Poem: What Is Racing All About?

It's about money, of course; for most it's about finding it, finding enough of it, and then finding more. It's about guzzling money like water, about living with the guilt of burning up so much hard earned cash. But it's much more.

It's about supremacy, being top dog, king of the hill, head honcho, the big kahuna; standing out above the crowd, being number one, the best. It's about speed. It's about riding the fastest, scariest, hold-onto-your-hats, geez-I'm-gonna-wet-my-pants, best-damn-roller-coaster ever invented.

And it's about power. It's about leading the charge of a thousand screaming banshees, having your body wrenched and twisted and tossed about by the hands of great unseen forces; and it's about taming a blind raging Herculean monster, and bending it to your will.

It's about brilliant colors, flashes of light, ear-splitting shrieks, and bone-rattling rumbles. It's about the unforgettable smell of burning rubber, smoldering brake pads, and gear oil. It's about reaching through the steering wheel all the way down to the tires and feeling the road slipping past your fingertips. It's about sensing the weight of the car shifting from tire to tire, like water in a pan. It's about the tug of the shoulder harness across the collar bones, and the cramp in the leg from pressing the gas pedal through the floor. Racing is about all of these things, and much more.

It's about passion; burning desire, insatiable hunger. It's a perverse yet overwhelming love affair with steel, paint, and rubber. It's about a relentless courtship with speed.

It's about conceiving and nurturing a child--the benefactor of your skill and wisdom, and a victim of your ignorance. It's about saving a rusting pile of disregarded scrap from the crusher and making it stronger, faster, more real and alive than it ever was, or ever deserved to be. It's about caring for your creation, loving it; pushing it to its limits, exalting in its greatness, and forgiving its weaknesses, because they are your weaknesses.

It's about dreams and hopes and fears. Dreams of glory; dreams of carving out a small niche in history, like Mario, and Swindell, and "King Richard". Hopes. Hopes that the many long winter hours of lonely toil in the cold, dusty garage will bring smiles come May, and a nod of approval from the brutally indifferent stopwatch. Hopes that the brakes will be there on call, as you hurtle without recourse into the unforgiving dirt canyon. Hopes that, in the end, you'll be able to look back on the whole experience and find it worth the price, while living with the fear that it won't be.

It's about determination, perseverance, and the strength of resolve. It's about patience and discipline. It's about putting in the time, double checking, attending to the critical details. It's about concentration, and focus. It's about controlling the overpowering urges, sticking to the game plan, and keeping your head when the unthinkable happens. It's about testing, and measuring, and worrying, and sweating the small stuff.

It's about faith; faith in yourself, in your crew, in your fellow competitors, in the workers, and in the men and women who designed this car, these tires, and this track. It's about believing in your roll cage, and your safety harness, your Nomex suit, and the fire system that has never been put to the test. It's about knowing that no matter what happens, you chose.

It's about deep and lasting respect, caring, and friendships; about sharing joys and disappointments, pitching in, and easing the load.

It's about living life on the cutting edge of a razor, hanging it all out there, going for broke. It's about knowing, without doubt, by-damn, that you're alive. It's about putting your heart and soul into something and letting the whole world see what you can do. It's about knowing that in the midst of the confusion and emotion and heart-stopping action, you were the one that mattered.

-Anonymous

Dennis, I could not have loved you more, but I could have loved you longer.

XOXO, Ang