The Haphazard, Half-Hearted Pursuit of the Racing Life

From the June 2016 issue

Last summer I took an evasive-driving course from the training company BSR, spending two days at Summit Point Motorsports Park in West Virginia ripping around in old Crown Vics and driving backward at high speeds. I also learned some handy tricks in case I run afoul of some bad ­people after losing a Super Bowl halftime prop bet involving Barry Manilow riding a dirt bike while covering 2 Live Crew’s “Hoochie Mama.” Here’s a tip: The ignition wires on your car should only go to the spark plugs.

Bombing around a road course in cheap, fun cars got me fixated on the idea of attaining a racing license. Which would mean getting a race car. Then I’d be able to do this sort of thing all the time, while improving my driving skills. “So you see, honey, it’s really my professional responsibility to buy a caged Fox-body Mustang. It’ll be like a continuing-education credit that is also loud and dangerous and lowers our neighbors’ property values.”

Feeling the need for organized, officially sanctioned speed, I contacted my regional SCCA honcho to find out how to acquire a competition license. The SCCA has a reputation for being persnickety, but attaining a license seems pretty straightforward. You either go to a driving school and get some type of certificate affirming that your nickname is not Crashy McReckless, or an SCCA instructor vouches for you. It’s like joining the International Order of St. Hubertus, but with cars and racetracks instead of green robes and a founder named Count von Sporck. Who was a real guy. And now you’ve learned something today. Why am I suddenly hungry for mashed potatoes served in a Styrofoam cup?

Anyway, getting the license isn’t an undue challenge, but then what? I tell myself that if I had a racing license, I’d get invited to drive some race cars and then I could write stories about those adventures. However, there’s an inherent problem with the “writer driving a race car” genre. Those stories always amount to “I went way faster than I thought I could go, but not nearly fast enough to stress the car.” Because, what else are you going to say? “Yeah, I think I have some ideas on how to improve the limit behavior of this McLaren F1 car.”

Dyer felt the left-rear tire was 1.5 pounds too low.

No. You’re going to make excuses for why you did three laps and the tires are still colder than a narwhal tusk. I once drove an F1 car and the brake cooling ducts were taped off because the brakes were made out of some kind of material scraped from the lint screen of the Large Hadron Collider and had the stopping power of a Pam-coated toboggan unless they were at race temperature, which is 10 million degrees. I drove that thing as fast as I could, but I gotta say, I left something on the table because of my deep respect for the machine and also I didn’t want to wee in my borrowed race suit.

Besides expanded access to cars that are way beyond my ability level, attaining a racing license would also mean that I’d have to work on my attitude. Because if I somehow acquired a reasonable level of track-driving skill, I would not be humble or gracious. I know myself: I’d be a real dick about it. I mean, I kind of already am, and I’m not even good.

If you’re really good, you don’t even say anything about it. Fellow journalist Alex Lloyd writes about cars, but he’s also an accomplished pro racing driver, which is really annoying. At the Dodge Viper ACR launch at Virginia International Raceway, Alex terrified one of the track instructors assigned to ride shotgun on our hot laps. You see, he didn’t pull any bluster to the effect of “I qualified at 225 mph for the Indy 500” before going out and driving like someone who qualified at 225 mph
for the Indy 500, thus causing the poor instructor to assume that the maniac behind the wheel was a hopelessly deluded prose ­monkey suffering from a terminal case of inflated self-esteem. Naturally, the instructor’s reaction was something along the lines of: “Slow down! We’re all gonna die! I hate you!” Even then, Alex was low-key.

Now, if I’d been in the same situation, it would’ve turned out differently. Because the moment I strapped into the Viper, I would’ve casually remarked, “This steering wheel reminds me of another car I drove that had a steering wheel—the Indy race car that I raced in the Indy 500 when I was professionally racing race cars.” And the instructor would’ve replied, “I already know that, because your helmet says ‘PRO RACING DRIVER’ and so does that tattoo on your neck and you already gave me an autograph, which I did not request.” And I’d reply, “What?” because I wasn’t listening to any of that, on account of I was pondering corner balance or downforce parabolas or whatever it is that race drivers ponder.

It’s all a lot to think about, isn’t it? That’s why I’m still thinking about it instead of following through. Plus, I like having excuses. If you see me out there and I’m not the fastest or the cleanest or the least covered in flop sweat, so what? It’s not like I’m a race driver.