It’s Such Romance
Race weekends are busy affairs. Golf carts clip by, maybe a foot or so closer to my 31-year-old bones and ligaments than I’d ultimately prefer. Harried parents corral excitable children. Mechanics with stress etched into their body from head to toe wipe their brow and take a drink of water.
Plenty of people wouldn’t find that appealing, much less romantic. But it’s a veneer. A facade. It’s the thing you see when you haven’t really looked yet.
I didn’t come from a racing family. My household had zero interest in it.
I listened to Minnesota Twins games before falling asleep. John Gordon and Dan Gladden, in case you’re wondering.
I watched football on Sundays. The Green Bay Packers, until my allegiances shifted to the Minnesota Vikings, in case you’re wondering.
My whole family played tennis. My brother played baseball. My sister was one of the best basketball players our high school produced.
Do you believe me yet? We weren’t into racing.
The closest I got to caring about racing was playing NASCAR on my GameCube. I always played as Kasey Kahne. But I knew about Dale and his son. And Jeff Gordon, I guess.
Eventually, I stopped playing NASCAR and didn’t care about motorsport at all for a long time.
Years and years (and years) later, I had a coworker who told me he thought I’d like Formula 1. I promptly ignored him for three years.
Then in 2021 on a summer Sunday morning, I got an ESPN alert on my phone that the Monaco Grand Prix was about to start.
I grudgingly got out of bed, made an espresso and sat down to watch. If you had a close shot of my pupils, you would have seen them dilate. It was a rush. I didn’t know I could have such a visceral reaction to anything anymore.
I marveled at the technology; how could you not? But more than that, I marveled at the people.
The driver, trusted with a machine that costs millions of dollars to build and represents a physical manifestation of the intelligence, expertise, and hard work of a thousand people.
The pit crew, a dozen people executing a precise dance in under three seconds, where failure is punished grievously.
The strategy team, doing…things…that are…complicated and cool.
But more importantly, the total alignment toward a common purpose. That’s what I fell in love with.
Common purpose. Pulling toward something together. Your strengths cover my weaknesses.
Vice.
Versa.
With those lenses on, the view of this sport changes.
Race weekends are romantic affairs. Golf carts whiz by, so close to my 31-year-old bones and ligaments because the people driving them love what I love and need to get to their next stop to see more of it. Parents corral excitable children - both will, someday, wish for one more weekend, one more day, one more hour testing each other’s nerves. Mechanics who commit the resources of their mind and body to create something incredible take a drink of water before going back to work. Always going back to work.
How lucky are we to have a romance like this?