Drive it like you stole it

Mercedes driving school

It was the fall of 2002. Excellent weather. Warm weather in Wisconsin is always welcome in the fall. As long as you can have a slight cool down for the football high school games. Crisp weather. Just enough for a jacket and scarf.

I wasn’t working this fall. I had been diagnosed with prostate cancer earlier in the year, and I had my prostate removed on August 17.

Well, it was September and I was still coming to grips with being less of a man. My wife had gifted me an AMG Motosports track experience, put on by Mercedes Benz. Just what I needed to boost my testosterone or self esteem or whatever else I believed I was lacking in.

Mercedes had decided to market the upscaled AMG edition of all the  regular models to current owners of AMG models and to expand that marketing to owners of regular models. I had purchased a C230 “Baby Benz” in 2000 and was really happy with my  car. So to drive a souped up version of my car was  a delight, especially on the track at Road America in Wisconsin.

The Mercedes Experience weekend was first a fun experience, and a way for Mercedes sales folk to stroke the egos of the captive audience. I heard myself referred to as a “high profile individual” more than once. If you were the kind of person that loved to have their ego stroked, this was the place for it.  If what you really wanted was to become a better track driver, you could find some of that too.

The two day event was part classroom instruction, part track and auto cross practice, and a lot of just rubbing shoulders with Mercedes big shots, and the aforementioned “high profile individuals “. Most of my time was spent learning the fastest way around the track, and gleaning as much wisdom as I could from the pro race drivers doing the training.

One of the more approachable professional drivers at the event said something that changed the way I think about professional sports. As we were standing around, talking about the world of sports car racing, he said “You know, anyone that wants to do this can be good at it; most people don’t want to stick around long enough to be great at it.”

I found out quickly, exactly what he meant. During one of the practice sessions on the track where I was driving, while the pro sitting in the passenger seat offered tips, I was doing okay, but nowhere near the proficiency I had set for myself. Knowing the fastest way through each corner, and repeating that on each lap, was the way to win races. Consistency and smoothness.

The corner I couldn’t master was about 2/3rds of the way around the Road America course, probably turn 10 or 11. It was a uphill, left hander, that ended on the other side of a small hill. You couldn’t just follow your line, you had to envision the corner and the line through it in your mind. Getting to the corner and figuring out the line then, was too late. You were getting passed before you exited the corner. Coming into the corner at speed, stepping on the brake and down shifting, and pointing the car at a spot on the other side of the hill that was only in your mind, was not something I could accomplish that day. After 20 or so laps, and flubbing the corner each time, I began to see exactly what sticking around to get great would entail. Lots and lots and lots of time in the race car, doing the same thing again and again until it became a part of you. Since I was already 50 years old and had been doing the same thing for the last 25 years as a truck driver, I didn’t think getting into racing as a hobby was something I had time for.

It was a fun weekend, and an exceptionally kind gift from my wife. I was able to meet David Hobbs, who was a Formula 1 driver and announcer for F1 races broadcast at the time on NBC sports network.