gentlemen, start your engines

Well they don’t actually say that over here, but the Formula 1 season is almost on us.

Now that may mean a lot to my friends across the pond, but over here in the Old Continent, it’s a pretty big deal; for sure, you’ve got NASCAR which is quite entertaining until you realise that most races are the same…maybe they should try going the other way round the track once in a while! That being said, most races do actually produce a different winner on any given Sunday.

Then there’s the Indy Racing League which is like NASCAR masquerading as F1 cars. Don’t get me started on the IRL because it killed CART/Champ Cars and I find it hard to forgive that. And CART/Champ Cars was where you went if you were’nt good enough to get into F1 or where you went when F1 had finished with you – Nigel Mansell, Mario Andretti and Emerson Fittipaldi being notable exceptions. The younger Andretti (Michael) and Fittipaldi (Christian) went to F1 but soon got spat back out: Fittipaldi probably being the only driver in F1 ever to cross the finish line airborne and upside down! And the greatest enigma in Champ Cars, Paul Tracy tested in F1 and by all accounts was very, very impressive, but he elected to stay in Indy Cars as it was still called back in 1992. And in all honesty, Tracy would never have made it in F1 He was too much the maverick. He wouldn’t have fitted into what was becoming a more corporate driven sport. And even though he was arguably the most gifted race-car driver ever to come out of North America, he would have soon established himself as a pariah; after all, he created more than enough trouble for himself in Indy/CART/Champ Cars. And neither is this to say that North America hasn’t produced drivers of note: the Villeneuves spring to mind instantly - neither Gilles nor Jacques (son of Gilles) being readily recognisable as “toe the line” individuals. And it may also be arguable to say that they weren’t necessarily shit-hot! If anything, this father and son combination tended more towards the mercurial. If anything they were the stars which burned half as long but twice as bright.

Word has it that Tracy was better.

Pity. 

For everyone who’s ever donned a set of Nomex overalls and a crash helmet (funny they still call it that in this health and safety, politically correct age, but true enough, a crash helmet is what it is – why else would you wear one?), myself included, F1 has always been a distant and largely intangible goal. I had a pretty canny ability to drive rally cars and when working through university to pay my way tuition-wise, guess where the majority of the money went? You got it: I spent it on racing!

And where am I now? Certainly not in the high-octane, high-flying and more importantly, high-paying lifestyle of F1. Having said that, I touched on it briefly by marriage.

And I’m happy to sit and watch it on Sundays because it entertains me.

And if that’s not sport, I don’t know what is.

us

I received a Facebook forward on my superwall yesterday and I can’t get into it now to copy it into here and since receiving it, it has bothered me on just about every level.

But here we go…

It was a great story.

It put a tear in my eye; it did, it really did!

In essence, it was the tale of a father who asked if his handicapped son could take part in a softball game.

The team accepted and “Shay” was accepted onto a team which was (I think) three runs down in the eight inning. The long and the short of this tale is that the winning team threw the game because “Shay” was given the opportunity to make a grand slam by virtue of soft pitches and fouled base throws.

I love baseball and it’s a great story…and you know what?

It might be true.

But I don’t believe we need these types of story to make us stop and think.

I believe we are put on this earth with an equal proposition: You can be something, or you can be nothing. 

Now, something always gets in the way of that and generally speaking, the impediments to any person’s growth are: Parents, Religion, Education, Society!

At some point in any human’s growth, he or she, will come head-to-head with one of the above; most probably, all of the above.

One of the most fundamental, hard as nails tenets of the religion in which I was brought up is this:

You are born a sinner!

Well that can’t be true, because -and I’ll use a legal term here- people of diminished responsibility can’t possilbly be born that way!

And only for this reason: That can’t be right!

So, let’s say you’ve been through the grinder of parents, society, peer-pressure, religion…

And to a greater or lesser extent, the end product will have been moulded by these influences; but all along the path, there has been the ability to choose.

So what’s left?

It’s you!

Strip everything away: all that’s left is You.

I have three sons.  I look at my boys and wonder sometimes. I wonder that they’re so grown up. But they are their own people. I look at my boys and wonder. I wonder because they’re so grown up; I wonder because they’re so human.

But I also wonder because they know so little and think, such innocence and fundamental goodness cannot possibly exist in a state of Original Sin.

And as I sit here now, the world seems to have gone mad! 

Sometimes the temptation can be to go: to run away; anywhere, just somewhere.

And again, we’re back to the same question:

Who do you meet when you get there? 

Life is a series of anchors. We humans need them and sometimes, we humans throw the anchors in the bad ground; but that’s choice.

In essence, we are all good: many choose not to be.

But when it comes to finding who and what you are:

Get an airplane ticket to…anywhere…run…get there and see: who’s the first person you meet?

Then, look in the mirror and ask this question: “What choices have brought me to this point?”