Memoirs of a Racing Fan

Chapter I: Sparking a Passion

(1989, cue “Delta Force Theme” and Paul Page Indy 500 Introduction)

Picture a barely four year old child for the first time seeing brightly colored cars chasing each other on the television screen, screaming at around 220+ miles per hour. Speed, excitement and danger, staring at the tube, instantly paralyzing me from the spectacle and intrigue. My earliest memories of racing involved watching the Indianapolis 500 from the living room floor. It was fascinating and entertaining, although if you put anything colorful and loud in front of a kid, they’re bound to be distracted by it. This was different. One car in particular caught my eye, this pink/white/blue blur that was running in the top ten, this car/driver would become a very important figure of my racing interest. I didn’t know any of the drivers’ names or faces, just what the TV presenters mentioned and what I could pick up from what I could read from the on screen graphics, but they were being spoken of as if they were legends. Eventually, I would also see them as this.

(Pictured: Scott Brayton Matchbox Indycar…Still in my possession)

As a few years went on, I’d come to watch more of the races and understand more and more about what it takes to handle these unbelievable machines from the voices of Sam Posey, Bobby Unser and Paul Page. As I’d watch the races, I would play with Matchbox or self made Lego Indycars on an oval shaped rug that I wedged triangular building blocks under the turns for banking. It was a state of the art, living room racing facility to me. One toy car would be my favorite, the same pink/white/blue blur from before, Scott Brayton’s #22 Amway car with Dick Simon Racing. On my rug racetrack, he’d typically come away with the victory, real life racing wasn’t dictated or fixed, but on my rug it definitely was.

We’d come to watch other forms of racing as well, such as Nascar. I remember watching Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt and Bill Elliot all racing at once on track, the best of the best in their respective eras. We loved any form of racing that we could watch that was available on our 10 or 11 channels of television. When I was eight, we got our first personal computer, with 3x5 floppy disks and crazy sounds coming from the internals. We had many games for it ranging from sidescrolling adventures, escaping a World War 2 German castle (Wolfenstein 3D), to the pinnacle of racing simulators, “Indianapolis 500: The Simulation.” It gave my brother and I our first on hand and in depth look of racing. Though none of the names of drivers were used, you knew by the number and color of the car who they were. Racing the legends and heroes of IndyCar from the comfort of home, it was a blast to play and further fueled a love for racing.

(Pictured:The game/simulation that fueled my interest in Indycars)

As I found out only a few months ago, the creator of this ground breaking simulator (which would eventually lead to sims such as iRacing) was actually from my little hometown of Greencastle, Indiana. Small world. Also there was a game that we acquired that introduced us to the world of Formula One, “World Circuit” (Known as “Grand Prix” in Europe) where you could race on all of the tracks from the F1 schedule (Also scream towards the chicane at Monza and ramp 20ft in the air thanks to rumble strips and 1993 game physics.) Between watching racing on television and racing on the computer games, my interest and passion grew and started to mold into something that would make me the race fan that I am today. But with great passion like racing, comes the possibility of great disappointment and tragedy…

In Chapter II, I will recall how when my passion after hitting it’s peak, quickly turned to confusion of loyalties from a racing civil war and a tragedy that tore deeply into that passion.

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