Gathering: Homespun Essays from Beech Tree Lane

Drivers have to “manage the slide.” Drivers have to have “clean air.” Dirty air won’t do. Drivers have to find the right “groove” of a racetrack. My NASCAR education has helped me through many “tight turns.” I downshift during adversity, catch a quarter panel of the nearest problem, and draft as best I can to a new position on the race track of life.

He’s “got to have a strategy and a front bumper and be willing to use them both,” a NASCAR announcer once said. And I can’t remember now if it was the announcer or the race car driver who said “I'm like a box of cereal, I'm settling …”

Once, hand to God, the announcer of a race at Talladega said “He had done what he needed to do. He had slowed down. He had stayed out of the way, but he couldn't drive the other peoples’ cars, too.” I can’t remember the winner of that race, but I know this was in all likelihood about a wreck. Likely one Jimmy Johnson or Dale Earnhardt Jr. was involved in.

With digital video recording (DVR) I could play that expression over and over. Loving it more each time I heard it. I don’t remember the race, but I remember the announcer’s words. “He had done what he needed to do … but he couldn’t drive the other people’s cars, too.” I totally get it! Story of my life!

I do and do and do, and then the wreck happens. I get it! I do my part, and I’m going to need everyone else to do their parts, too. My NASCAR education has taught me to drive my car well, has helped me to find my groove and has shown me its best to stay in my lane. Mostly, even after I have done everything else I believe I can do, I cannot, under any circumstance, drive another person’s car. That is their task. Their one thing. Not mine. I am so looking forward to seeing what this race season can teach me.