I didn’t drink my Slurpee fast enough
“If you don’t expect too much from me, you might not be let down”
“I’m slow, I’m not new”
Dave Stevens
Contrary to what some of the mental giants on the karting “news” site think, entering the Supernats wasn’t a decision I made lightly. In fact it was about a year of hard work and at times equal parts of frustration and joy. When I decided to stop touring the second time, I wanted it to be for good this time. Previously in 2000, selling my dot com business and retiring from touring the first time is what lead me to karting. At the CART race in Portland in 2001 there was an open kart class running as an exhibition early morning class. I had been doing a bunch of indoor karting and was instantly hooked when I toured the big tent with all the karts in the paddock. There were booths from the regional tracks and shops and that next Tues after the shops and schools reopened, I signed up at Racer’s Edge driving school and started making the decision about which kart to get. I settled on shifter, focusing on road racing as at the time I was nearly 300 lbs. Far, far too big for any race vehicle let alone a go kart. Over the years road racing I got to drive some great tracks with some great people. People like the late Dave Clift, the Hagars, the Holmboes, the Blasckes, the Tacketts, the Millers and many, many others whose names escape me. All of them very, very helpful to the fat guy who at the time had more money than sense. These days I have little of either. Dave Clift, always generous with his time said something at my first race that stuck with me over the year. ”You’ll never run at the front. You’re too big. That’s just the way it’s going to be. You will though find people to race in the middle and the back of the pack and have fun doing it.” He was a great guy, we lost him far too early. Even armed with the knowledge that I was going to perma-suck I endevored to get all the seat time, training and every little wiz bang item for the kart I could find. I was addicted to racing. Still am.
After the dot com cratered I returned to touring. It took me a few years to decide I was far too old to be a touring big time show business roadie. Touring is a young mans game. After 26 years (save for the 30 months of the dot com) traveling the world working with who you’ve been listening to on the radio for the last 30 years or on MTV for the last 20, I knew it was time to stop. Past time to stop. I was having health issues from abusing my body during my younger years and had recently been diagnosed with a couple that were chronic and severe. I had a couple of choices. I could continue consulting with manufacturers on making high end pro audio gear and selling it, something many old sound roadies do. I could go back to managing touring audio vendors, something I’d done quite a bit or I could remain in the creative side and move to the boom town of Vegas where there was a shortage of gray beards with mad skills and were needed to teach these young turk how this sort of thing is done on a large scale way. I decided that I wanted to keep mixing shows, so off to Vegas I went where now I mix one of the largest, most technically elaborate shows known to mankind.
Due to the expense of the dot com cratering, me returning to touring, only in town (or even in the country) for only weeks at a time a few times a year, I shelved karting for a couple of years competing in only a few races. One benefit to moving down here was an active road race club, a good local track in Xplex and not too far away Moran. Just before I moved SCK went belly up and stopped promoting races. A few months after I got here and before I had my karts brought down Xplex closed. That’s OK, I still had Moran, my favorite sprint track and Grange, a track I like a bunch. Then Moran closed last year. And with that, I have less karting available than I did when I was in the Northwest. Goddamnsonofabitchmotherfucker. There is always Grange though I don’t know how many more times my kidneys can take the last mile or two of dirt road leading to the track. Maybe I should see if Robby will build me a vest specifically for that road or at the very least loan me one of the models to make the ride a bit more enjoyable.
All that background to say…
My first race was in the day, but it wasn’t yesterday. I do drive to the track in a truck, but it’s not a turnip truck. I have industrial sized cans of both shit and Shinola and well know the difference. Just because someone is slow, it doesn’t mean they don’t have a clue. I didn’t just wake up one morning and decide to spend five or six grand on one race as a whim. It was a calculated move, the result of about a year of preparation and planning. And finishing 33rd, getting pulled after six laps was the best you could do? YOU SUCK! Yep, I’m not that good. I’m fine with that but it seems some others in cyberspace aren’t. Bummer for them. I’m safe and have an on track demeanor and etiquette that plenty of you faster guys should use as an example.
About a year ago, after being back in the kart on a regular basis I knew that I needed some help with fitness. I was down around 285, or about 15 lbs lighter than when I was road racing but still without much stamina and greatly fatiqued in very short distances. For a few months I tried to work out on my own at the little gym in the complex but it wasn’t working. After a couple of conversations with Jim Leo at Pit Fit I signed up and started working on getting into shape. Not so much for karting as it was to do something that all of the men in our family with the exception of my dad couldn’t do. Make it past 60 years old. That’s just over 10 years away for me. In the resulting year, I’ve lost 35 lbs, gained a bunch of strength, agility and flexibility. Lowered my BP and cholesterol to safe levels and generally feel better. I can do a 6 1/2 minute mile and swim 2000 meters at a time. A typical week would have me doing 15-20 miles of cross training, 2000-3000 meters of swimming, a couple hours reaction and flexibility training and two or three one hour upper body workouts for muscle strength and flexibility. And it only took two trainers, a dietician, my primary care MD, my internist, my cardiologist (the docs are three of the best in the Las Vegas valley) and a membership to the Las Vegas Athletic Club to pull it all off. These days a half hour in a kart or race car is easy. Barely winded.
I suppose the irony is that something so dangerous could be used to motivate someone to do something that will prolong their life.
Tags: SNATS Race Things