Pausing From a Virtual Blur for Real Talk

You don’t realize how fast life moves until it stops – or until you’re forced to deal with something that takes you off your normal groove, your rhythm and your flow.

I write this now, on a random Monday evening, only because the time has come for the fast-paced, frenetic nature of the last several months to pause, properly reflect and attempt to decipher the madness.

From the last weekend of April through the third weekend in June – in total, April 21 to June 21 – I did not have a single day off. Not even a weekend day. There were nine consecutive race weekends – seven on site (Barber, Monterey, Indianapolis twice, Detroit, Le Mans, Road America) and two more I covered remotely from home.

What was meant to be a several-week break at home in June turned into just a one-week break as I got a family health scare, and immediately headed to Phoenix for an indefinite period as I didn’t know how my close family member would be. Mercifully and fortunately, he’s much improved since.

The flow has since returned with trips to Toronto, Mid-Ohio and Road America again… and then Saturday night, while having an enjoyable evening out with friends, a work colleague calls me at 12:30 a.m.

You never want to get a call at 12:30 a.m. under any circumstances.

And this was the first I’d heard of the Tony Stewart news, with his car striking and ultimately taking the life of young Kevin Ward Jr.

What has followed in the two-plus days since has been something that’s been perplexing and difficult to comprehend all at once.

I’d been at Road America on assignment this weekend anyway and the news there – while relevant to the series, media, fans and stakeholders on site – just seemed off on the actual level of importance in the racing world at large. All the while my colleagues on the MST side busted their asses to cover the coverage, and then I came on board for more analysis, reporting and three last-minute radio interviews today.

The perplexing thing is that when a situation like this evolves, you’re kind of boxed into a Catch-22 corner.

The eternally hungry beast that is the Internet thrives and survives only on new content, and frequent new content.

And frankly, amidst the professionalism you see from the racing reporting pros, you also see a ton of shit both in articles and on social media. 

You have respected media members in the NASCAR and racing world who are writing reasoned analysis, with disciplined reporting, and accepted standards. Frankly, our editors would beat the hell out of us if we didn’t – and they should.

And then, as they seemingly always do whenever a tragedy, bad accident or otherwise controversial moment in racing occurs, the passerby national media roll up in their loud, obnoxious Hummer H2 (you get the idea) acting like they run the joint.

Generally speaking, they lack any sort of context, clue, understanding or appreciation but then they opt to not only chime in, but chime in loudly and in full color on your 1080P HDTVs, or whatever the latest trend is in viewing. Or on their websites. Or both, because convergence and new media.

And then there’s the comments section. Oh, the comments section. It’s filled with kings and queens of the basements, many who possess a Bachelor of Arts in Name Calling and a Master’s in Epic Lack of Decorum. Much wow.

I’m usually not in favor of starting wars, but I’d gladly support a unilateral military strike on the comments section.

Anyway, with the Stewart/Ward story, only they know what happened, and we’ll know more only when the full investigation is complete.

What we can gather from the admittedly shaky YouTube clip – if you have had the misfortune of watching it – is that it’s dark, Ward had a dark firesuit, dark helmet, walked onto a hot track and was collected. Also, visibility on the right side of sprint cars? Generally sucks. Anything more than that is not for us to write or for us to attack in the court of public opinion.

I first met Tony Stewart as a then 7-year-old fan at the old IRL “Test in the West” at Phoenix International Raceway in 1997. Stewart and Arie Luyendyk were cracking jokes, going back-and-forth about how they’d handle the new IRL car, and giving this kid a thrill of a lifetime by talking to me, signing autographs and making sure I was back for the race. That year, Stewart nearly won but lost to Jim Guthrie in what was one of the IRL’s greatest ever underdog stories.

I haven’t had the chance to get as close to Stewart other than a brief interview I had with him at the Barrett-Jackson auction in 2007 – my second full year as a reporter. But I know from the sources I’ve spoken to that Stewart, despite the rough edges, occasional bad temper and mistakes he’s made, has a good heart and never in hell would do something like this intentional.

The suggestion that anyone behind the wheel of a race car would do so is asinine, as well. Remember these are professionals, running anywhere from 100-1,000hp beasts and they’ve got to know how to control them. All the while knowing that one mistake could not only affect them, but also their competitors.

The point of the above preamble is that my family got me into auto racing, I’ve been a fan for almost 20 of my 25 years and I’ve been fortunate enough to have made a career writing about it for the last nine.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is from my old mentor at Michelin, John Love, who taught me the phrase “who owns the news.” And in this Stewart/Ward story, that is only the officials investigating this case, nothing more. Our job then is to tell the story purely on facts and not on conjecture and misinformation.

As current media members, we’re slaves to the rhythm. The beast needs feeding, but frankly, sometimes, I wish it didn’t. It’s hard to put your mind to writing quality copy when a driver has lost his life and another one could well be scarred for life. But that’s our job.

There’s the other part about the rhythm of feeding the beast, and that’s what it can do to personal relationships.

I’ve had some family relatives in town off-and-on for nearly a month, and the fractured nature of knowing when news happens and being on call almost 24/7 to cover it – we again refer here to the 12:30 a.m. phone call I received Saturday night – can put a strain on those relationships.

You want to spend as much time with them, appreciating the actual real world relationships instead of being slaves to the virtual world of writing, tweeting, Facebooking, Instagramming and on down the line. Because our real world life can be affected by our virtual numbers – notably the number of likes, shares and retweets.

And it’s moments like this – when you’re dealing with tragedy that it takes your mind off the real focus – family, friends and real world relationships.

This year, the biggest thing I have struggled with is finding that real/virtual balance. It's been severely out of whack. 

The point of this random stream of consciousness, after you’re probably like Steve Martin in Planes, Trains and Automobiles and you’re thinking, “Hey, DiZinno, have a point – it makes it so much more interesting for the listener!” is this:

In the hierarchy of importance, our real lives must take precedence over our virtual ones. While we, as reporters, must strive to maintain journalistic excellence and do our best on every story we write, we have to let the facts play out as they do and cover when it’s important to do so, not merely just to fill air time or web space.

To close, I can only echo the thoughts of the now late Robin Williams, whose untimely death this evening is another blog post unto itself given his circumstances, in Dead Poets Society:

Carpe, carpe diem.