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Racing season is back in full swing. I was able to visit St. Petersburg earlier at the end of February for the first day of practice before the kickoff IndyCar grand prix through that city. Formula One started in Melbourne the weekend after, but I didn’t think I could manage a quick trip around the world and back again without disrupting my calendar a bit. St. Pete was fun because it was my first in-person street course. I’ve seen them race on road courses and ovals, but this was indeed a different beast. While it may not be as bumpy as sections of Frederica Road, where a decade of contractors have cut and patched utility accesses, the roads that everyday cars drive on provide an unsettling amount of movement for the drivers to navigate. Add to that the narrow path marked by concrete barriers, and it makes for some exciting racing.
While I went to see the “big boys” in the Indy Car series, the support race entries were fun to watch, too. Particularly, the Mazda Miata MX-5 Cup Series. You’ve seen the little cars around town; we have several parishioners with Miatas, though none can keep up with the racing versions. There is one shop that takes apart stock Miata’s, modifies the motors and brakes, adds a roll cage, and turns what is already a fun little car into a race car. I understand it’s a relative bargain, too, at about $100,000 to get into a new one. What makes them so much fun is that Mazda figured out how to extract speed from the handling. The top speed isn’t too bad at around 140 mph with only 180-ish horsepower. But it’s the lightweight and moderate power that allows it to keep pace with faster cars with larger motors, and the difference is all in the corners.
The faster you go around a corner, the better your tire grip must be, and the greater the lateral forces will be on the driver. That’s what makes Formula One unique – they are fast in the corners and on the straights (technically, Indy Cars go faster than Formula One cars in a straight line). Although I’m sure top fuel drag racing offers plenty of adrenaline (from speed and the threat of exploding), for most drivers, the most fun part of racing is the twists and turns. Feeling that tug from side to side is exhilarating as the laws of physics try to yank you off course, and requires stronger muscles than some realize. Formula One drivers have neck muscles unlike those in any other series because of the 5G to 6G of force generated by fast turns.
Life is less boring because of twists and turns, too, although sometimes I think we all wish for more straight paths. Life’s ups, downs, bumps, twists, and turns may keep us from being bored, but they also wear us out at times. Sometimes they arrive unexpectedly, like the hidden curves we don’t have to worry about here on the coast, but were a part of my training as a young driver in Pennsylvania. You could come over a rise on an unfamiliar road and suddenly find yourself navigating a tricky curve. We manage most of the curves well, for the most part, but just like the result of tires that aren’t quite grippy enough, we can go sliding off at times, too. Hopefully, there’s a little runoff instead of concrete barriers when that happens.
I find the normal pace of life just fine for navigating such things, and I really don’t need to try to fly through everything that comes my way at top speed. I often feel I’m going too fast already. I don’t know how many G’s we pull on a regular basis, but I’m always grateful for the singular G who rides shotgun in life (G-O-D). If you’ve ever watched rally car driver teams, the person in the passenger seat is looking at a list of the turns on the course and calling out coded assessments to help the driver get ready and then react to each particular and unique turn. I can’t say God is always quite so clear and definitive, but I do find that when I listen for the Holy Spirit, I can sometimes get a glimpse of how to navigate the turns a bit more easily.
Neither our success nor our happiness requires a life without twists and turns. The key to both is how we manage them, not how we avoid them. The faith we share can go a long way toward helping us navigate the moments that want to yank us off course, but it’s no guarantee we won’t still succumb to the forces tugging at us. Our sticking power, that which allows us to grip life in those moments, comes from our trust in a God whose promises tell us that, even though it may not seem like it in the short term, all will be well. There is the invitation to help others navigate their turns, and the gift of doing so together much of the time. It’s not as exciting to see a mini-bus race, but I’m glad I have a bus-full to run my race with, nonetheless. I’m especially grateful for the one who guides us all, even when we don’t realize we’re being guided.
Those little Mazdas are probably more than enough car for me, if I ever get a chance to drive a real racecar. I don’t have dreams of driving a Formula One car; I know I’d wreck it on the first turn if I could even get the thing started. I’m content with everyday driving most of the time. I love driving, and one of my favorite drives is the mountain road up to Sewanee from Cowan, TN, especially when it’s dry, and there are no other cars on the side of the mountain. Let’s just say it winds back and forth and is a lot less boring than a straight drive. I like how it pulls me from side to side and the way the car rolls with the turn, and that’s in boring cars like my Prius or one of our SUVs. Most of the time, I’m just fine with boring. In fact, I’m grateful for it.
