It’s pretty easy to see how well she did on the horsepower stages, verses the technical stages. Trust me, I was pushing just as hard. I will admit, I have to work on my lines through 2+ lane roads. I’m not very proficient at using all of that much road. I’d like to be sentimental for a moment as I recall the 2005 awards banquet. I’ve been racing with the group of people in that room all year, and in most cases, a couple of years. We all are up to our necks in the same sport, and even if our goals are different, we all struggle through the same thing. Not that racing is all that much of a struggle, it’s a blast, but it’s hard. Everybody was relaxed and sincere, there wasn’t any of the any of the banal formalities or indifferent sponsor name spouting that typically accompanies motor sports. Everyone knew who really stood beside them in the struggle for the championships, and was solemnly grateful for it.
At the end of the banquet, Rally America played the STPR video. For a couple of minutes many of the key players were sitting in the same room watching what they had accomplished that year, and for the first time. The show was great. We all got to see the new face of American Rally together. Ken Block wasn’t just a face on the screen, he sitting behind me as we all grinned during his interview.
I felt like I used to after family gatherings, when the kids would all wake up together in the TV room. The adults didn’t exist for a few hours, and we would watch movies all afternoon, sprawled on blankets and sleeping bags. It’s a kind of comfort I couldn’t have imagined outside the closest of family.
It couldn’t last long as Ole did what co-drivers do; told me to hurry up and go somewhere. We had nearly missed checkout.
I don’t know if that kind of community existed out side of my own experience. If it did, I’m sure that as the series grows, as it must and will, the influences of money, lots and lots of money press on us the sense of camaraderie may weaken. Third place seems to me to be a hell of an achievement, but if I’m being paid to win, then I will no longer have the luxury of doing the best I can and letting the standings fall as they might.
It may be that even under the harshest unsympathetic pressure to win there can be friendships between competitors. But will there be the same easy trade of advice and help? How often do the WRC teams share technology?
In the end it will be the teams themselves who decide how cut-throat the series will be. But teams are made of both the driver’s ego, and the sponsor’s desires. It remains to be seen if there will be the same inter-team celebrations that occur now, or if only one team will have any reason to celebrate, and the rest will have to deal with budget cuts.
I go in to 2006 happy and hopeful. There is still the same rally community that I’ve always felt exists. It is not that future success will cripple the community, and there is no guarantee that maintaining the status quo will preserve it. I’m just happy that I got to sit in the 2005 awards breakfast and watch STPR for the first time.
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