End of a Season

Thanksgiving – it’s about as good a time as any to compose a proper recap of the year just past, the people met, the places visited and the memories made.

Admittedly and apologetically I’ve neglected an update on this web space since the end of the last crazy, spring into summer blur from May through July. Since then, trips to Chicago, Mid-Ohio, Elkhart Lake (twice), Sonoma, Baltimore, Austin (twice), Houston, Fontana/LA/San Diego and Las Vegas have followed between the end of July and now a week ago here in November. I may have missed one spot in that point as it’s been a rather surreal stretch, mostly involving airports, security checks, hotel rooms and media centers.

Through it all I think this year I found a greater appreciation for each event I visited, rather than simply going through the motions. In January and February this year I didn’t know if I’d still be able to live my dream of covering motorsports and traveling the country to see it. By November, I’d had the most diverse year of my career, working with the greatest number of clients and the highest number of trips and races.

To recap, on site this year I covered Formula One, IndyCar, Pirelli World Challenge, NASCAR Nationwide, American Le Mans Series, GRAND-AM Rolex Series, countless support series and also squeezed in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Chase Media Day in Chicago (with what was, I have to say, my personal “drive of the year” to get to Navy Pier in record time via back roads with less traffic. George Costanza would be proud). All told, 20 race weekends, three tests, the Chase Media Day and the SEMA Show in November made up the calendar.

What started as a surreal email in my inbox in Feburary, asking “if I’d be interested in writing for NBC Sports,” has borne greater fruit than I could have ever imagined. My MotorSportsTalk colleagues – Chris Estrada, Luke Smith and Keith Collantine – have helped to grow the site from day one to more than 8 million total page views as of this writing. And for them, they’ve grown as writers as well with this incredible opportunity. It’s been a privilege to work with them this year as we push ahead to 2014. It’s been awesome to see the support from our readers, too. To each and every one of you, I give thanks.

That’s also provided the invaluable opportunity to work with the NBC Sports TV and production teams. There’s a special bond shared by the people that make TV, and I can tell you from all the events I was at this year, a tireless dedication put in by each and every member of the team, from all the on-air talent to the production staff.

The second “new family” I joined and was so thankful to work with was the Pirelli World Challenge series. PWC features limitless potential and an incredible array of manufacturers that compete within the series’ GT and Touring Car classes. The racing is off the hook and like NBC, the PWC staff is a great family as well. I joined the team in midseason at Lime Rock and look forward to the series’ 25th anniversary season in 2014.

Add up the rest – the PR “baptism by fire” with the revolutionary DeltaWing team through May, the other PR races working with Adam Saal and his clients, a one-off with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Dave Kallmann in June, and still occasional contributions to RACER Magazine, the ALMS website and Motorsport Illustrated News – and it was a whirlwind season where half the time I needed to tweet or Facebook what it was I was doing or who I was working with just to keep track!

Some places I visited really stole my heart for a few days. Austin, in particular, was amazing on two separate occasions. Having the opportunity to recapture the magic of being a fan, with my dad, for the ALMS/FIA World Endurance Championship weekend in September, was something I will cherish for years. The city itself, with the great food, great music and great atmosphere just drew me in to where I could not wait to go back for F1 in November.

And indeed, covering a Formula One race on site was the fulfillment of one of my last major unchecked items on my racing checklist. The big word of difference is “exclusivity” – you have to scan your pass in to the zones you have access to. Some spots are off limits! So it becomes a bit of a cat-and-mouse game to see where you can go… but you have to be careful so as not to piss off the overlords from FOM. That said, working in the TV compound was a unique, different and intriguing experience that I was fortunate to enjoy.

Toronto and Baltimore were probably my other favorite stops this year on the racing calendar, for the mix of on-track activity, people I got to see and food I ate. Honorable mention goes to the week in Southern California for Fontana, LA and San Diego… and the Ontario hotel was probably my best value pick of the year.

The least favorite? Without a question, it was Houston. It was a trying weekend for IndyCar with track and schedule issues in the early part of the weekend, then rain on Sunday that threw another monkey wrench into things. Dario Franchitti’s awful accident - which eventually led to his forced retirement - was just the icing on the cake. Add in the bad traffic and it was a place that left a less-than-satisfactory first impression.

Quite honestly this year was one to forget though from the injuries and deaths standpoint. It seemed every month there was another shock death that just jolted the racing community. There was Dick Trickle’s suicide, Jason Leffler in a sprint car accident, Allen Simonsen at Le Mans, Maria de Villota due to complications from her testing accident in 2012, and lastly, Sean Edwards in a private coaching accident in Australia.  October just sucks for the racing community with the latter two fatalities joining Dan Wheldon, Greg Moore, Marco Simoncelli, Rick Huseman and “Iron Man Mike” Wanser for losses during the tenth month of the year.

The Edwards and Simonsen deaths hit me the most. Simonsen’s was entirely preventable as he went off at a section of the track where there was just a guardrail with trees behind the catch fencing; in modern day racing, such a safety vulnerability is unacceptable. Edwards’ loss is about the sports car equivalent of Moore’s death in 1999; a massively talented, young rising star who was destined for greatness but never had the chance to achieve it.

Lastly in this look back, there’s the people. I mentioned it with two of the specific “work families,” but this is a fraternity of travelers that do this for a living. We bond, share drinks, dinners, form memories and hopefully, try to enjoy the fact we’re outside soaking up sunshine, blowing out our eardrums and avoiding the daily grind of cubicle life.

For all the ways racing can get you down – the long hours, frequent travel, constant politics, the confusion of “which class, which drivers, which series,” the endless negativity from perpetually miserable onlookers – it still kicks ass most of the time.

Time to load up on the turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, pass out from the tryptophan and wine and give thanks to a mostly awesome year just passed. Cheers.