An End to Cynicism and an Answer to the Questions, Why Racing and Why Cars?

      "Please do not be cynical.  For the record it's my least favorite quality and it doesn't get anybody anywhere.  Nobody in life knows what they're going to get. But, If you're kind and you work really really hard, amazing things will happen."
      Conan O'Brien said this on his last night on the Tonight Show.  It really gave me pause, probably because I'm closing in on my 45th birthday.   Five years ago at 40 I heard an interview with open wheel champion Michael Andretti.  He said he'd probably had won a lot more races  if he just kept a positive attitude.  So as I turned 40, I decided to work on a positive attitude.  After all, it coudn't hurt.  Five years later I'm still working on this, but life is a learning process.   I agree with Conan, cynicism will get you nowhere.  After the earthquake in Haiti there has been stories everyday about hero rescues and hard working resilent people that will carry on.  These people are far from cynics.  They can't be, in the midst of tragedy, this would not solve anything.
      A few blogs back, I was grousing about the high cost of grassroots racing and contemplating sitting on the bench this year.  But, I got out of my funk and remembered my project car sleeping  in the garage.  It's a 1989 Mustang 5.0 LX that my friends Jerry and Linda Hansen dropped off at my garage (Nicknamed the Mustang Ranch Midwest, or Andy and Diana's home for wayward Mustangs, take your pick ).  I call it the LX-RRR.   For Rat Rod Racer.  RRR also stands for Responsibility, Recession and Racing.
       In my late 20s and 30s I'm guilty of putting more time into internal combustion and racing then I did for my family.  I've tried to make changes in this over the past decade and hopefully I have, but 18 months ago I saw just what I stand to lose.  My daughter Marissa was diagonosed with what can best be described as childhhood arthritis.   It was stressfull and expensive time and it got worse around Thanksgiving when Marissa had a severe reaction to a new prescription.  It almost proved fatal, and it was the worst thing my wife and  I ever went through as parents.  Fortunately, with prayers from everybody from her teachers and our friends and family, she got better by Christmas.  While my restless soul sometimes tempts me to run from responsibilities, my family is one I never want to lose, or run from or be cynical about.
    The Great Recession has not been kind to our little hobby of grassroots motorsports.  All hobbies took a hit for that matter, at least if you are an average American.  So for 2010, I don't see myself buying a brand new car with 19" wheels and big brakes.  No, a 21 year old Mustang, safe and mechanically sound, with lots of patina will have to do. 
     Recently, I've been reading a biography about the late Paul Newman.  The author is not really to kind to Mr. Newman, espeically when it comes to the racing exploits he started ironically at he age of 45.  The author constantly asks why cars? Why racing ?
     Here's why...Last year wasn't all bad.  In October I was asked to instruct at a charity track day at Road America in my favorite place in the world, Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.  I got track time in my aging '95 Mustang in exchange.  It was a cold rainy day mixed with sleet and snow flurries. Here I am screaming from turns 3 to 5, foot buried in the carpet, windsheild wipers dancing in the wind, and it feels like the safest most comfortable place on earth.  I can't speak for Paul Newman the race car driver, for me its, a huge break from the daily slog of life.   I'm willing to bet the P.L. Newman the driver was getting  away from Paul Newman the actor.  I tried many different hobbies, hunting, fishing, golf.  Cars, racing and also riding motorcycles, are the only sports I've found where you can de-stress from the recent past while chasing your immediate future all at the same time.
      So, while keeping my priorities in order, I will be clipping cones at Miller Park, clipping apexs at Road America and Blackhawk and maybe even speed shifting at Great Lakes Dragaway.  Of course I need to try to be less cynical, that would lead me nowhere....
                                                                          The Milwaukee Kidd