Wing Side Up
by Bob Gangwer
10.25.09 Oswego, NY….One, two, three, four, five. It’s not just an exercise in county that spurs me to mentally mark each of the white reflective markers on the right side of the eastbound lane of I-90. At just past 5.00am on this damp, cold Upstate morning in late October, it’s a wonder that my, not so gracefully aging, mind can actually remember what comes after five. But it does, and spurred on by the drops of liquid black gold making it past my lips to the hollows of my antacid coated stomach, I come to the tally of 40.
So, sitting shotgun in the Hayne’s family fun mobile scanning for the deer that is surely looking to leap squarely into the headlights of a supermodified towing Freightliner truck only to become venison burger courtesy of “Hammer” Haynes heavy right foot, I am now armed with yet another piece of seemingly worthless roadtrippin’ trivia. Notice I wrote ’seemingly.’ You see as I marked each white reflective flash leading up to another green mile marker, I had something of an Epiphany. I started to wonder why.
Insane in the Membrane
On so many levels, this entire life of traversing the Eisenhower Interstate System en route to the next race, reeks of a form of insanity not so much dissimilar to the likes of that which has given rise to the current lackluster American economy that we racer seem so willingly ready to embrace.
Fuel, motels, oil changes, rock gut road rations. Pit Passes, tire bills, time off work. Add it all up and it would seem that this is as much of a sure fire recipe for financial and personal disaster as the one on the back of the Tollhouse Morsels bag is for great chocolate chip cookies.
Why anyone would subject themselves to this repeated lunacy has now become the question that plagues my slowly waking mind as we move along the Mohawk River Valley.
Plausible, Not Probable
It’s not for the fans I’ll tell you that. As much as we’d all like to believe that the winged warriors of speed are driving down a thruway, turnpike, or toll road towards our hometown just to put on a show for us; I can tell you with certainty that you can throw that idea right out the window. I can assure you that at no point of this five hour tow will the thought of “Boy, I sure can’t wait to pull into Thompson International Speedway so that I can risk life and limb just to put on a show for those fans,” is ever going to cross the mind of either the father behind the wheel; the lone crew member who has taken my place shotgun; the mother is who cramped into the corner; or the sleeping beauty I call GQ. I can even safely say that not even the sleeping dogs that occupy the floor of the rig are thinking that this run is about satisfying the fans.
Is it for the money? I don’t think that, but for the most neophyte, pseudo wanna be, NASCAR Nation fed fan would believe that the idea of getting rich quick in racing justifies much more than the sentence I just written in explaining why these people are not doing this for the money.
A Solution?
It would be simple enough to say to someone afflicted with this disease, “stop going.” A whole lot of time, hassle and headache could be saved if these road weary travelers were to find a more sensible hobby-say badminton or croquet. I don’t think I’d be too far out in left field if I were to say that none of us in this cab can say we aren’t at least a small bit relieved that this is the last trip of the ISMA season.
Maybe that part of the reason we didn’t leave last night and are on the road so early this morning. Even as the car was loaded and I tightened up the final tie down strap, I sensed that the enthusiasm for getting on down the road was waning.
Sick Ain’t All Bad
Is it a bad thing if, throughout ones life, a person chooses to do what many would find senseless, yet for the most part enjoys doing what many can only dream of? As the sun begins to rise over the hills in front of us, I have to believe that maybe there doesn’t have to be a reason to plead insanity. Maybe it’s ok to piss money into the wind while risk losing a job or suffering personal injury in the quest to find that personally gratifying and legal high.
Another 40 white and one more green go by and I am reminded of, not only the challenges each of these teams have faced on another long ISMA trail, but also of what a dear friend repeated to me this week when I questioned her sanity concerning the recent developments in the MSA, of which she was a major participant.
When I asked “Why would you want to do something like this?” She responded with a question of her own. Bringing up the name of one of our mutual friends, who before meeting his untimely death at the wheel of a supermodified, was always known for his ‘matter of fact’ replies and tongue in cheek humor, she asked, “What did Terry always say?”
As we responded in unison, I got my answer then to that particular question and I have my answer now as well. “Why,” one may ask. Because, “It’s what we do.”
The End
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