Edit: Subject line was supposed to read, Being On That Razor's Edge is Waltzing With the Devil (and see 2 Race or not 2 Race)
I speed, I love to drive, and I've spent the last several years trying to push the envelope and the thrill. In a year or two, in an NSX next, but some of you might find the article below interesting. Especially those who track or street race.
Have fun,
Sunny
Being On That Razor's Edge is Waltzing With the Devil, By: Paul Dean, former times staff writer and automotive reviewer
When Chuck Yeager became the first man to fly faster than the speed of sound, when Roger Bannister became the first human to run the four-minute mile, they were guaranteed immortality. To the Olympic downhill skier, to the Indy race driver, to the Boston marathon runner, to the tour de France cyclist, to the Whitbread sailor, to the Reno air racer, go to race and the glory - our awe and respect. The adoration of young boys, the affection of ladies and the applause of millions.
What gives with speed, anyway? Why do so many of us seek the adrenaline rush that comes with pushing beyond known limits of sensible norms?
Perhaps it is knowing that the far edge of life is the near edge of death and that being on that razor's edge is waltzing with the devil, shivering from stimulation of pure survival. As a fledgling war correspondent, Winston Churchill once noted, there is nothing quite as exhilarating as the crack of the shot that misses.
Speed and daring are also forms of thumbing our noses. By adventuring, by risking, we still whatever secret jelly quivers inside us.
It may also be that we are just soul-weary of a hundred levels of government dictating our health, welfare, and safety. Which may well explain why an estimated 45 million Americans regularly face the absurd challenges of skydiving, drag racing, bungee jumping, white-water rafting, anything that doesn't involve popcorn and a Sony remote.
Accepting that pathology, it is no wonder that even the Evian-mannered lose reason and restraint once they get behind the wheel of a car.
We're not talking of our amateur criminal who pound the pedal to the carpet, recklessly and frustrated, compounded by a chemically amplified sense of invincibility. That human weakness came with the first DUI, which came shortly after 1903 and the intriduction of the Model A.
No, the peculiarity here is the gentle owner of a Honda accord, the God-fearing grandfather and the law abiding soccer mom, the novitiate and the political science major, the respected artisan and sober professional, who see 120mph not as a number on the speedometer but as a target. Because it is there.
I have been entranced with speed since age 8, when I built a sand racer on the beach, stuck a bucket on my head and gear-shifted my sand shovel while yelping, "grrrerrrrerah... vroomf!"
It too me several years to actually find a way to speed, but since then, I have driven a car at 201.6mph, flown a place at Mach 2.2, piloted an offshore racing boat at 105.5mph, and swam 100 meters in 56.9 seconds. Note those percise numbers and decimal points. The addiction reveals itself in the details.
Mostly, the thrill of speed on open waters or in empty skies or on skis down a lonely Alp may be easily dismissed as no more than the search for a kick in the pants. Yet, there's also the satisfaction of managing self and machine and melding instincts with learned skills.
Especially when it comes to the automobile. I remember the explanation of a living race legend, Sir Stirling Moss, who decreed that any silly bloke can drive fast in a straight line. No talent in that. The absolute of racing, he said, was seeing a driver take a corner at nine-tenths that you proceed to take at ten-tenths. Then, he concluded, you are a Rembrandt, who, having created a masterpiece, set down his brush and informed his peer: "There, beat that."
For the throughly experienced, driving a car at speed is a perfect amalgam of physics, adrenaline, pride and confidence.
It is a matter of reading a car, knowing its limits of balance and adhesion, sensing its weight shifting for and aft to the forces of braking, turning and accelerating, knowing even when a car is feeling irritable.
And when it wants to play, there is a lightness of being, an equilibrium that you and it have created. There's the drug.
But here's the rub. This cannot be done just anywhere. The downside is obvious. Each year, as most people know by now, about the same number of Americans die in highway accidents as were killed by a decade of fighting in Vietnam.
With two vehicles approaching head-on at a closing speed of 150mph, no seat belt or air bag will prevent bones from becoming jam. Passengers get decapitated. Drivers get cut in half. Remember James Dean. Think of Princess Diana.
Sad but true. Ninety-eight percent of today's drivers are incapable of handling a car at high speed, and there's nothing more dangerous than ignorant daring.
Sure, there are ways to learn speed with skill, but few of us take the time to go beyond our high school driver's ed classes. Today's motorists don't know the capability of their own automobiles and have even less understanding of their own abilities. And God really does not protect fools and drunks.
Still, its hard to shake the desire for speed. It is a social scourge, an aphrodisiac, a fatal poison. It is a siren singing to an impatient society forever obsessed with time and distance.
[This message has been edited by JaguarXJ6 (edited 31 January 2003).]
I speed, I love to drive, and I've spent the last several years trying to push the envelope and the thrill. In a year or two, in an NSX next, but some of you might find the article below interesting. Especially those who track or street race.
Have fun,
Sunny
Being On That Razor's Edge is Waltzing With the Devil, By: Paul Dean, former times staff writer and automotive reviewer
When Chuck Yeager became the first man to fly faster than the speed of sound, when Roger Bannister became the first human to run the four-minute mile, they were guaranteed immortality. To the Olympic downhill skier, to the Indy race driver, to the Boston marathon runner, to the tour de France cyclist, to the Whitbread sailor, to the Reno air racer, go to race and the glory - our awe and respect. The adoration of young boys, the affection of ladies and the applause of millions.
What gives with speed, anyway? Why do so many of us seek the adrenaline rush that comes with pushing beyond known limits of sensible norms?
Perhaps it is knowing that the far edge of life is the near edge of death and that being on that razor's edge is waltzing with the devil, shivering from stimulation of pure survival. As a fledgling war correspondent, Winston Churchill once noted, there is nothing quite as exhilarating as the crack of the shot that misses.
Speed and daring are also forms of thumbing our noses. By adventuring, by risking, we still whatever secret jelly quivers inside us.
It may also be that we are just soul-weary of a hundred levels of government dictating our health, welfare, and safety. Which may well explain why an estimated 45 million Americans regularly face the absurd challenges of skydiving, drag racing, bungee jumping, white-water rafting, anything that doesn't involve popcorn and a Sony remote.
Accepting that pathology, it is no wonder that even the Evian-mannered lose reason and restraint once they get behind the wheel of a car.
We're not talking of our amateur criminal who pound the pedal to the carpet, recklessly and frustrated, compounded by a chemically amplified sense of invincibility. That human weakness came with the first DUI, which came shortly after 1903 and the intriduction of the Model A.
No, the peculiarity here is the gentle owner of a Honda accord, the God-fearing grandfather and the law abiding soccer mom, the novitiate and the political science major, the respected artisan and sober professional, who see 120mph not as a number on the speedometer but as a target. Because it is there.
I have been entranced with speed since age 8, when I built a sand racer on the beach, stuck a bucket on my head and gear-shifted my sand shovel while yelping, "grrrerrrrerah... vroomf!"
It too me several years to actually find a way to speed, but since then, I have driven a car at 201.6mph, flown a place at Mach 2.2, piloted an offshore racing boat at 105.5mph, and swam 100 meters in 56.9 seconds. Note those percise numbers and decimal points. The addiction reveals itself in the details.
Mostly, the thrill of speed on open waters or in empty skies or on skis down a lonely Alp may be easily dismissed as no more than the search for a kick in the pants. Yet, there's also the satisfaction of managing self and machine and melding instincts with learned skills.
Especially when it comes to the automobile. I remember the explanation of a living race legend, Sir Stirling Moss, who decreed that any silly bloke can drive fast in a straight line. No talent in that. The absolute of racing, he said, was seeing a driver take a corner at nine-tenths that you proceed to take at ten-tenths. Then, he concluded, you are a Rembrandt, who, having created a masterpiece, set down his brush and informed his peer: "There, beat that."
For the throughly experienced, driving a car at speed is a perfect amalgam of physics, adrenaline, pride and confidence.
It is a matter of reading a car, knowing its limits of balance and adhesion, sensing its weight shifting for and aft to the forces of braking, turning and accelerating, knowing even when a car is feeling irritable.
And when it wants to play, there is a lightness of being, an equilibrium that you and it have created. There's the drug.
But here's the rub. This cannot be done just anywhere. The downside is obvious. Each year, as most people know by now, about the same number of Americans die in highway accidents as were killed by a decade of fighting in Vietnam.
With two vehicles approaching head-on at a closing speed of 150mph, no seat belt or air bag will prevent bones from becoming jam. Passengers get decapitated. Drivers get cut in half. Remember James Dean. Think of Princess Diana.
Sad but true. Ninety-eight percent of today's drivers are incapable of handling a car at high speed, and there's nothing more dangerous than ignorant daring.
Sure, there are ways to learn speed with skill, but few of us take the time to go beyond our high school driver's ed classes. Today's motorists don't know the capability of their own automobiles and have even less understanding of their own abilities. And God really does not protect fools and drunks.
Still, its hard to shake the desire for speed. It is a social scourge, an aphrodisiac, a fatal poison. It is a siren singing to an impatient society forever obsessed with time and distance.
[This message has been edited by JaguarXJ6 (edited 31 January 2003).]
