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

Never Lift II

   On this day 10 years ago, the world lost an everyday hero.   My friend and SCCA Co-driver Peter "Pete" Burany, lost his life in a traffic accident.  After his death I wrote an essay called "Never Lift" in a racing Newsletter (they still had those 10 years ago) and  I ended with "Peter Burany never lifted from being a good guy." And Pete didn't.  He took good care of his Mom.  He worked three jobs and In the year 2000, he was graduating from Marquette University with a business degree.  To this day I still find it unfair that he died right as he was realizing his dreams. 

    I met Pete in 1995 and we immediately become partners in crime.  We became Co drivers in an Autocross series then known as the BF Goodrich Central Divison Solo II series.  We barnstormed the Midwest like Gypsies, drove each others cars and generally had a good time.

     In the '90s I was focused on moving forward in racing.  I had little time for anything and little understanding for non-racers.  I followed Steve McQueen's philosophy that "Racing is life, everything in between is just waiting."   Pete was an incredibly supportive friend but he'd usually bring me back down from the clouds and remind what a great wife and family I had.
     In the past when I lost something or somebody important I'd bury things for about a year .  After Pete's
death I raced my Porsche 914 in every Auto X club in Wisconsin.  I literally drove the wheels of it.  I broke it in early '01 and ended up selling it for parts.  I took a little time out on the motorsports  Pretty much had too.  Of course I also had to deal with Pete's death.
      I never did make sense of it.  I did however, make changes.  First, I put my family first, second, I gave up on the idea that racing was my destiny, and third I still pursued my passions.  My family will tell you I had many false starts and set backs in trying those three things. My dirty little secret is I have a huge attention seeking ego that I need reign in every once and a while.
      Pete and  I used to say the YOUNG GUNS line from Billy the Kid, "Gonna make ya famous." with each
other.  Neither one of us become famous.  One of us, though, was a hero.  Rest in peace Pete. 
                                                                                                                   The Milwaukee Kidd

The 19 Inch Wheel and Tire Blues

    Like Harley, NASCAR and real estate, Grassroots Racing hit it's peak and grew too big for itself during the last decade.   So much so, it's not really grassroots anymore.

   For last 17 years I have been in Parking lot Autocross ( Miller Park), Drag Racing (Great Lakes Dragaway), and Time Attack Track days at places like Blackhawk and Road America.  It's always been a low budget operation.  If I didn't drive someone elses car  I drove my low option '95 V-6 Mustang or older 914 and 924 Porsche.   From '99 to 2001 I drove a 1973 stock class 914 that I got complete with 2 sets of race tires for under 2 grand. (Stock class cars run DOT race tires in the SCCA and other clubs, something that's expensive and hard to explain to newbies). I did very well even though my competition was new Miatas.  For the rest of the decade I drove in the locally popular Street Tire classes in a 924, a Ford Probe and a variety of Mustangs.  Accept street tires are not really street tires since the Falcon Azenis came out 10 years ago.  Of course everybody that was competitive had these tires and the other companies followed suit.  This tire's extreme performance soft compound is barely street legal, and although less expensive than an r-compound, more expensive than the orignal gummies the car comes with.  

      In looking into what I can or can't do in racing this year,  I noticed that most of 13 to16 inch tire sizes that fits on the ageing junk I run, has been discontinued.  In 2009,  I threw 17" wheels on my old Mustang and beat the poor thing halfway to the glue factory.  It moved me into another class and most days I came in last.  (They shoot old horses don't they?)   So, going back to Street Tires is really not an option.  Race tires are still made, but they've gone up nearly 30%.

      Because I have Terminal Gearhead Disease (TGD), and I have whimsically looked at the new stuff out there.  It is an exciting time to be a gearhead with money.  I've checked and even test drove the 2010  Hyundai Genesis Coupe, Mustang GT, both w /Track Pak options.  Mini Coopers/ Challenger R/T and the New Camaro V-6. (304 HP!)  But, even the Mini has 17" wheels.  The above Pony cars have 18 to 22" wheels.   Apparently nobody told the car manufactures that we are in a recession, net incomes of the middle class is way down and disposable income is going out of style like a CD boombox.  Case in point.  The Hyundai and the Mustangs 19" wheels take $385.00 street tire and race rubber is well over $400.00 each.  Another negative about new cars.  All of them, from economy cars to the muscle cars are too heavy.  Reality is, I can't swing car payments for anything newer.  If I could , I couldn't afford the rubber.  So, after 17 years of banging gears and clipping apexs, it looks like I may be reduced to spectator for 2010.  I'll be easy to find though, I'll be the one peering through the fence, just like I did when I really was The Milwaukee Kidd.....