Cars Get My Engine Going

I've added a new page to my blog, and created a FB page for Author Me. I had to do something to keep my private page separate - and pared down - from the writer side. If you'd like to join me, just click on the badge.

In my last post, a few people inquired about my racing background. I thought I'd share a little. My stepfather raced, and instructed professionally. I was offered cars to try my hand at racing. But, really, who wants to hop into someone else's Porsche and drive it around a race track at 130+ mph for the first time? That would take far more balls than the actual racing. I did get in some and drive fast. 130? Nevah.

I pretty much grew up at the track. Didn't like it so much as a young girl, but definitely got into the advantages of, er, the guys in those firesuits when I hit my teens. Not surprising my first WiP is a romance at the race track. Yeah, hot.

So are the cars. I heart cars. I love the throaty guttural noise of the engines hitting the redline and the high-pitched whistle of the turbos kicking in on accel. Whoo. It's getting hot over here. Maybe I should move on to the pictures.

My stepfather's major competition was my favorite car.

I called it the Jellybean Car; the race-car boys didn't appreciate the nickname so much. Oddly, they didn't seem to mind my blonde ponytail and can't-freaking-breathe jeans, though. Last I heard, the car sold for about 350,000 bucks.

Who knew I'd marry a guy that would go on to join the very team that owned my teenage fantasy car? The team added Audi's to their race line up and built these bad boys - Audi S4's - that went on to crush the competiton for 5 straight years.

Everyone loves a good crash, right? Poor Derek. One of the all-time best racers. More than that, though, one of the nicest guys I've ever known. Our son happens to be [sort of] named after one of his. That crash cost the team an entire week of working from 8 AM until 3-4 AM the next morning because they had to have the cars ready for the following weekend. This schedule happened more often than not during the 9-month season. Sometimes due to crashes, others mechanical failure or redesigns. Egads. Now you can see why hubby retired from that gig to spend more time with the fam ;-)

Here's the beginning of the above race as seen from another car. To the right front you can see the silver Audi. It's the 2nd car (the one that crashed eventually), the other was in pole. Can't remember the outcome, but those cars were rockets. And, while other racers hated the rain, those guys prayed for it. Those all-wheel drive quattros held to the road like there was gorilla snot on the tire. What, not everyone in the world knows what gorilla snot is?

I miss it when I think about it - racing, not glue -, but I'm betting a few long days spent listening to screaming cars in sweltering heat would quickly remind me why I avoided it more often than not as I got older. I think I'll stick with finishing up my first WiP to relive the old race glory days.