Nelson Ledges Chaplain’s Notes

 JANUARY 2008

 DISAPPOINTMENT

For those of us in the Buckeye Nation it has been a second January of bleeding Scarlet and Gray at the College Football National Championship game. Although it is not bad to have the Ohio State Football, Men’s Basketball, and Men’s Soccer Teams finish second in the nation in calendar year 2007, it hurts to get this close and lose yet again. It is hard enough this time of the year in Northeast Ohio, with the cold and snow and dark and the gas prices and the Christmas bills. And, oh yeah, there is that race car that needs multiple preparation before racing season rolls around again. It can sure be tough to get motivated to work on your race car when the wind chill is below 0 and the SCCA season still seems so far away.

Our sport has so many possibilities for disappointment. Your sponsor might fall through or even fail to materialize. A new car in your class may become the hot ticket that you don’t have or can’t afford. That demon new part or modification doesn’t perform the way you hoped. You can drive a perfect race but that 10 cent part breaks (make that a $10 part with inflation less a racer’s discount!) You are ready to clinch the championship and some driver from east nowhere shows up and takes your points. Your top crew man has to take a new job halfway across the country or has serious health problems.

By definition, racing is hard. As opposed to stick and ball games where half the people are winners and half losers, in racing there is only one winner per class. There are many more losers. It can be very frustrating and discouraging and disappointing to invest the time, money, bodily risk, and huge emotional energy and not win.

The Bible says without hope the people perish. One of the great things about racers is their eternal optimism. They always believe those new tires will give them ½ second a lap, those new tranny gears will allow 200 more rpm at the end of the straight, and that new motor, well, no one can imagine how many more horsepower it will make. I have always said that racing keeps you young. You have to keep growing and going because everyone else will be faster next year, so if you stay the same, you will get beat.

So as we look forward with hope for the new season. There will be disappointments along the way. But for now, everyone starts out in first place and believes that race win, runoffs bid, or championship will come. Spring’s coming with the hope of Easter and a Nelson New Year. After all, they are racing 24 hours at Daytona this weekend! And that is a much better harbinger of spring than baseball spring training.

God Bless,

Chaplain Gray   

chapnlrc@aol.com