I Became a NASCAR Fan in the Stoneham, Massachusetts, Public Library in 1961

 

Michael McDowell, the eighth driver 

To win his first race at the Daytona 500

On Sunday night I stayed up past midnight to watch the final laps of the 2021 Daytona 500. The race had started ten hours earlier and been stopped for a big wreck involving eighteen of the forty cars that started the race.  Then there was a rain delay. But the Daytona Motor Speedway has lights, so they ran after rain the rain stopped.

They ran in a fifteen car single-file line at 190 mph for most of the final 20 laps.  With a lap to go gaps opened as drivers started trying to move up. On the last lap the first two cars tangled. Michael McDowell who was in fourth place shot between the spinning cars and was in front of the field at the moment the caution lights flashed on, ending the race.  

McDowell started racing in NASCAR's top series in 2008, starting 358 races before finishing first at the biggest race on the 36-race calendar. On Valentines Day 2021 he became the eighth driver to win his first race in the Daytona 500. 

After watching nearly all the races for twenty years between 1985 and 2005 and being a fan since I was eight years old, I stopped watching the stock car series because they had eliminated the two things that initially got me hooked: real cars and real danger.  

By the 1970s NASCAR stock cars were purpose-built race cars, but they were the shape of their street-car counterparts.  Fords, Chevys, Dodges and Oldsmobiles looked different. And sometimes a particular body would outperform others. After Dale Earnhardt's death at Daytona in 2001, NASCAR went to the Car of Tomorrow which made every car exactly the same except decals. 

Some of the roulette of risk of racing was lost in 1992 when NASCAR went to radial tires.  I kept watching, but it was clear that radials would bring a different kind of driver to the front.  Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson would be the drivers of a new century.

Real Cars, Real Danger

While a driver scoring his first win after a dozen years of no wins is a compelling story, it's not the story that drew my eight-year-old self to follow a racing series hundreds of miles from my home in a suburb north of Boston, Mass.  The Stoneham Public Library had copies of Motor Trend, Hot Rod and Road and Track magazines. The pictures in these magazines showed real cars racing on paved and dirt ovals.  And unlike stick and ball sports, the drivers risked their lives.  Between 1952 and 2001 twenty-eight drivers lost their lives in practice and racing crashes.  

Later I would follow open-wheel and sports car racing, but the little boy in the library wanted to see Fords, Plymouths, Dodges, Chevys, Buicks, Pontiacs, and Oldsmobiles with roll bars going more than 150mph.  At that time there was about 30 minutes per year of racing on TV on the ABC Wide World of Sports, so reading the racing coverage was my only option. 

Tiny Lund

The first driver I followed was Tiny Lund.  When I read about his win at Daytona in 1963, it was like McDowell's win this year.  Lund had started 163 races over several years without a win, then won the biggest race of year for his first win.  He died in 1975 at the other NASCAR superspeedway in Talledega, Alabama.  

The Other Drivers Who Won Their First Race in the Daytona 500

There have been 39 different winners in the 62 Daytona 500 races since 1959. The dozen multiple winners are led by seven-time winner Richard Petty, four-time winner Cale Yarborough, four three-time winners and five who took two wins.  

Mario Andretti

Four years after Tiny Lund won his first NASCAR race by winning the Daytona 500, Mario Andretti notched his first win in the "Great American Race."  Andretti had just seven NASCAR starts. In the 60s top drivers in Formula 1, Indy Car and Sports Cars would race NASCAR races with big prize money.  Andretti won in all forms of racing and was a champion in Indy Car and Formula 1.

Pete Hamilton

Dedham, Mass. native Pete Hamilton took his first of three NASCAR wins at the 1970 Daytona 500 in a Petty Enterprises Plymouth Road Runner Superbird.  He won two more races that year at Talledega Superspeedway, the only wins of his brief career.  He left racing in 1974 with a neck injury.  

Derrick Cope

For me, the worst of the first-time Daytona winners was Derrick Cope. He won in 1990 in his 72nd start and won only once more in his NASCAR career. I don't begrudge him the win, but at the time I was on the edge of my seat cheering like crazy for Dale Earnhardt to win his first Daytona 500.  Earnhardt began the final lap in the lead with victory all but certain. He ran over a chunk of bell housing a mile from the finish and Cope sailed past the limping Earnhardt for the win.  

Sterling Marlin

In 1994 Sterling Marlin won after 279 starts in the Daytona 500. He won nine more races in a long career. Both Neil Bonnet and Rodney Orr died in crashes during that ill-fated speed week.   

As an aside, in 1998, Dale Earnhardt finally won the Daytona 500. He had won more than 30 races on the speedway but not the 500.  I was both yelling and crying to finally see him win the 500. Which made the next first time win the saddest of all. 

Michael Waltrip

In 2001 Michael Waltrip, brother of three-time champion Darrell Waltrip, broke NASCAR's longest streak without a win when he won the Daytona 500.  It was his 463rd NASCAR start. I had followed him for years hoping to see him win. Waltrip drove for Dale Earnhardt's team as did Dale Earnhardt Jr., who was Rookie of the Year in NASCAR's top series in 2000. 

At the beginning of the final lap, Waltrip was in front followed by Dale Jr. and then Earnhardt Sr.  A mile into the lap Waltrip and Junior pulled away. Earnhardt Sr. and Kenny Schaeder collided in Turn 3. Michael Waltrip celebrated in victory lane while his brother Darrell, one of the race announcers, teared up in the booth seeing his little brother finally win.

Then someone whispered to Michael Waltrip the Earnhardt Sr. was in grave condition and getting flown to a hospital. The celebration ended and soon we all learned Dale Earnhardt Sr. had died. Michael Waltrip won the Daytona 500 again in 2003. Dale Jr. would win the Daytona 500 in 2004 and 2014 before retiring in 2017. 

Trevor Bayne

In 2011 rookie Trevor Bayne won the Daytona 500 in his second NASCAR start. He is the youngest winner of 500, just 20 years old.  By 2018 he was out of racing. He never won another race after the 2011 Daytona 500.

Which brings us back to 2021 Daytona 500 winner Michael McDowell. I am also back as a NASCAR fan.  This year, the top series will have seven road course races and a dirt event at Bristol.  Seven road courses and a dirt race along with four superspeedway events will put enough variety in the schedule that the dull mile and a half ovals will not determine the who gets into the playoffs.  

Even when I stopped watching the series, this hangs in library/extra bedroom in my house.

 

Reliable Randomness Makes Air Apparent

Every yard or meter that a bicyclist or pilot or runner or driver or anyone else travels through the air means passing through trillions and trillions of molecules that together make up what we call air. The faster the rider, runner, pilot or driver travels the more molecules per second bang into their body, bicycle, car or plane and spin off in another direction. The first philosophers called air a single substance.  Reality is quite different. 

Each molecule of oxygen, nitrogen and water, as well as fart smell, scent of lilac or Corona Virus moves with through three dimensions in any possible direction depending upon all the physical forces acting on it. Each molecule of what we call air moves freely. Heat speeds them up, collisions with other molecules and with bicyclists send it off in another direction, gravity keeps individual molecules from favoring the up direction but with a mass of a few or a few thousand atoms, gravity is not a huge influence. 

In describing the motion of these molecules and the forces affecting them, I did not include wind resistance. Together the molecules of air are wind resistance, but they are so small that the forces on them are heat, gravity, and collisions. They move in what is effectively a vacuum. The effect of trillions of molecules per second smacking into a rider from random directions at varying speeds is completely predictable in its total effect--a surprising and wonderful reality.

If a rider maintains 20 miles per hour in still air, that same rider will reach the same speed at the same effort an hour or a month or a year later. And assuming the same air density, the same effort will achieve the same speed in Belarus, Borneo, Botswana, Bosnia or Belgium. The random motion of molecules in air has the effect of totally predictable wind resistance. 

When the air moves collectively, when there is wind, the effect is exactly, predictably the same. Uncountable trillions of molecules of varying sizes and shapes moving in unpredictable directions with different speeds will cause exactly the same amount of friction on a car, bicycle, runner or airplane everywhere there is air. 

Wind resistance is both invisible and unavoidable. When I feel strong, I leave my house and ride with the wind knowing that the exhilaration of riding 25mph in a 20mph tail wind will turn into a 12mph slog on the return leg. When I don’t feel so great, I ride into the wind first and give myself the tailwind at the end of the ride. 

So much of the history of science is discovering that reality is not what anyone guessed or expected. Few of the ancient scientists could wrap their minds around the idea of atoms in a vacuum. Even some of the alchemists who provided the first experimental evidence for atoms could believe what they demonstrated. 

Before atoms, air was considered a single substance. The discovery of atoms showed air is a complex mixture of molecules. Physicists then showed that the individual molecules of air, moving randomly, together became, in effect, that single substance the ancient scientists believed in. All that randomness taken together is as predictable as the motion of the moon. And at the same time any single molecule can and does move as randomly as a toddler in a room full of shiny toys. 

A Visit to Circuit de Sarthe: Race Course of the 24 Hours of LeMans

A Ford GT40 from the movie "LeMans 66" 

with yarn taped to the car to show airflow during testing

After seeing the movie "LeMans 66" in Paris (English with French Subtitles) I rented a stick-shift Opel and drove west to the town of LeMans, where in June of every year the 24 Hours of Lemans is held.  I have watched parts of the 24 Hours of LeMans on TV, but had never seen the circuit. I have been a fan of motor racing all of my life, primarily Formula 1 car racing, but also sports car racing at various times in the last six decades.

In most of the history of motor racing, the race tracks are known for curves.  The curves "Eau Rouge-Raidillon" at Spa Francorchamps in Belgium, "The Corkscrew" at Laguna Seca Raceway in California, Tabac curve on the street circuit of Monaco, the Maggots-Beckett-Chapel curves at Silverstone and so many more. 

But the signature of Circuit de Sarthe is not a curve, but the Mulsanne straightaway.  Originally run on roads closed for the race, the entire circuit is now a purpose-built race course, except the Mulsanne Straight which is Route D388 in the French highway system. It is open to traffic when no races are underway.

Until 1988 the Mulsanne straight was the longest straight stretch of race track anywhere: 6km or 3.7 miles of full-throttle.  Then in 1988 a Peugeot WM P88 reached a speed of 405km/hr (251mph) and the governing body decided something had to be done to slow the cars down. In 1990 track officials added two chicanes breaking the circuit into three consecutive 2km straightaways. This kept top speed at a safer 225mph.  At 250mph the downforce from the rear wing is so strong it can cause catastrophic tire failure. One car approaching those speeds famously went up into the trees. The car was completely destroyed, but the driver was unhurt.

The website says visitors can walk the track and go the museum. The museum was great with a century of cars and motorcycles, a few of which are in this post.  As it turned out I could not walk the track because there was a 24-hour sports car race in its final hours during my visit. I watched almost 50 cars ranging from race prepped Porsche 911s to a nearly stock BMW sedan circle the track at speed and under a yellow flag. 

Several of the cars spun at the second of the two chicanes on the Mulsanne straight.  They either went into the gravel or onto an escape road and rejoined. Even the cars that collided continued. I saw no race-ending crashes.

Next June I can watch LeMans 2020 and know what the track looks like in person as the top class 800hp race cars circle the 8.5-mile course for 24 hours and as much as 3,360 miles--the race distance record set in 2010.

Motorcycles have raced for 24 hours at LeMans since 1978

Thousands of scale model race cars fill the display cases in the museum

Army, Adoption, Racing and Faith: Don’t Start Unless You Are Ready to Suffer

Beginning in 1971, Army recruiters advertised “Be All You Can Be” to pitch enlisting in the Army.  They used just five words with thirteen letters to suggest that you can fulfill your dreams, learn a career and otherwise let that wonderful person inside you bloom and grow in the fertile soil the Army would provide. 

They did not say you could also be maimed or killed.  Every soldier is a rifleman and the Army teaches you first to be a rifleman before they teach you turbojet engine maintenance or auto repair. 

I quite obviously love the Army.  I love bicycle racing.  And I love my adopted children.  But I am also the sort of person who thinks a good life is impossible without risk and suffering.  So when people ask me if they should enlist, race or adopt, I tell them, “Yes!”  But if they ask, as has happened many times with racing, “Is there a way I can race without crashing?” I suggest they take up knitting. 

I give the same advice when someone asks about joining the Army. “Yes, enlist!”  But I suggest enlisting for combat jobs, because Army skills really don’t transfer that well to civilian jobs unless you work for a government contractor or the government itself.  In the Army, the infantry, armor, artillery and aviation do the really fun stuff.  I am also very clear there is no safe way to be a soldier.

Recently a woman I have worked with for several years asked me about adopting.  She and her husband have a six-year-old son.  Her husband wants to adopt.  She is less sure. 

We talked about the various kinds of adoption.  Her husband would like to adopt a kid that needs a home.  My wife and I adopted three children and tried to adopt three more with that same goal foremost.  It is a lovely and lofty goal, but the underlying fact is that someone who needs a home has lost a home.  More importantly, something bad happened to the home they had.

So I gave the adoption version of the warning I give to prospective soldiers and bike racers:  If you race, enlist or adopt, you will suffer.  If you really commit to any or all of these, your life will change or you will lose your life, either practically or actually.

In my years of military service, I have been blinded by shrapnel, had surgery to reattach my fingers, been thrown in a ditch by my hair by a sergeant saving me from a missile blast, held another soldier’s hand with his thigh bone sticking through his uniform, heard and saw a soldier’s pelvis break when he was caught between a tank and a truck, had so many fly bites that my eyes swelled shut, stood guard in a sideways snowstorm thinking I would be found dead frozen in a drift, and suffered many other minor discomforts over the years, like wearing a 45-pound armored vest in 130-degree heat in Iraq.

But bicycle racing really tops my injury list, a spreadsheet I keep of broken bones, surgeries and hospital stays.  Bicycling accounts for half of the 33 broken bones and 19 surgeries I have had in my long life. When I really go all out racing or training, my throat aches, my body aches and for a couple of days after I suffer intestinal distress.   Becoming merely a mediocre racer meant a commitment to training that blocked so much of the rest of my life.  I worked as a consultant 15 years ago when I got serious about racing. I limited my work hours, and my income, so I could train more.  When I took a full-time job, the big negotiation was a schedule that would allow me to ride.

But, of course, the thrill of victory (occasionally) in bike racing and the intense pride of wearing our nation’s uniform to a war compensated for some of the suffering of being a soldier and racing. 

With adoption, the feeling of giving a family to a kid who needs a family is among the greatest joys of this life.  But then there are the persistent sorrows.  Adopting a kid with in utero drug exposure means the child will always have difficulty reading and have many limitations in school and in life.  Children who grow up in a family other than their birth family are going to wonder why they are not with their birth families.  And kids who are torn from their birth parents and put into foster care will spend the rest of their lives with an enflamed survival instinct.  When our adopted kids do things that leave me wondering what they were thinking, I try to remember they were not thinking they were surviving. 

Part of the reason my wife and I adopted is because the most clear command in Scripture after loving God is to care for widows and orphans.  Paired with that clear command is the equally clear promise that suffering is the mark of a Believer.  When I get an email telling me I need to come to school right away and talk about my son’s behavior, or I open the on-line grading report and find a series of assignments never started let alone completed and D is the highest grade, I am suffering.  I try to remember this is a mark of True Faith. 

I am in counseling.  I started last fall after one of the inexplicable episodes adoptive parenthood put in the center of my life. 

So I told my friend if you adopt, you will suffer.  But I working with the counselor helped me to realize if I had a chance to do this all over again, I would.  

Recently, my son with the most troubled past has become a boxer.  He lost his second match earlier this month and decided to really train, including running the two miles each way each day to the boxing gym.  He is rapidly becoming a tough, determined young man. 

As with Faith and the Army and Racing, Adoption has made my life richer and more vivid than it ever could have been on safe path.