Over the course of a driving season, I find that my emotional love of the sport changes dynamics severely. A dialog is constantly playing in my head: "Am I just going in circles? Do I need to improve my car? Do I need to improve myself? Do I still enjoy this?" And it is quite surprising, even to myself. I constantly assess what makes me enjoy this sport so much. Why do I do this? Why do I spend time and money driving in circles?
This constant introspection is, in itself, an enjoyable pursuit. As workers, as parents, as spouses, as members of the community - in all these roles, we must constantly find our place and our purpose. As I get older, I increasingly feel that life is rather short and should be as sweet as possible before we "shuffle off this mortal coil." Over the past few years, I've experienced that one of the more nectarous parts of life is the opportunity to be introspective about a pursuit that is fairly immaterial and seemingly frivolous. Being able to focus on something beyond sustenance and important human relationships, and to place some degree of rigorous focus on it - well, that must be the true definition of luxury.
I have often struggled with the word, "luxury." It seems to imply egregious expense and the commensurate guilt that should accompany it, knowing that so many in our society struggle to achieve even basic daily living. I am not using the word, "luxury," in that manner. I am applying the alternative definition: "an unusual, enjoyable experience." Driving for me, has always been that sort of luxury. Contrary to many perceptions, I like to limit the expense and maximize the enjoyment as much as is possible, making sure to reduce the impact it has on my ability to spend resources on important things like family and helping others.
With this philosophy firmly espoused, I have been keen on finding a way to obtain maximum enjoyment for as minimal a cost to fortune and family as possible. A big part of why I created this "club", if it can even be called that, and feel good about inviting others into it is that I am confident that I am doing my utmost to try to create massive fun in a "cheap and cheerful" package to share with those around me.
In large part, this philosophy puts me at odds with professional motor racing. It appears to be a contradiction and a dichotomy. Why is that?
I've often wondered about this conflict and I constantly look for the reason behind it. As much as I enjoy the people and machines at the top most levels of the sport, I have long felt that it is a world removed from anything applicable in our lives. A very odd feeling indeed for someone like me who enjoys participating in the amateur level so tremendously. While I'm sure I'll not answer it fully, I recently watched an online documentary about Formula 1 called "Formula One, On the Limit" that provided a new lens through which to develop this debate.
Without boring you to tears rehashing the content, the part that particularly resonated with me was the indicated disconnect between race technology and road cars that actually happened right about the time I was born. Racing technology had become so complex and sophisticated in the 1970's and early '80s that, by many accounts, there was little need for a driver at all anymore. Using computers, cars were better able to react to dynamic conditions than drivers! Larger-than-life figures like Jim Clark and Sir Stirling Moss were no longer the centerpieces of sporting admiration. The new challenge became limiting the amount of information being fed to the "nut behind the wheel" so that they were not overwhelmed. And where did this sea-change come from? Aviation, apparently. In a situation where falling from the sky remains a constant threat, with aerial combat added in on occasion, aircraft technology has a far more sustained, critical purpose than automotive technology. In all practical fact, automotive technology has not advanced dramatically since Karl Benz invented the first automobile powered by an internal combusion engine in 1886. His wife, Bertha, may have had the most exciting drive ever recorded as she undertook the first long-distance journey (66 miles) in an automobile during which "she repaired various technical and mechanical problems and invented brake lining." Invented brake improvements while driving!! Bertha was awesome. But driving on the road has since just become easier and easier to the point where many of us are now doing and thinking of something, anything, else rather than driving even while we do it. Even at a recent track day where there were quite a few slower cars building trains on the racetrack, we joked about how we were catching up on our emails while out on circuit!
I have come to theorize that the reciprocity between motorsport and aviation (and subsequent dissociation between racing and road cars) is the missing link in my own understanding of my love-hate relationship with motorsports. At the highest level, motorsports isn't about cars or driving. It's about piloting (defined as "being qualified to steer" a ship, originally) - and whether "piloting" should still be entrusted to humans anymore. In an age where drones are frighteningly usable for combat missions, we have seemingly made the decision that humans should be removed from the aviation and aerospace stage as much as is possible. People were needed only until the computing power could catch up well enough. With this indirect but unmistakable link between aviation and motor racing, human "pilots" have only received a stay of execution because, as Murray Walker astutely opines, "no one will watch Formula 1 if the cars drive themselves." Humans are suffered as drivers primarily due to the need to create entertainment for other humans - as a way to sustain the enterprise. The psychological economics indicate that when we can no longer identify ourselves in the race drivers, we lose all connection to the endeavor and cease to appreciate it or spend money on it. This is an interesting commentary of the state of appreciation for technology as much as it is on motorsport itself, in many ways.
Luckily, none of this colors why I personally enjoy driving. It is, in fact, the antithesis of my enjoyment. I find myself constantly looking to crawl back to the time where Bertha Benz summoned her courage to interact directly with a mysterious machine, finding the mental and physical wherewithal to face the challenge of both physical demands of "piloting" and mental demands of understanding and improving her ability to utilize the machine itself for her specific purposes. I have gone from enjoying a very fine example of an automobile with sophisticated control mechanisms, antilock braking systems, traction control, et cetera to yearning for abject simplicity and direct involvement. My current joy is to fix up an old, analog car and then learn it as well as I can. The more raw the better. I truly enjoy the purity of a person driving as simple and light a mechanical device as possible to achieve autonomous travel, dealing with the physics and difficulties in real time as they present themselves, using a brain and, in my case, waning reflexes to control as much as I can personally manage.
In large measure, this is why I do still love to watch motorcycle racing - MotoGP as a prime example. I consider MotoGP to be 80% man and 20% machine - a nearly ideal mixture. In a wet race, piloting a MotoGP machine is 110% driver/rider. By contrast, Formula one is about 85% machine with perhaps the paltry remainder grudgingly left to the driver - and that is open for debate. We see comparatively inexperienced young drivers like Max Verstappen, Carlos Sainz Jr. and Valtteri Bottas quickly being able to perform wheel-to-wheel with veterans like Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel, and Jensen Button. In professional motor racing, we have to wonder whether acquiring skill and experience is a quaint notion that has been put out to pasture by the permanently embedded intelligence of computing and engineering teams.
What drives me to enjoy driving is exactly what is driving me away from professional motorsports at the highest level. Watching a field of 20 identical Toyota Camrys do battle on track would be more interesting to me now so we could see and feel the humanity shine through. I love the anecdote from a professional F1 driver who said that the most interesting race was always the one not on TV. The drivers wake very early on race mornings in the wee hours to drive to the track. They hop into their economy rental cars, randomly assigned to them at the airport rental desk, in the dark at the hotel and set off against their colleagues on a race to the track on sparely populated roads. Occasionally swapping paint and massaging each other's bumpers, they have a real no-holds-barred race to the track for the only purpose of bragging rights and pure enjoyment. That pure love of the sport and the variability of humanity - that is what it is all about for me. May the best (human) driver on that day under those circumstances take the win, but let every driver enjoy the battle as it unfolds. The technology should not create the winner. The human skill should define the outcome on that particular day.
I'm sure I'll continue to have good days and bad days. Days where I think I'm nuts for enjoying driving in circles. And days where it is a forceful passion. I'm sure I'll still watch professional racing on occasion, but not as something to aspire to. The chance to be Bertha Benz is what, I think, we should aspire to. The chance to be human - maybe even a more involved human because of the machines.