The Thing about Retirement Cars

Years ago my friend said that when he retires he plans on pulling out in front of every car he sees and then drive slowly as he does errands as payback for those that have done that to him. This from a man who accumulates speeding tickets like people collect souvenir spoons or Precious Moments dolls. I know for the cars I have owned, going on 25 strong now, I have tried to own either sporty cars or cars that were the sporty counterpart of a standard car. I started with a 68 Mustang Fastback onto a Dodge Shelby Charger and even a Taurus SHO thrown in for good measure. Now I drive vintage BMW's. During the holidays family from an earlier generation visited and it made me wonder, what will I drive when I retire?

Go to Florida and you can see the 'standard' retirement car everywhere. First off it must be white or light silver if no white is available. It must have four doors, if at all possible a bench front seat, a boulevard ride, i.e. float like there are three foot swells under the car, and it must be as square as possible. Essentially all cars must look and be similar to an 80's Lincoln Town Car, Ford Crown Victoria or a 70's Cadillac. It must have all the bells and whistles and overall represent a barge on wheels. On a side note, I have always thought if my car had lots of bells and whistles it would end up in a lake, I guess that is something to discuss at another time.

Fewer and fewer of those cars exist. Lincoln Town Car - nope. Crown Victoria - gone. Chevrolet Caprice thankfully killed off years ago. Cadillac, well let's just say that Cadillac is no longer your grandma's car. So what will this current and upcoming retired generation drive? What will I drive?

The other day as I drove along I realized that while I still don't drive slow, I have slowed down. I am a bit more cautious backing up, a wee bit tentative before going through intersections and have probably knocked off one or two miles per hour on a twisty road. I am truly worried!

Will I continue to slow down? Will I become that person that I $#@%@$# all the while I am driving behind him or her. Since I am short will I be the driver less car that I am often following on Sunday mornings to church or on Wednesday's to the local Walmart?

Right now I still want a car with sprightly handling, decent power and fun to drive. Smooth ride and super quiet be damned. I imagine that my parents, and their parents, maybe, kind of, sort of thought the same thing? Yet now that they are old and they are driving the required retirement vehicle. While I want to continue to fight owning a big, huge white whale or leviathan, will I really be able to overcome the natural age progression of having to own a rotten car when I am old? Please tell me there is something scientific that I that says the opposite.

I do have some hope because I see people who have bucked the idea of owning a standard retirement car. However, even for those who have I am not happy with their choices. Believe it or not a popular retirement vehicle is a minivan. Of course you are all thinking so they can carry those cute, chubby grandchildren around, but for many it is actually for going to antique stores, flea markets, and for hauling things from northern Michigan to Sarasota and back again. I don't have to explain why I don't want to drive a minivan, it is self explanatory.

The other popular vehicle is the SUV, or since that is now a bad name a Crossover Utility Vehicle or CUV. For most the Chevy Suburban or the Ford Expedition are not what they want. Way too big. Instead it is the little SUV. A Hyundai Santa Fe, Kia Sorrento, Ford Escape or any of the host of small SUV's, excuse me, CUV's, that are out there. They like them because they are cute, 'drive like a car', and full of utility and sport. The problem is that if you want to do a lot of sport or a large amount of utility they don't work and that is because I consider them futons. You see a futon is a couch and a bed but not good at either. The CUV is both a car and a utility vehicle but not necessarily good at either.

My plan is to drive sporty cars as fast as I can for as long as I can and pray that I will never succumb to the need to own a retirement vehicle. 30 years from now as you are cruising down the boulevard in Tampa and a Mustang or BMW M5 or Porsche smokes its tires to get in front of you and then drives 25 miles per hour below the posted limit it will probably be me.
Don't swear or shake your fists at me or use your tall finger, just smile, give me a thumbs up and yell out 'Lookin' good John, lookin' real good' and drive on.

That's the thing about retirement cars, they are not a requirement unless you give up - so don't give up!

The Thing About Cars and Racing...

As fall turns to winter and the colored leaves turn to brown and drop from their branches it is a rare home that does not have a football game on television (on Saturday, if you live in the south, on Sunday for the rest of the world). Whether you root for the SEC teams or love everything NFL there will be a group at someone's home drinking beer, eating chips, maybe grilling and quarterbacking from their chair. This is completely normal, and even encouraged, in most circles.

In steps me. Football - fun. Baseball - I like it. Basketball - yawn. Hockey - they still play that sport? Auto racing - where and when! My love of cars naturally falls into a love of racing. While this isn't true for all car lovers, for most it is the case. When I tell people that I love to watch auto racing I get one of two responses. Why? It is soooo boring. Or, you mean NASCAR?

Why is it that to watch grown men reach under each others' butts for an oblong shaped ball to be thrown around a field and make millions to do so a normal and acceptable thing? But to watch grown men, and women by the way, drive real cars at speeds that cover the length of a football field in less than a second considered boring?

So why is auto racing boring to many in the world? I believe it is the result of a few things.

First, I believe it is a lack of understanding the sport. I enjoy football but this year I have made it a point to learn more about how football works (and it ain't easy). Now that I understand how plays work, the rules, why one player is actually better than another, I enjoy it much more. The same for watching an auto race. When watching racing people don't understand the skill it takes to stop a car from 150 MPH to 40 MPH in about 300 feet to make a 30 MPH corner. Instead we think step on the gas and then hit the brake and that is about it. It is so much more than that, I think James Garner sums racing up best.

''Going 180 MPH down a straightaway is not that thrilling to me...what is more thrilling is taking a 30 MPH corner at 29.9 MPH...'

When you understand the nuances of racing you notice the different skills levels on the track. For example, one driver will brake at 400 feet from the corner and take the corner tight while another begins slowing down at the 200 foot mark and takes the corner wide. Each one sees the corner and is thinking about how he or she will get through that corner the fastest and more importantly how well will the car be set up to go down the straightaway at full speed. Think of it as a running versus a passing game in football. You may produce the same results but how you get there is very different.

Another view of racing deals with the drivers themselves. A debate continues asking if race car drivers are real athletest? You probably know my take but read the following and make your own decision:

• A NASCAR driver will lose 5-10 lbs during an average race.
• Any enclosed race car will have temperatures well above 100 degrees in the cockpit and 170 to 180 degrees down at their feet.
• A Formula 1 driver will experience up to 5gs of g-force in a typical race and do that for 2 full hours. So what you say? An astronaut experiences 3gs at liftoff.
• A typical race car driver's heartbeat will average around 150 beats per minute for 2-3 hours. About the same as a marathon runner.
• Race car drivers have high 'anticipatory rates' equal to that of a hockey player, which means they know everything that is going on around them at any given moment - again, for 2-3 hours and sometimes more.

You decide if they are athletes. In my book not only are they real athletes, they reach the tier of elite athletes.

Another falsehood is that many people think that every race is the same. There are no really big events in the sport. Au contraire my friends. In other sports, like football, you have the Superbowl. In baseball the World Series. Basketball the NBA finals and hockey the Stanley Cup. For each of these sports there

is only one big event each year. When you follow racing there are so many more 'Superbowls'. We have the 24 Hours of LeMans, the Daytona 500, the Indianapolis 500, the Monaco Grand Prix and the Bathurst 1000 to name just a few. We also have a myriad of mini championships in all of the different leagues. On any given weekend from February through November I have the opportunity to watch a major event.

Finally, many can't relate to what racing a car is like. Did you know that you too can be a race car driver with little money involved and the use of your family sedan? On any given weekend there are autocrosses, race course events, rally cross races and a host of other very fun, often very inexpensive, activities that you can be involved in. For as little as $35 for an entire day you will get to race a car, hang out with a group of people who are down to earth and fun to be with, and hone your skills as a driver, on the road or in a race. What other sport can you do that in?

So, if you see me over the next few months downtrodden and seemingly in complete despair, as they say in the game of dating, it isn't you, it is me. The despondency in my voice, the slouching stature, the utter sadness in my eyes is simply because the sport I love is on hiatus for the winter months. There is nothing to watch on television that has any real value to me, nearly nothing to be excited about. Not until next February will life have meaning again...but...wait...the internet, yes, the internet - there has to be races that I haven't seen ready to be streamed to my desktop!

That's the thing about cars and racing, it needs to be year round...