Tag: hope

Adjectively Speaking

During ABC’s TV Broadcast of the Indycar race at St. Pete yesterday, Eddie Cheever made his beloved and dramatic ‘one-word’ prognostication for the day’s event – “chaos”. In hindsight, one cannot really argue much with that as the definition accounts for some of the action on track yesterday. 

I had several adjectives that described how I was feeling leading up to, during, and after the very racy 2018 Indycar season opener; hopeful, eager, surprised, anxious, giddy, amazed, empathetic, and hopeful.

Hopefulness sprang out of the months (and, in truth, years) of waiting for a new and exciting Indycar to hit the track. One that justly rewards driver skill and management and also manages to entice a viewer with classically attractive aesthetics.

Eagerness began in earnest with news of testing in January and February. Positive and even glowing reports on the new chassis “raciness” and the good initial function of the potential safety/windscreen flushed my racing cheeks with positivity heading into the new season.  Dare I dream to believe that Indycar once again could be the amazingly entertaining (and even sexy) racing product so many fans knew it could? Could spring signal a rebirth of positivity, excitement, and optimism for one of my favorite sports?

With the twist of fate brought about by moisture on the track during qualifying for the first race of the new season, nothing but surprise could describe most fans’ reactions to the qualifying results. The final six in the Firestone Fast Six shootout contained three rookies, three veterans, and for the first time that I could recall in many years, six different teams in the top six spots.  One of those rookies – Jordan King, driving for Ed Carpenter Racing – even set a new track record in the first round of qualifying.

Surprise gave way to the anxious feelings when the green flag is about to fall at St. Pete and especially when there are three rookies up front leading this burgeoning pack of hungry Indycar racers, all eager for those first true racing laps of the new season. Safe to say that I always fear turn one at St. Pete because the symbolism of the long-runway-straight reminds me of the stark off-season, long and slow to build in momentum until the green reminds us we’re full-throttle into a hard and opportunistic right-hand 90 degree turn, begging for the most aggressive of lines, before the tires are even warmed.  What happens in that first turn of the first race of the new season often signals what to expect. Especially after the abysmally long wait, to finally have an Indycar that this fan could proudly hold up as the exemplary essence of this type of racing, I still remained anxious for the possible carnage of turn one at the Alfred Whitted Airport race circuit.

With some tenuous and unsurprisingly eventful laps in the book, the race never failed to hold my attention.  I was able to eagerly concentrate on as much racing as the TV coverage would show, despite the expected drone of uninspired and anemic commentary. I would add the caveat that Allen Bestwick gets a pass from me for his work because his job as ringleader of the clownlike coverage is subject to so many things beyond his control, including the bland color commentary. Expecting as much, I tried to focus all of my attention on the visual information we were given and I was liking what I was seeing, especially with the new and revised camera views which added a great deal of excitement to the broadcast. This feeling that had come over me, I hadn’t felt in far too long a time. I was giddy with excitement that the racing had given us.


(nose-camera image via Indycar YouTube screen capture)

With the movements of drivers up and down the scoring due to mostly all racing-related variables, I was amazed at the skill of the driving and the passing we were seeing.  All except at the front, where rookie Robert Wickens had shown us why he was so highly rated by Schmidt Peterson Motorsports.  He was building a lead over several veteran drivers. How could you not like the fortitude on display?  I was genuinely amazed at how this race was playing out and especially for this driver, so new to Indycars, scarcely putting a wheel wrong all day, deservedly leading in a manner that only exemplified his considerable skill and his team’s preparation. This guy, and this team deserved to win.

As we watched the late-race dramas unfold, a race fan of any seasoning would’ve known we were in for a seriously tense finish. It did not fail in that regard and unfortunately Mr. Wickens was the recipient of a ‘racing incident’ that in my view could’ve been avoided and not sent him spinning into the wall after completing, what was to that point, as near-perfect a race as one could have. I would consider myself a fan of Alexander Rossi, but I certainly empathized more with Wickens. He deserved to be on the top step of the podium without question but, as we know so well, racing doesn’t always reward the best on that day. So too could I empathize with Sebastien Bourdais’s victory as it emotionally and fully closed a circle of high and low events he experienced in the previous 365 days. From his race win here a year ago, to the horrific crash at Indy qualifying, to the rehabilitation of his mind and body, and now a return to victory circle at his adoptive hometown and site of his previous Indycar win, it was a result worthy of celebration. 

(c) 2018, Luis Santana, Tampa Bay Times

In all, yesterday’s race was one of the best races I can recall at St. Pete and I am beyond impatient to see the next race. I think that’s a sign of the hopefulness I am feeling about each practice session, each qualifying day, and each race this season.  







Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way

There is an axiom that floats about the business world, “people will tell you what they want, if you just listen to them”. The most successful salespersons and businesses shut up and listen, examine that information, and then figure out how to best provide it.

Today the Formula 1 drivers Association also took their concerns to F1 via an open letter to the ownership and directors of that sport, expressing a desire to see better stewardship of the sport with regard to long-term vision and plan. It all sounded so familiar. I even mentally inserted “Indycar” anywhere the words “F1” appeared with very little difference in consistency with issues known in Indycar for decades.

I thought to myself, ‘here’s yet another example of how Indycar has lead the world of autosport by 10 to 20 years’. We’ve been dealing with a sport whose organization can be characterized by the public as insular, short-sighted, lacking vision, and reactive since the late 1970s and especially so since the mid-1990s.

The good news for Indycar is, that is a bit farther up the road in dealing with a business ‘contraction’ than F1 or even NASCAR. The bad news is that the progress has come in fits and starts and is always much slower than the customer would like to see. It also comes at a time when it competes with ever-more diversions for the public, never less.

So how is it then, that a company can be perceived to be so aloof, especially when the lifeblood of its existence (sponsorship and broadcasting rights monies), is based on having eyeballs and ears on the product?

As we draw ever-nearer to the incredibly massive landmark 100th Indianapolis 500 Mile Race, we again are reminded so vividly of a sport that has been extremely adept at holding up it’s super-speedway, golden era (early 1960s to mid-1970s) as the hallmark of it’s existence and implying a parallel with the modern day. Those who have lived long enough to have seen those days with our own eyes and ears, always bristle at the comparison and rightly so. The sport today resembles so little of that Golden Era. The fact that we STILL gush more about the innovation of 1961 Cooper Climax, or the 1967 Paxton STP turbine, a full 50 years later than we do about the one that won just 11 months ago, or even two weeks ago, I’ve always found to be quite telling.

F1 has also been good at holding itself up as the pinnacle for newest and most innovative technologies for decades. It some ways it actually has, but as for the management of the sport, it’s still shows a heritage with the Draconian-types of the industrial age. 

At one time, the production auto industry used autosport as a working laboratory for development of better machinery to be translated into the passenger vehicle. Now it appears a new day is dawning in the automotive industry where technology is rapidly changing the mobility vehicle and how we engage with it. Likewise, there is an opportunity to examine those changes and see how autosport can incorporate them into their future.   


I’m reminded of that famous phrase, uttered in front of a shiny, new ‘K-car’ c. 1981.

I’m not sure if he originated the phrase, but I recall quite clearly for well over 30 years now, Lee Iacocca, then President of Chrysler, making that quote famous via his television ads for the ‘new Chrysler Motor Company’ – “In this business, you lead, follow, or get out of the way.” 

At the time, the car company was attempting to emerge from a terrible recession and bring a new philosophy, optimism, and ambition to the fore. It was a successful campaign in many ways although it didn’t solve all of the ills that plagued the company or the industry as a whole.

Autosport is still a reflection of that industry in many ways, especially by being tied so closely to the worldwide auto industry for obvious reasons, but I think the future will hold that the sport who was able to show the ability to listen to all voices of interest (not merely a few select ones), establish a forward-thinking and relevant vision, a clear plan to achieve it, and provide the product that people will demand in the future, will be the most successful. 

Even at it’s relative nadir, Indycar can still be a player in that game. Once the celebrations, revelry, and nostalgia of the landmark 100th Indy 500 end, I believe strongly that a new era must begin. One that is bold, exciting, invigorating, and isn’t afraid to be something innovative.

“Fear can hold you prisoner, hope can set you free” is the promotional tagline from one my favorite movies, “The Shawshank Redemption”, which was adapted from Stephen King’s Different Seasons group of novellas. Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption represents the season of Spring and is also subtitled, “Hope Springs Eternal”.

The character of Ellis “Red” Redding in that story cautions the reader (through a dialogue with the optimistic protagonist Andy Dufresne) that “Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane”. Later, however, in reply, the character of Andy Dufresne states, “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies”.


I still hold out hope that Indycar can be the pinnacle of modern autosport it was.

I hope I’ll be able to make it to that day.

I hope to be there and shake my Indycar friends’ hands. 

I hope that Indycar will be as incredible as it has been in my dreams.

I hope.