*warning… Margarita’s, a patio and wifi. Meesh has a belly/mind full of tequila on this holiday Monday here in Canada, so spelling and grammar and “sense” don’t count* *complete thoughts and sentences not guarenteed*
If Pole day was shockingly disappointing, then Bump day was soul crushing.
I still don’t really have the words today to express myself fully. Maybe because real life intervened and I was on an 18hr photo shoot that prevented me from being tethered to my computer to watch this nightmare play out. It still feels like a cruel joke, like someone is punking all of us that live and breath racing and Paul Tracy.
He is in 2003 race trim!! do ANY of you know… can any of you GRASP how hard this man has worked to get to this place?? When I hung out with him in January, I quietly, silently, questioned whether he still had the fire in his belly. He seemed defeated, and a little flubby at the time. Almost complacent about racing and his future. Then it was like someone lit a fire under him.
How cruel the universe that would see fit to exclude Paul from this race, after he devoted himself heart and soul to being championship ready and worthy.
How cruel the universe that sees fit to see him sitting on the sidelines instead of driving fulltime.
How cruel the universe.
Paul showed heartbreaking honesty and class in his Racermag Blog in the aftermath. Jimmy showed culpability in his apology to Paul’s fans for not getting him in the show. Winning as a team. Losing as a team. I get that. I appreciate that.
I’ll appreciate it more if they can take the Geico money and put Paul in a car at the Glen as a precursor to Toronto… *hint hint*
That said, I can’t help but wonder if KV tech bit off a little more than they were capable of chewing. 3 fulltime wrecking balls er drivers, a likely very over worked crew. Not enough frankencars to cover the damage… I have to wonder outloud if Paul would have been better off with a one-off single car team effort (a la RLR) where the focus would have been solely on him and getting that car in the show.
“what if’s” don’t amount to a hill o’beans after the fact.
I can tell ya that the bitter pill of not being able to make it to Indy this year, was definitely easier to swallow this morning. Watching races containing a Paul Tracy-less field… not so much exciting or interesting to me. I definitely felt that at St. Pete’s. I will however been cheering for Simona and Bia. I’m tickled pink for Bruno and Sebastien, and will be over the moon if Justin can quietly make his way into the hunt.
My focus is now on the month of July. (my personal month of May)
Kicking off with the Glen, then the party comes to my town, (the banners are up now, causing me to squee just a little in the pit of my belly when I see them on the lamp posts) then I hop on a plane to Edmonton. That’s right. I’m all booked! It became officially official on Friday when my bosses surprised me and booked my plane tickets for Edmonton. It was their way of saying thank you for essentially putting my life on hold since April to keep the business up and running. So at least now I am guaranteed to see both of Paul’s remaining races this season.
I really feel sort of disconnected right now from the circus. I didn’t get to watch one minute of racing this month until Saturday due to work. From that I saw that it was basically status quo. Penske/Ganassi dominating, with a few underdogs scratching their way in. Andretti Autosport is struggling again. Gotta feel for them as they seemed to have some momentum in the early races.
I did see that Princess Sparkle Pony stopped barfing up bunny fur and burping rainbows, and got her widdle feewings hurt… awwww…
GMAFB.
Sucks for her and her entourage of sharks and sucker fish that the reality of her skillset is becoming apparent to not only real racing fans, but the general public now that she is no longer the novelty act, but rather one of several women in the field, all of which actually put their ON TRACK careers first, and spend their time and resources bettering themselves as race car drivers, rather than building and maintaining their ‘brand’. Nothing shines a light on your own irrelevance, than someone doing the same thing as you, only better.
Bottomline is, sometimes you’re the hero, sometimes you’re the villain. You gotta take the jeers with the same conviction as the cheers. Suck it up buttercup. This is racing, not a fucking cotillion. Somebody boo’s you, or doesn’t like you? Big fucking deal.
There are a lot of drivers out there that people love to hate! Do they curl up in a ball and whine about it to the media? hell no! They wear the black hat! They revel in their villain ways! Best example of that was Paul in Montreal. The weekend spent with “Capt Quebec” will go down as one of my favorite racing memories. The boos from the crowd drowned out the sound of his car for most of that weekend. But he took it all in stride, and even played it up a little. By the end of the weekend, he was a hero again. It’s all in the attitude my friends.
Hell, a lot of people hate MY fucking guts. Do I give a shit? HELL no.
I do what I do, I believe in myself, I do it for me. If there are people are on my bandwagon taking the journey with me, great! If not? whatever. There’s the door.
I don’t write this blog, or do any of my other race writing and photography ventures to win some internet popularity contest. The surest way to become irrelevant is to try to become relevant. It’s forced, it’s contrived, and it rings about as true as, well as true as… an example I could think of if I was more sober. *shrug*
Personally I think Danican’t is having an identity crisis now that she is being shown up by a pretty, personable, fast and GENUINELY nice female driver who’s life isn’t “scripted” by a team of reps who see a product and dollar signs, rather than a race car driver. Hell, I’m sure she herself doesn’t know where Danica the driver begins and Dancia the Brand ends.
Apparently how the handle “Boos” wasn’t part of her marketing strategy script as the hearts and flowers stepford wife-like media automaton that they unleashed last year as part of the “get Danica a big cheque, er Nascar ride” production.
I almost feel sorry for her. Almost. But you know what? You make your bed, you gotta lay in it. Lumps and all…
And with that, I’m going to shut the lid and perhaps have one more drink to salvage what’s left of my 1 day weekend (the other 2 days of my long weekend were spent working… boo!!!) before kicking back into work mode tomorrow.
