Pre-race thoughts, Playboy MX-5 Cup

2008-07-27 06:57:28

I’m writing this at 6 a.m. on the Sunday morning of the race, I think in order to clear my mind. In the grand scheme of things, whatever happens today will be insignificant. People will be entertained for a couple of hours, and their lives will go on. The pressure comes from two places: I passionately want to drive my best and will be terribly disappointed if I don’t; and whatever happens, because all this has been so documented, it’ll go down in my personal history, and can’t be erased.

I’m still kicking myself over the 1998 Pro-Celebrity race I should have won, but finished second by three-tenths of a second because I miscalculated when the last lap was coming. Never mind that I’m the only person in the world that even remembers it.

This isn’t really about the so-called “dueling authors” any more. It could be, if I screw up or have bad luck—or, as my rival Garth Stein and I both know, bad luck is called “screwing up” because the driver is responsible for EVERYTHING that happens on the track. In his bestselling book, The Art of Racing in the Rain, the dog Enzo explains it like this: “What you manifest is before you.” In my book, the classic memoir Fast Guys, Rich Guys, and Idiots, my racedriving mentor Doc Bundy explains it like this: “I don’t care if you’re runnin’ down the backstraight at Daytona and get struck by lightning, it’s your fault.”

So I’ll say this in advance: If I get taken out in the first turn by trying to pass the five drivers who qualified ahead of me that I don’t think should have, it will be my fault. Even if one of them spins or runs into me. I should be starting this race ahead of that potential trouble.

We’ll see.

I suppose it will be about Garth and me in the final analysis, but it’s not right now, (nor has it ever been for me), because I’ve got him covered. I passed him twice in practice and qualified more than one second faster. We’ve both been struggling, but he’s been struggling more, despite his experience racing Miatas.

I got a good night’s sleep last night, the first this week because it’s been so breathlessly busy. Slept out on the roofdeck under the stars with my son Maks, 11. Woke up at 5, wired, thinking about (visualizing, as Garth would say) all the things I need to remember in the race. Slow hands. Ease off the brake, don’t snap your foot off it. Squeeze the throttle, don’t hammer it.

This is what I’ve been struggling with. The technique to driving a Mazda MX-5 really quickly, as virtually all the drivers in this pro field can do, is worlds apart from the way you drive a car like my Bandit, with all of its 600 horsepower. In those big cars, you stop, turn, and floor it. Do that in an MX-5, and you’ll be left in everyone’s dust.

The old school, the way racedriving has been taught for 50 years, is: into the corners slow, and out fast. With a car like the MX-5, you carry as much speed as you possibly can into the turns. An old-school driver like me just can’t change overnight. But I’m trying. I don’t mind being the old dog learning new tricks, in fact it’s exciting, it’s just that it takes longer than a couple of days.

My Unfair Advantage over Garth is my team, MER Racing. I’ll do a separate blog about the debriefings with all five drivers, because I’ve been totally impressed by the professionalism. Eric Foss, who teaches the MER schools at their facility in Texas, has made all the difference. He’s our driving coach, and he’s leading the Playboy MX-5 Cup series himself, in points, after a first at Road Atlanta and second at Mosport. He warned me that sometimes you slow down before you get it, and I think that’s where I am, or at least was during qualifying. Unfortunate timing. I just hope it clicks in the race. If it doesn’t, I’ll still do my best to drive the wheels off my MX-5.

Also, almost forgot, I’ve still got to overcome some flaws that remain in the chassis of the car, after getting run into the wall on the backstraight at 100 mph in the first practice section. More on that later.

I’ve got to run. I’ve got to stretch, and visualize some more, and plant the mantra in my head. Slow hands, slow hands, slow hands. Ease off the brake, squeeze the throttle, ease off the brake, squeeze the throttle.

Oh, and don’t tell Eric, but I’ve got a secret weapon (in my mind, at least) that I’m going to try today: left foot braking.

Time to wake the kids. I’m taking four boys with me, ages 14, 13, 12 and 11. It’s the drifting exhibition that they want to see. That magic word, NOS.

Hey, that gives me an idea. My MX-5 (whose name is Bullet, by the way) should have a Nitrous Oxide System. Now that’s the new trick I need.

Sam Moses

Previous Blogs:

Day One: The Crash

2008-07-24 09:20:49

Thursday, July 24. Mazda Grand Prix of Portland. Playboy MX-5 Cup. MAZDASPEED Motorsports ride, with Team MER out of Fort Worth, Texas, the MX-5 Cup...

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Fast Guys, Rich Guys, and Idiots: The Underdog

2008-07-17 04:21:34

If you haven't read the previous blog, here's the setup: Garth Stein, author of the bestselling "The Art of Racing in the Rain," is shooting off his fertile imagination, saying he'll blow me into the weeds at the upcoming race on...

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Fast Guys, Rich Guys, and Idiots Big Story!

2008-07-15 13:57:08

FACT VS FICTION ON THE RACE TRACK - It will be Novelist vs Motorsports Writer at the Portland Mazda MX-5 Cup Race - July 14, 2008 (Irvine, Calif.) – The...

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Running 190

2007-10-20 13:32:43

I first drove the RTG Motorsports BMW MCoupe for 20 minutes one hot day last summer, at Pacific Raceways. It was about the sweetest racecar I’ve ever driven—there have been a few faster and some sexier, but none so sweet. It felt born...

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First and Last Time as an Idiot

2007-10-10 12:50:41

University of Nebraska Press Blog October 1, 2007 Once, when I was doing a book signing for the original “Fast Guys, Rich Guys and Idiots” some 20 years ago, a young woman asked me if the book was about her...

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Fast Guys, Rich Guys, and Idiots Take Off

2007-09-10 12:01:19

Getting a head start on the September 7 paperback publication of his classic racing memoir, Fast Guys, Rich Guys, and Idiots, Sam Moses raced to 5th overall in a field of 40 powerful sports cars at the SCCA regional event at...

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University of Nebraska Press Releases Fast Guys, Rich Guys, and Idiots

2007-09-07 11:54:42

Fast Guys, Rich Guys, and Idiots A Racing Odyssey on the Border of Obsession By Sam Moses With a new introduction by the author Sam Moses, a motorsports writer for Sports Illustrated, was assigned to...

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