Posted by
AudiR10TDI on Saturday, March 24, 2007 7:39:53 AM
TORONTO (March 19, 2007) -- I'm back at home from the first race of the 2007 season. The hardest part of the trip, as always, was the journey from Pearson International Airport to my home. What kind of country designs the passageway between the railroad station and the subway station with six flights of stairs and two revolving doors? Like, don't they know people WITH LUGGAGE travel this way? Apparently not. By the way, the approved method of behaviour here in Kanukistan when you see someone struggling with four pieces of luggage in a revolving door is to get in behind her and push as hard as you can. This makes sure the person with the luggage will fall and the door will jam. Keep your eyes blank and keep pushing as hard as you can. (The response is to get up, push back, bang on the door and shout "ARE YOU ABSOLUTELY CRAZY?")
But I digress.
I have attended the 12 Hours of Sebring and covered it as media for the past 5 years. This year I have finally got enough connections to make the transition smoothly from Toronto to Orlando to the track (although I hit a speed bump when the new sheriff in town would not let me into my regular camp site and I had to negotiate a quick pitch-up across the road.) My interviews went smoothly, my tent held up well in the two torrential rainstorms with high winds associated because I finally figured out which way to face it, and I was able to ask questions in a press conference without immediately forgetting everything when called upon. I did not try to do too much and I spelled almost everything correctly. I dealt with the fact that the laundry bag I had left in the vestibule of my tent was soaked and that clothes marinating in a wet plastic bag for three days would offend even the sniffer dogs -- and deal with the problem when I got to the hotel on Sunday.
The one thing I find that I can'd deal with anymore is sleeping on the ground.
I turned 59 years old the end of February, and it becomes clearer to me every time I arrange my comfortable and spacious (well for one person anyway) tent, that something more than an inflatable sleeping mat is needed for backs approaching 60 at considerable speed. It's not the lying down that gets me. It's the sitting up the next morning, and the getting out of the tent to troop down to the Port-O-Loo in the middle of the night. Yes, it's still fun to crank up the laptop and watch "The Italian Job" while eating popcorn and drinking a beer by a new lamp that just needs to be shaken vigorously to provide plenty of light. Yes, the Mountain Co-Op people deserve high praise for designing a tent that in truth a monkey can put up, that fits inside a duffle bag, and that can be popped up in my hotel room to dry before being packed for travel.
No, arthritis is no respector of persons, and sleeping on the cold, cold ground is alas beginning to not be an option -- especially when followed in the early morning with the hoisting of a computer backpack and gear bag and the half-mile traipse to the Tower.
The tent is not the only thing that reminds me I am not as young as I was. Race drivers who call me "Ma'am" also does nothing for my illusion that I am just the woman I was 20 years ago. My sister told me if I dyed my hair, people would think I was younger. Alas, the nice man on the gate still says "Ma'am, would you like one of our Boys to take you to the Tower in a golf cart?" because he can see at a glance that I'm too old and stiff to walk, even with the pleasing prospect of an interview with Dyson Racing at the end.
But I'm happy to report that I have not yet, at least in sports cars, reached the curmudgeon stage in which I grumble that Racing Is Not What It Was. (Okay, I have long ago passed that milestone concerning Formula One. I blame Alain Prost. I dream about Alain Prost. Sue me.) I still go out, once I have made my peace with my aching bones, with the zest for the field as it exists today. I enjoy seeing Tommy Archer and Lawson Aschenbach equally although Archer is approaching my generatoin and Awesome Lawson is the age of one of my kids. And most of all, I enjoy the fact that nobody could possibly believe I am at the track to chase the drivers into a corner of the garage. You know that you're Right Up There when nobody could possibly believe anything you say could be construed as an invitation to dance, including my lifetime joke that the only question I'd ever want to ask Michael Andretti is "Does your dad fool around?"
I have to admit as I sit at home trying to calm the cat and look at the bags in the hall, that I love Sebring but I'm looking forward to the Houston Race not only for the excellent night racing, but for the Courtyard By Marriott. I will not tent again until the end of August at Mosport. And when I return from Mosport I will walk outside the railroad station and take a cab. When you're Old, you can.
If you want to know what else I did at Sebring: http://www.rfmsports.com