I’ve been out in the barn putting a motor together.  It’s hot.  I’m sweaty and greasy.  Yet I’m feeling pretty good.  I’m going to race again.  It’s been more than a year since I sat behind the wheel of my race car.  I’ve considered giving it up.  I’ve seriously thought about selling the car and the parts I’ve stock piled over the years.  At least I think I’ve thought seriously about it.  I’ve never told anyone that any of it was for sale.  I keep wondering why I want to do it.  I’m forty three years old.  I keep telling myself that I’m not trying to impress anybody by doing it.  I truly think I’m not, but I can’t be for sure.  Such is the nature of one’s vanity.  I really love dirt track racing.  It satisfies the inner and outer hillbilly in me.  I love watching it about as well as I like doing it.  I could just go watch.  That’s what I’ve been doing, but here I am out in the barn sweating and greasy.  Why?

     I think I can answer why easily.  I recently went to watch the races.  I’m setting there really loving watching guys, and a few girls, flying around the track trying their best to pass the next guy or hold off the guy that’s doing the passing and something hit me.  I started looking inside the cars and watching the driver.  I started to remember what’s going on in one’s mind when your out there.  I saw a friend of mine get tagged in the back and spun out.  I couldn’t wait for him to get back on the track.  I knew what was fixing to happen.  I knew he was hot.  I knew he would drive as hard as he could to catch the guy.  He put on quite a little show for the remaining laps.  He didn’t catch the guy but you could tell he was trying.  I started feeling like a driver again.  I started seeing the race as if I were driving.  That felt good.  My nerves seem to come alive.  I knew then that I was going to drive again and have a little fun.  I’ve never raced in the big classes-the expensive ones.  I’ve always raced the lower classes where the cars don’t go quite as fast or the payout isn’t near as big.  That’s ok.  I know there are some very competitive people in the more expensive classes, but you ought to try and beat a guy that rolled into the races and entered with his last dollar.  He wants to win badly.  He needs to win.  That guy, or girl, will race the hell out of you.  That’s fun when you can be up in the front and contending with those guys that spend every waking moment working on getting faster.  Learning how to get faster.  Those guys are tough to beat.  I promise they’re tough to beat.  I’ve gotten to do that on occasion.  A lot of times I end up in the infield because something fell off or caught fire.  Such is the case for the truly broke race car driver.  As long as I get some laps in I’m happy.  Still though.  Why spend the money and the time.  Why get nasty and sweaty for some laps around a dirt track in hicksville nowhereland.  I’m getting to the answer I swear.

     It’s because it’s being done.  That’s it.  That’s the whole thing.  It’s being done.  If you love something and it’s being done, you have to do it.  I must race.  It’s being done out there in the mad American world.  People all over are working a full time job so they can come home and work another full time job getting their car ready to race.  People all over this still-wild American experiment are sweating and getting greasy so they can go get in on the action.  It’s being done and I’m doing it to.  I’m with it.  I’m in it.  You people out there already doing it better beware.  My junk heap is hitting the track.  Bump me and see what you get.  All race car drivers turn into transformers when they strap in.  If we’re pushed around we will transform.  If we are wronged we will transform.  It’s being done every Friday and Saturday night everywhere.  There’s no more western expansion.  No more wilderness to conquer.  People don’t load everything up and go somewhere where there is nothing and try to keep their family alive.  We don’t have that outlet anymore.  At least the common man doesn’t.  We strap ourselves in race cars and roll, blast, orbit, blow, tear, dig around a path that has no end.  People left their families and friends to go live in the wild wilderness.  They did this because it was being done.  I can see them standing there watching the next wagon roll out of town and thinking “if you can do it, so can I.  How dare you do this without me.”  When it’s being done you have to do it.