<font face=\"Verdana, Arial\" size=\"2\">...Why the negative on someone \"buying\" a ride...?</font>
This question bothered me, as did Andy's reactions to Kirk's post. It bothered (and surprised) me simply because I had made my initial post with the purest of intentions, and had not considered that someone would react in such a way. I suspect that Kirk felt the same way.
The posts that I offered were not intended to be "negative" as inferred. In fact, they were intended to be offered for exactly the opposite reason, as more of a warning than a discouragement to pursue a dream. How so? I'd say that it fits right into the mindset of "been there, done that, didn't get the t-shirt."
I've observed that motorsports, when taken to a level above "just something to do on the weekends" brings out the best and the worst in the human animal. Those that are deeply involved in motorsports - and I think that this would encompass just about everyone that is a member of this board - experience the gamut of human emotions and desires at an extreme level: pure joy, hurtful sadness, great anticipation, bitter disappointment, greed and envy, satisfaction, dissatisfaction, friendship, enemies, wonderful generosity, nasty selfishness. When taken to a higher level, such as when one decides to make a living at it, those emotions are raised to a level of survival. Somewhere along our journey we find two lines of emotional demarcation: the one where you get serious about the weekend fun, and the one where you must succeed to survive. Each time you cross one of those lines the emotions of your involvement quadruple then quadruple again.
Those that manage to experience such emotions and involvement (and ultimately escape) naturally look back to find the reasons for leaving. While inability to perform is always a concern, the primary - almost sole - reason for leaving or not entering to begin with was/is financial.
Among club racers especially, we have an attitude that if we do well, win, and look good someone is going to rescue us from among the weekend warriors and offer us a pro ride. That may have happened to Jim Clark and Dan Gurney, but that was nearly fifty years ago. It certainly does not happen today. Hell, that probably has not happened more than a handfull of times since the early 1970s. However, everyone one of us to a "T" still believes that it can happen. We still believe that if we win that next race, or the OMP Challenge, or the Spec Miata Cup, that there will be a bevy of team owners itching to get our phone number and plop us into a World Challenge car.
"Those That Have Been There" know better. We know that no matter how many times we beat the guy with the better car, he was the one to get the ride because he had the money. We know that even though we maxxed out credit cards and student loans to buy some pro rides and did exceptionally well with them that we lost the ride the following week to someone with a checkbook. We know that no matter how hard you try, "money talks and talent walks." We know that the vast majority of the Indy 500 field, the World Challenge and Grand Am field, hell, even the back half of the Formula One field is rent-a-rides in some form or another. Talent will crack open the doors, but money is what gets you past the threshold. More money will open the doors regardless of talent.
I *know in my heart* that I can drive better than that checkbook! Can you imagine the emotions that situations like this takes a person through? Can you imagine the frustration of knowing that you are capable of competiting but cannot simply because you didn't win the Lucky Sperm Lotto? I cannot imagine how many driving greats have been lost to history simply because they didn't have a father that nurtured them through karting circuit, then some feeder series, then on and on up the ladder. Look at the guys that are making it today and pick out the one that turned himself into a public corporation to buy the F1 ride, and the one that has an entire COUNTRY sponsoring him, and the one that had a father that dropped him in a kart at age 2. Find the WC guys that started in SS, bought or built WC rides with their own money, then finally managed to do well enough to get paid by the factory. On the flip side, look at racing today and find me someone that was plucked directly from club racing to become a driving great, all free of charge? There may very well be someone out there, but even ex-NYC taxicab driver "Spin N Win" Sullivan was working his ass off to back up his prodigious talent (and to his significant credit, he's working his ass off again to try and bring up the talent through the ranks).
Even the latest success story offered is a case in point. Truly a talented driver for sure, but even a win in a prominent spec class did not get him a free ride. He had to buy the last year's race car (and already has to replace a blown engine), "might as well" run the spec car again too, plus is going to run a T1 and an SBB in the National scene in 2004 on top of it all. He has great potential looming as a journeyman driver, but unless I miss my mark there's some serious personal money (and no job/life constraints) wrapped up in this program. That Spec win didn't get him free rides.
The bottom line is that professional motorsports is not some Great Society experiment where the cream will rise to the top to be skimmed off and used for grander purposes. Auto racing is a BUSINESS, and decisions are made for business reasons. Those of us on the bottom "rungs" that fail to realize this can be bitterly disappointed when we show ourselves to be the cream but find the milk being scooped out from underneath us.
Having been through the old milkpot blender certainly gives one the opportunity - if not the right - to be a cynical bastard about professional auto racing. And while it may seem rude to point out racing's "dirty little secret" (as if it were really a secret to begin with) I sincerely wish someone had pulled me aside 20 years ago and said, "Look, bud, you're a good stick but until you get the money you won't get the seat." I wouldn't have believed him, I would have called him a cynical rude bastard but maybe, just maybe, I would have kept an open mind to learn how to work the system instead of working against it.
"Negative"? It's not negative in my mind, unless your outlook is one of the motorsports optimist. No, I'd say it's the sudden welling of all the old emotions - greed, envy, excitement, disappointment, bitterness, resignation - coming back in one rising bulge upon learning of someone else taking the bulls by the horns and making their own opportunity. I personally wish the Flatout crew and everyone else that takes their shot the best of intentions, I wish I was going with you. I think you will find no one that supports a run at the brass ring more than someone that's tried it. However, no one should expect a Pollyanna-esque view of "all you have to do is be talented and try hard enough" because that just ain't reality.
If that makes me a cynical rude bastard, so be it.
GA (CR
[This message has been edited by grega (edited January 24, 2004).]
