Right Foot Down!

By Scott Robertson

I have never witnessed any coverage that accurately reflects what life is like for those employed in the industry. There is a lot of media hype, but that does not reflect the actual team members' daily routine or what they give up in life to provide this entertainment to the world. There is a lot of stress, and some danger, which is managed, but it takes a personal toll. The stress has to be relieved in some way. You don't just work with your coworkers; you live with them, all over the world. This book reflects one life of a thousand, on one of thirty teams in the sport.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 20, 2018
• ISBN: 9781640822146

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Right Foot Down!

Scott Robertson

Copyright © 2018 Scott Robertson

All rights reserved

First Edition

Page Publishing, Inc

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc 2018

ISBN 978-1-64082-213-9 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64082-214-6 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Scott Robertson is now 60 years old. Born in 1957 and raised in a small farming community in central Washington State, he acquired a thirst for travel, and experiencing different cultures. He had never been around any non-Caucasian people in his life up to graduation from high school. His father had never left the United States, or traveled further than Reno Nevada. He had always spoken of going to Canada, which was a 2 hour drive from his home.

Scott began his working career as a mechanic in the truck shop his father worked in, at the age of 14, and began working full time on a swing shift after school when he obtained his driver’s license. This shop included metal fabrication as well as general truck mechanics, which he performed alongside his father.

Following graduation from high school Scott began working for a garbage company which later sold to a larger company, which sold again to a yet larger company. He worked his way up from a floor level mechanic to a supervisor, and was transferred to continually larger operations. He also obtained years of experience as a heavy equipment mechanic working on jobs such as dams, roads, underground utilities and large excavations such as landfill cells.

He is married to his true life partner, and each have two grown children, as well as two grandchildren. He lives on a small farm 30 miles from where he was raised. He enjoys polo and planted a polo field (9 football fields) as his front yard. He never rode a horse until he was 46, and took up the sport. He was severely injured in Spokane Washington in 2010 and spent a month on life support with ribs through his lung and a sheared brain. He is still a garbage man.

Foreword

Ihave decided to write this story because I have not seen any true representation of what the auto racing sport is truly like for the folks employed in the industry, and because frankly, the stories are hard to believe, and harder to tell, in mixed company. Why now? Well, the statute of limitations has run its course, and offspring sired for unplanned reasons are emancipated. As well, my children are now old enough to understand the life circumstances involved.

The industry has changed significantly since the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. Indeed, entertainment has changed. Television used to be cable, and everyone subscribed to it. It was the advertising medium with limited space. Racing was a show more than a race, with rolling billboards advertising various products. When I began racing the only computers used were at the airport for ticketing. By 1991 they had to pass a rule that the car have a driver to maintain the excitement of the show. To the crew they were merely ballast. There were no cell phones. There was no internet. Relationships were person to person, actually in person. As the season was hectic with multiple dates in multiple time zones, and included test sessions and crashed cars, travel (flights, cars, hotels) were booked through a travel agent. It was all coordinated in advance as well as possible, and immediately began changing to accommodate various needs, or desires. You got to know ticket counter agents and flight crews very well. Every team had to go to the same locations every weekend, so you never knew who you were seated next to on an L1011 until you sat down.

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The teams were small. Ours was 6 to 8 traveling, with a couple of homers back at the shop, and a couple weekend warriors that flew in and just worked the race event.

All of these stories are true. Most happened with the author. Those that he was not directly involved with happened with friends that he knew, and came by the circumstances first hand. This book is fiction, based on real events.

In an effort to make the story flow without too much boredom it is not in chronological order as if from a diary. Some of the names have been changed, or nicknames have been substituted. This is to accommodate relatives (read children) or remove sponsors concerns over any unintended slights. If anyone reads this book that was directly involved, they will know the story.

I have attempted not to use craft jargon as much as possible. The intent is for an average reader to follow the story. I will interrupt at times to explain technical terms and abbreviations, such as CG (center of gravity) and its impact on a car. Everyone knows that a fuel pick-up is at the bottom of a fuel tank. When you are going around 90 degree corners that are not sloped (supered) at 240 miles per hour, the CG requires that the fuel pick-up be located on the right (wall) side of the fuel tank. This comes into play when a yellow flag comes out slowing the cars below the CG design, when the tank is less than half full. To carry this line of thinking a little further (yellow flag) there was a time when there were no speed limits in Pit Lane, and it was considered part of the race, and racetrack. So when a yellow came out, and you only had 10 gallons of alcohol on board, you had to slow to 200 mph and dive into the pits to top off your fuel load, which changes your weight, and increases the CG. Imagine slowing to 200. If you’re at IMS (Indianapolis Motor Speedway) and you have to pit, you must first warm the brake pads, which are stone cold because you don’t brake there, so that you can stop at your fuel tank. All of this is a steep learning curve with very serious consequences.

Quotes to live by

When it’s time to shoot, shoot, don’t talk Tuco, The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

Better to be a Has-been than a Never-was Bruce Leven, Phoenix Arizona

Everybody shits between their heals Swede Robertson, Ellensburg, Washington

It ran great ‘til it quit John Rice, Brownstown, Washington

You should write a book Tricia Robertson, Selah, Washington

Immediately followed by

Be careful what you ask for, you might get it Scott Robertson, Selah, Washington

Followed one year later by

You’ll never hear those words cross my lips again Tricia Robertson, Selah, Washington

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Chapter 1

Sport

Sport is defined by the Webster Dictionary as to amuse oneself: Frolic and physical activity engaged in for pleasure. The owner of Bayshore Racing, Spruce Leveen, lived his life by this definition. There was no good business reason to do this, even though it was run as a business. Spruce was like a 50 year old child playing with a toy. He would laugh at things that would rattle the average person. Million dollar decisions were acted on sometimes at a whim. As he was very successful it was hard to criticize his logic. He was involved in multiple lawsuits. The kind of thing that keeps you awake at night. Spruce would make light of it. Not like it’s a joke. He took it seriously. But he had a way of putting it in a humorous light, often at his own personal and literal expense.

As an example, in one of his divorces, with a woman I deeply admired, and considered a friend, he went to the 10 best attorneys that he knew, or had heard of through others, and came up with a list of 10 really good attorneys from each, in all fields; Realty, taxes, labor law, etc. He went to each of the 100, and got a list of the 10 best divorce attorneys in their opinion. That is a list of 1000 names at some considerable expense. His plan was to take the name listed the most on all the lists as his attorney. Once he tallied the names he discovered the one he wanted was Nancy’s attorney. He laughed, admitted he was screwed, and that she had outsmarted him, again. That’s how the guy’s brain worked. Who else would come up with that? So;

We’re working at the shop. We have four cars in various stages of assembly. It is off-season and we are preparing for Indy car testing in Arizona, and IMSA (International Motor Sports Association) races in Florida. The two types of cars are completely different. The Indy cars are open wheel, open cockpit, carbon fiber monocoques, and the IMSA cars are closed wheel (fenders) that have doors, a windshield, assembled around a honeycomb fabricated aluminum monocoque. The Indy cars are Lola’s built in the United Kingdom, and the IMSA cars are 962 Porsches built in Germany. A monocoque is a stressed member of the chassis that distributes the various loads from the suspension through the cockpit to the skin in the building materials (composites in this instance).

The roll-up door is open just a few feet to allow fresh air in the building. Spuce Leveen is standing at the top of the staircase overlooking his mechanics working on his cars, smoking a cigarette. Surely, Roy Orbison, ZZ Top, or Pat Benetar is playing, since that was the norm.

A lady walks under the roll-up door, bent at the waist, and says good morning. Immediately my radar switches to full Ruh-ro mode. One thing that the Europeans have taught me is to know my place in the social structure. This woman was obviously far above my station. She was pretty. About 5 foot 8 inches tall, dirty blond hair a little past shoulder length with big, but not too big curls. She had on a woolen business suit skirt, about 3 inches above the knees, with a matching sport jacket over a sheer white blouse with ruffles in the front, and a business, but sexy, show of her ample cleavage. The shoes were not CFM stilettos, but they had about a 3 heel. She bent over peeking into the cockpits of the cars, which made her skirt creep up about 3 to 4 more inches, and if you were observing from the other side of the car, opening her blouse with the gravitational CG. She was asking with confidence about the shop, in a gravelly deep voice, and her memory of it being a garbage company. Of course all the guys were tripping over themselves to accommodate her questions, Slirmy being the worst. Slirmy is married with kids, a Homer, and a chain smoker. The common chant was Slirmy, the race is Sunday!" because he was such a fuck-off with no sense of urgency. Since he didn’t travel he didn’t suffer the consequences of something not getting done. Slirmy was, however, a good mechanic if not a cock hound. This lady struck me as either media, like a news anchor, or professional sport such as ballroom dancer. She was fit.

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Her posture was ballroom dance such as tango; Strong muscular calves, shoulder blades that show through her jacket, chin up, shoulders back, elbows in, diaphragm up, knees slightly bent carrying her weight on her toes. Very pretty, but not sexpot in the Marilyn Monroe sense. She was either T.V. or a defense attorney that specializes in middle age white guy juries in Texas. If I had to guess body mass (BMI) I would say 18 (mine is 17), and weight at 120 pounds.

So Slirmy has his Cheshire cat grin going, explaining that yes it used to be a garbage company, but now it’s a race team and the garbage company moved a block over. She asked about the ownership and Slirmy explained that the same man owned both the race team and the garbage company. In between this chit chat she’s asking car questions. Slirmy is giving the tour, how to adjust the anti-roll bars, etc.

Spruce comes sauntering down the stairs with his chest puffed out and his waist sucked in. She sees him, poses a formal stance, and introduced herself as Dana Cowley, and held her right hand out. Spruce introduced himself and shook her hand. She reached into her large purse and pulled out a legal size envelope and declared loudly, Spruce Leveen, you’ve been served!.

I laughed my ass off. Slirmy looked like he just got caught farting in the bathtub, and Spruce held up both hands and yelled no, no, I’ve been ducking you guys for months. Dana said she always gets her man. She stepped directly towards him and flipped the envelope, with a practiced hand, under his right arm pit, which he then squeezed with his raised arm. Typical Spruce, making a game out of getting sued.

In the garbage years I ran a fab shop that built garbage trucks and containers. Our shop was a few miles away from the race team. We ran 3 shifts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We only closed at Christmas. It was so rare no one could remember where a key to the door was because we never locked it. This was a motley crew. Mostly bikers complete with the hair, beards, and tattoo’s. Spruce would come into the shop every day at 6:00 in the morning and play quarters with the crew. This is a game in which any number of people can enter, you flip quarters and let them land on the floor. You keep repeating until only 1 player is odd – out, either with heads or tails. That winner collected the quarters off the floor and the next hand began. There was lots of bad coffee, there was no heat, and smoking was allowed anywhere. Most of the welders were bikers making just over minimum wage. Spruce actually kept his quarter competition change (quarters) in a jar at home on his headboard, and always knew where he stood monetarily with the gambling.

Spruce is the most unique person that I have ever had the pleasure to know. What a character. This is a guy that has a handmade Aluminum yacht complete with a helipad and seaplane dock, playing a child’s game with bikers, and keeping score.

You don’t see many that would attempt to run an IMSA team and Indy car team simultaneously. Only Spruce and his motley crew.

Chapter 2

Daytona

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We decided to leave Christmas night at 8:00. Jerome was to be my co-driver. He was Jamaican, and had no one in Seattle, but he knew lots of people in Florida. My girlfriend had gone to Southern California to be with her large family, and to allow her 10 year old son some time with her ex-husband. As my dad lived about 100 miles from Seattle I wanted to spend Christmas day with him. The weather was crappy. Winter in Seattle is all rain. We looked forward to Daytona, warm weather and beaches. Seattle traffic can be miserable, especially on a holiday. You don‘t go anywhere without crossing at least one bridge.

We were tasked with being in Daytona, ready to go, at the track just after the first of the year. We were entering two cars in the 24 hours endurance race, which kicks off the Spring Break month, concluded by the Daytona 500 stock car race, later in the month. As both cars were ready to go by Christmas, because the team members wanted time off during the holidays, we were loaded and ready to go Christmas day. Jerome and I decided since we had nothing at home, and the weather was better in Florida than Seattle, we might as well be there. We agreed to pack food and drive straight through. We didn’t enjoy trucks stops.

Food is a big deal on a race team. So are bathrooms. Some teams have hospitality that is open to the team. Others have hospitality for the sponsors only, no team members. As Bayshore began as a privateer sports car team, there was no hospitality. The food was either at the motel before and after work, which could be 18 hours, or track food, which varied from one venue to the next. Same with the restrooms; usually a porta-potty at the track, waiting in line with the fans. So Jerome and I packed coolers with deli turkey, good bread, condiments, drinks and all for the trip. It was heaven compared to the other choices. It was healthy, we made it ourselves, and it was a per diem buster (affordable). We got paid per diem to cover meal expenses. Anything under $25 per day was a per diem buster.

We could drive the 4500 miles in 69 hours. We had to stop for fuel in Los Angeles, El Paso, and Mobile. Each fuel stop was an hour. We took the southern route which was I-5 to LA, and I-10 to Jacksonville. As the transporter was not heated, and the cars could not withstand sub-zero temperatures, we could not cut diagonally across the Rocky Mountains. The truck was a full size semi with a 45 foot trailer weighing 80,000 pounds. It was difficult to explain to a scale house officer in Biloxi Mississippi that it was not a commercial vehicle. It was a vehicle not for hire but since it was prominently labeled as a national fuel distributer we had to be highway legal for each state for a commercial vehicle which includes hours of service and log books. As we were licensed for Washington State, we had to buy registration and tonnage for Oregon, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, as well as look forward to the Sunday evening departure leaving the race to the next site. This requires some planning and effort. Every state does it differently, including state rules to check in, fuel taxes for road maintenance, etc. You don’t just hop in the cab and push your Right Foot Down. Crossing Texas alone, from El Paso to Houston, is 20 hours, driving above the speed limit.

Since Jerome was the driver and I was just helping, we decided that he would take the first shift, leaving Seattle. The laws have changed over time, but generally the hours of service are no more than 10 hours on without a rest of at least 8 hours. It’s hard to be in a sleeper for 10 hours, so we generally went with 8 on and 8 off. You try to read a book, get drowsy, and nod off. When I came to we were in a snow storm in the southern half of Oregon around Ashland. The truck was stopped with no Jerome. I was in my jammies and a t-shirt. I got dressed and went out to find Jerome. Chains were required on commercial vehicles and we were in a long line of trucks installing chains. It doesn’t snow in Jamaica. Jerome could not bring himself to believe that you actually wrap a tire in chains and drive it. As the IMSA trailer had belly lockers which are slide out cabinets at the bottom of the trailer, the fit around the tires was too close for chains. We had cable devices which don’t throw as much slack when driving. So Jerome watched me install the chains on both the tractor and the trailer. Well, when you have $2m in cars and a $500,000 rig hauling them, do you let a guy that’s never seen snow drive? So I whipped up a turkey sandwich, opened a bag of chips, changed from my boots to my fuzzy slippers (we’re talking a nice truck), and started driving in the dark in a snowstorm. It was that way for a couple hundred miles into northern California around Lake Shasta. Jerome fell asleep. I ran over a blown tire that you could not see for the accumulated snow. I pulled off on the next off-ramp to inspect for damage. The tire had torn a cross-over line from one 300 gallon tank to the one on the other side of the truck. There was no way to make a new line, so I had to engineer a cobble. There are a lot of pine trees around Mt Shasta. I broke off some limbs that looked a suitable size for my needs, opened the trailer and got some tools, and climbed under the truck into the snow mixed with diesel. I unhooked the fuel line and jammed the sticks into the fittings to stop the leak. Jerome slept on. I could have used him to hold the flashlight. He did finally wake up. I made it to a truck stop in Lodi (stuck in Lodi again). We had a new hose made and installed, and bought fuel.

We traded again. I threw all my diesel soaked clothes in a garbage bag and tossed it in the trailer. I napped on and off. We decided to forgo the LA traffic, and cut off I-5 at the Grapevine and go across the desert through Palmdale and Lancaster ending up at I-10 below San Bernadino just outside Palm Springs. On to Arizona. My home climate is arid, or less than 7 inches of annual precipitation. 100 degrees is common in July and August. But the desert is different. We have no cactus or roadrunners. That’s one of the beauties of the job; seeing different things and experiencing different cultures. Armadillo’s are up the road a state or two. We are well into the second day. I am driving in the middle of New Mexico. Lots of Cactus, lots of roadrunners. I had worked heavy highway construction in my career. I understood storm drains to accommodate 100 year weather events. The largest culvert I had ever installed in a state highway was an 8 foot diameter culvert. It was big. You could stand up in it, drive a pick-up truck through it, and it was in the middle of nowhere that got no weather, other than lots of sunshine. The storm drains in central New Mexico were huge, probably 30 feet. I was amazed, mostly at how much our government could waste money. It was cloudy, and the sky was dark up ahead. It started to sprinkle, and I turned on the wipers. Within seconds it was raining so hard I could not see. I rolled the window down and stuck my head out to no avail. I could not see the length of my arm. I stopped right where I was on the highway. My logic was if I couldn’t see neither could anyone else. The noise of the rain hitting the truck was deafening. Jerome woke up. We ate lunch. After about 20 minutes the rain started to subside, at least enough to drive slowly. We switched drivers. I wasn’t tired so I rode in the passenger seat and watched New Mexico go by. What a site. A flood in the desert. I understand the Noah mentality on his ark. I will never question a storm drain again. People I’ve talked to said such weather is common in New Mexico. If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t believe it.

It’s my turn to drive again. As we are entering Texas, I decide to fuel in El Paso because I don’t know where the next station may be. The visual is difficult to describe, because a truck stop in El Paso ain’t pretty, but it is gorgeous compared to the sites around it. Looking ahead out of the windshield is Juarez, Mexico. There’s no rhyme or reason to the placement of houses if you want to call them that. Shack is a compliment. People live in 4 walls and a roof made out of 5 pallets. Nothing is clocked north, south, east, west, like we do it. There are no streets, just dirt paths. No one has electricity. Cooking is over fire pits. There are no stray dogs. There are young Mexican girls working the truck stop. When you pull up to a pump one of them jumps on your rig and starts washing windows before you even come to a stop. In perfect English, they look you directly in the eye and ask if there’s anything else they can do for you? It’s so sad. My answer was no, and I tipped 5 bucks, and pumped my own fuel. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. More on Juarez and Mexico later. East on I-10 out of El Paso.

Don’t mess with Texas. That’s what the signs say. I swear, 1 every mile for a thousand miles. I guess it’s some anti-littering campaign. We have no cruise control. Top speed of Puff Puff (really, that’s what Spruce named it) was 87 mph. We did have a broom, which we cut the head off of with a hack saw, and jammed the throttle to the floor propping the other end against the cab behind the driver’s seat. This state is flatter than a goose’s instep. The only state flatter is our destination. When you hail from a state with active volcanoes, a state where the highest point is the top of a landfill is anticlimactic. The first thing I notice is there are no shoulders. The road is just flat, on flat land. The locals don’t bother with interchanges, they just drive on and off the interstate wherever they please. At least they merge properly, as opposed to Florida, where they brake to merge. Any time spent in southern Cal will teach you Right Foot Down!.

Texas is big. Real big. Real flat. We’ve already split a couple shifts and aren’t yet halfway. We don’t even pull off or slow down to change drivers. We just crawl over the broom stick, and fudge yet another dummy log book. We are beginning to show we left Seattle a couple days earlier to be legal. Praise Jesus (literally) I had a walkman. Without it I would be listening to gospel stations in Spanish from Mexico. There is no American radio station in reception range. So we’ve been putting along at 87 mph for over 14 hours. The fun is what else? Watching racers race. These Mexican kids take rice grinder cars (Toyota’s, Nissans, Honda’s), turbo charge them, and install 4 and 5 speed transmissions behind the standard transmission creating a multi-speed overdrive. They hold 500 and 1000 mile races, and bet on the outcome. These guys fly. I’m doing almost 90, and they fly by me like I’m parked. At least 140 to 150 mph. It does wake you up when you’re dozing off. I have run off the road at 87 mph. As it is so flat you simply drive off, wake up, and drive back on.

Then there’s the stock trucks. I got pulled into a scale at San Antonio. The Bulls wanted T-shirts. This was common practice across the south. As the truck was emblazoned with a national fuel company, and also sponsored a popular stock car driver, these idiots thought they were getting Allison shirts. No sense informing the idiots we had The Kraut Contingent (Klaus Ludwig, Jochen Mass, Hans Stuck) in a 962 Porsche. Plus I don’t have the patience to listen to a Texas twang slobbering tabacki ask Jochen who? after spending 48 hours with Jamaican Yamann that has never seen snow. What’s the point? But I did chat up a cattle hauler who was also pulled in. These guys fly, and they’re heavy. As I’m putting along at 90, on and off the road, they fly by me like I’m stuck. At least 110. I found out later it was 120. The tires are spongy, and floating from the weight and the speed, and the heat. Their trucks are long nosed apparently built for this purpose. They bolt two 8V92TA Detroit Diesel engines together to create huge horsepower. As the engine is now twice as long they have to modify the radiator and hood. Apparently, in Texas, they have humanitarian laws that allow trucks to speed to meet a livestock watering schedule previously submitted. As it is a long ways between watering holes, they are allowed to make up the time, and not be pulled over or in any way detained. It’s more Texas silliness’ as the goal is to deliver the livestock to a processor for slaughter.

Once you get closer to Houston, and into Louisiana, you start to see armadillo’s. I don’t know why, but I like them. You also get humidity. Lots of Humidity. More than 90% for the next thousand miles to Tallahassee.

I’m in the sleeper and awaken to this god awful yelling You get away from that truck! I crawl up and look into the drivers mirror and some guy has a pistol on Jerome. I yank on my fuzzy slippers, grab my own 45 semi automatic, which is tie strapped to the seat, and go out and inquire WTF? The pot bellied, slack jawed yokel states that he saw this boy messing with my truck, like he was a local hero. I asked Jerome where are we? His response is Mobile, Alabama at a Schell (not our sponsor) truck stop. I shook my head. Jamaicans are much darker than African Americans. I have no idea why. Jerome is about 6 inches taller than me, and I’m 6 foot 5. So I inform Mr. Redneck that Jerome was with me, to which he replied I never heard such a thing. More on Mobile rednecks when I have Barbara Mandrels bus. I holster my 45 and we change drivers.

We’re about 50 miles from Florida, and I’ve gotta go. I pull into a rest stop and go in the men’s room. The rest stops in this part of the country are much nicer than ours back home. I reckon it’s the constant humidity keeps things green whereas we have to irrigate, but the restrooms are kept much cleaner. I go into a stall and sit down to do my business. As I’m contemplating what’s left to travel I notice some movement on my right side. On closer Inspection it was the world’s biggest bullfrog. Huge. Big as a 12 inch frying pan. I finished and said goodbye, and let him be. Back in those days we wore wrist watches. There was no cell phone to check the date and time on. We’re now 3 hours ahead of home. I drive a couple more hours and we switch outside of Jacksonville. Almost to the Atlantic, from the Pacific.

If you’ve never driven in Florida, you’ll just have to experience it. They really do have to post, and enforce, minimum speed limits on the freeways. If you pull up to a red light, and there’s a concrete truck, garbage truck, and loaded gravel truck in the right lane, and a blue hair in a Cadillac or Oldsmobile in the left lane, you select the right lane and wait for the green. You just automatically adjust. There’s no changing it. It just is what it is. Jerome is tired and asks if I’ll drive. We switch and I drive into the Howard Johnson motel parking lot, and we unload. I am ready to get out of Puff Puff. We are a week early. We can’t yet get in the track, across the street. Daytona has garage hours. We’re used to all nighters. Nothing to do but sit on the beach and drink beer.

Chapter 3

Better Than Sex on the Beach

It’s nice not be rattling down the road in a truck. It’s nice to sleep in a bed without a seat belt. Actually, we used sleeping bags in the sleeper rather than sheets and covers, which the sleeper berth does allow for. But once you’ve had the crabs, with no sex with another person for over a year, you began to think about the possible source, and take precautions. So I use my own cloth sleeping bag, and roll it up and put it in a plastic trash bag when I’m not in it. When you’re on your tenth case of the crabs with no sexual partners in recent memory, you begin to allow for motel bedding, and the track porta potties. Welcome to the Big Time! You can’t have a home, a pet, a child, a spouse, because you are always gone. When you are home you work. Explaining the crabs to your partner when you return from an 8 week run can get sticky. It isn’t what people imagine, and it is not romantic. Its labor cubed, with little reward other than the self satisfaction that you do something most cannot (or would not).

It’s nice to sleep until you wake up, and eat a hot breakfast. Nothing fancy. A ham and cheese omelet with sour dough toast and hash browns, with black coffee is heaven. It’s nice to be rid of Jerome. As there has been no contact since we checked in I can only assume he feels the same way. When you spend multiple hours a day, seven days a week, many weeks in a row, under stressful conditions, you just get sick of your teammates. Traveling, rental cars, motels, restaurants, it all takes a toll. It seems as if there is no privacy. Their scent and their voice grind at you. On top of that you can have no house, no pet, no child, no spouse, because you are always gone. When you are home you have to work. Of course there is no car, except for the two million dollar rides in the trailer, so you walk a lot, and take taxis.

One of my favorite travel pastimes, usually on a long lay-over, was to go outside the airport terminal, hail a cab, and ask how much to drive me around and show me the area? I saw a lot, learned a lot from locals, and never spent more than a hundred bucks, including beer.

When I was offered the opportunity to be a big time racer on Spruces team, I knew we would not be championship contenders, we would work our asses off, and travel continuously for $40k per year, and it would all come to an end one day. As I was just 30 years old, divorced in the past year following seven years of marriage to a high school friend, living in a 2 bedroom apartment with no pets or kids, I decided to go for it. I was determined to see the world, and take advantage of any