even from what the IRL fan base wanted–and is finding progressively abandoned. Should any of that matter? Only if experiencing the essense of American open wheel racing matters.

The fact all who supported ChampCar cannot find one lap of IRL racing attractive gives a very deep look into our character. We ChampCar fans love our racing. We love the sounds, smells, atmosphere of our day at the track, but with what passes for racing at IRL events there is ”something” driving us away. That “something” wasn’t there in the series we eagerly anticipated seeing, happily paid money to witness, and in every way supported until its last, strangulated breath. What we experienced at Champ Car events–but cannot sense at those of the IRL–is the essence of a racing series. It was an old friend; it was an old love; it was a new friend; and always, even for us who had been with the Big Cars for decades, every green flag renewed, strengthened our love.

When the field was smaller, the names less familiar we did not stop supporting. The essence of ChampCar was the deep invisible connection every sound, pass, smell of methanol brought into our lives. Only time given in loyalty and dedication can build such bonding. It cannot be duplicated–as each mocking step IRL takes in its ill-begotten effort to imitate ChampCar demonstrates. It succeeded in its effort to become the only American Open wheel racing series. It failed in its effort to capture the soul of American open wheel racing. And so in the absence of the essence of true racing, it stumbles from venue to venue,,,,,but then, what else would you expect from this effort to create Dr Frankenstein’s monster?

The hope for a return of what has bonded ChampCar fans for years who now find after one season without them will only come from a true respect for all with no leveraging, promotion, or propaganda spewing announcers. The redefined race day that will bring us back will have to be nurtured from the ground up. It will have to be one that gives hope for upwardly mobile careers for its personnel. It will be one where its leaders, writers, promoters and plan every last detail for the passion of all within. There will be no “kicking and screaming” there will be “embracing with passion”. There will be the rebirth of the essence we all see missing.

I miss what the years have given me that this year failed to provide. It all seemed so hollow. I know what I felt. I know I’m not alone, and all the famous names and big events cannot implant a sincere feeling when they operate from where one has never existed.

For what all American Road Racing fans desire the time is ripe for bringing us back together. It will be from the innocent offering to show us what is missing. And that offering will be that invisible bonding essence that makes any day at the track connected to every day you ever spent at the track. It will be more than the cars, it will be more than our place in the event, it will be the reuniting of a fan base where the bond of a century old essence attaching all will be the strength. I truly hope we see it returned,,,,,,,,,,,paper

Paying the Bill,,,,,

Well lets face it, most ChampCar fans avoided open wheel watching this year. Those of us who did watch a lap or two were, first of all, repulsed at the phony optimism put out  by snake oil salesmen posing as race broadcastrers. Then when I looked at the product they were ballyhooing, I knew why they were trying to pull the old flim-flam. After decades of watching the real thing driven by people with the real stuff, what I saw on the screen were under-powered, ugly pretenders with the most repulsive motor sound I have ever heard. No wonder attendance and ratings are so mediocre–why would anyone who saw the racers of ChampCar, CART, and the Offy-roadsters of A.J. Watson want to soil their eyes and ears looking at that?! After administering eye drops to ease eye burn, I thought a bit about what I tried to watch. After a millisecond or two, this thought hit me. There will be a big, big price tag to be paid for any open wheel racing series, especially the one I honestly tried to watch, to return to the popularity our kind of racing once had. 

What poses as open wheel racing is really as bad as it looks and sounds; even a columinist who campaigned for the death of ChampCar now admits how unappealing the cars are and how badly the existing series needs new money. OK, that’s no surprise–but who will put up that kind of money, who will at the end of the day sign the checks? The man responsible for this expensive mega-mess seems to want to avoid facing the price. He is looking for others to furnish new money to cover the estimated $150M it will take to give his series a make over. There is another, though, one who  is rumored as willing to bring us back from the despair we presently feel. He is quietly listening to those who know what real racing is. His first payment towards the cost of recovery will be in the form of paying attention to what we supportive fans seek. The sincere person who sees the real landscape and respects the fans of open wheel racing is the person who will succeed.

Two more years of a drastically ugly sound? Two more years of a car with no artistic grace? Two more years of an engineered equality to create a base, sensationalistic presentation that even though close is ruined by repetitive predictability? The cost for this superficial production must be measured in terms other than dollars, euros, or yen. What was done to open wheel racing and first require addressing is the diminishment of a once great sport to a mockery. What it will take to rescue open wheel racing from the canyon of scorn is what must first be paid. Money, no matter what kind, will not restore respect. A farce is a farce, no matter how finely dressed. The real cost of pretending the existing open wheel series is offering bona fide racing, the real thing coming from those with the right stuff, of  ignoring the underlying problem, the artificialness of the racing, that real cost will only increase.

Disrespect is the real cost of the damage done to our racing by the existing series. That disrespect is obvious. Check the number of people who didn’t come to an IRL event, look at the number of people who leave during an event, note the year-to-year television ratings decline. Think of how the once honored  Indianapolis 500 has fallen, replaced as the most watched American auto race by NASCAR events. Consider how the series’ publicists try to explain the latest rating disapointment by pointing to the Olympics even though the Olympics were concluded hours before the event began. The failure, even though obvious in the case of outsiders, to recognize how open wheen racing lost respect is ignored by the series’ leadership . Doesn’t that leadership know ignoring the real cost only drives the monetary cost higher … and higher … and higher? 

The IRL is a sub-prime mortgage on which interest only payments are being made. Each year those minimal payment checks demonstrate less and less respect for the series and avoid recognition of the real and monetary cost of damage done. Now the IRL is searching for someone to bail the series out, to assume both interest and principle payments while leaving its leader still King of the Speedway. What I am seeing in the meantime is IRL leadership avoiding recovery costs by making minimal monthly check payments which only prolong the misery each of us feels while postponing the recovery our sport needs. All those payments provide are jobs for a number of drivers and team members and a pretense of open wheel racing events for those fans remaining loyal to anything with “Indy” in its name. The series itself must address what is necessary not only to meet costs but to enhance itself and earn respect. Only then will fans return in numbers that will stimulate sponsor interest and increase tevevision ratings. If not done, the series over the next several years will dissipate, becoming less and less and then be gone, replaced by wind blowing leaves over grandstand seats.

Recovery will only be possible if all open wheel fans return in unity. What it costs to achieve that, to recover from mistakes made, is whatever it will cost. The series leadership  claims it united six teams with six other teams; but without uniting the fans, the effort is useless. Each year since 1996 fans declared their disrespect for the cooked-up IRL claim to the open wheel tradition. They spoke again this year. Each year those fans renew their disrespect and each year they are excluded from IRL thinking, the gap between fans and success will widen. There will be a time, and it will come sooner rather than later, when any and all efforts to bring back to us fans the pleasures ChampCar, CART, USAC, and AAA provided will fail, fail because of TG‘s’ failure to unite all.

Will he seek the good will of fans, a good will necessary for the series to gain respectability among those who might wish to support it? Will he pay the real bill, interest and principle, necessary for success? Or will he just keep paying the interest on the constantly growing debt incurred by a racing series incapable of meeting its own costs, that must rely on profits from a NASCAR race to avoid even greater debt? Is the IRL a series with a direction and a place to go or an enterprise careening from retaining wall to retaining wall and spilling red colored liquid all the way? 

If there is any planning, it is for the IRL to morph into ChampCar a step at time–all the while ignoring the wishes of its original fan base. IRL leadership instead of working with its fan base seems to assume those folks will endorse whatever IRL leadership tells them to accept–just as it assumed we from ChampCar, even though kicking and screaming, would go over to the IRL side and buy tickets to several of its events, watching the others on TV. So now in addition to under appreciating the ChampCar fan base’s character it is stepping on the character of its own people! When the last open wheel series in America seems to have no sincere connection to any of us, is it any wonder interest in open wheel racing interest has diminished?

The time has never been better to rebuild the failed system from the ground up by anyone who will provide satisfaction for all by an honorable effort in which we can all  participate with honesty, will not with GREED  seek un-backed power, will be structured to live within its means and grown into a greatness we can all again share. Come to think of it, now, have I been making remarks about “Wall Street“ or describing what went wrong in our sport?,,,,,,,,,,,paper