John Eagan <johneagan@toltbbs.com> wrote:
> On a final note, I've grown a fairly healthy respect for Dennis Grant
> over recent history
Thanks.
> but the bit about wanting to make a living as a pro
> autocrosser strikes me as blowing right past "extremely optimistic" with
> throttle stuck wide open and shooting deep into "delusional".
Nobody ever said it'd be easy....
Consider this: You've got a bunch of good ol' boys with their cars
hotrodded, 'cause they all run moonshine as their extra source of income,
and they need to be able to outrun the local federales. They start racing
each other at the local fairgrounds, and on the beach at some place called
"Daytona".
50 years later, they have the largest spectator sport on the planet, and
more money than God.
Now if you went back 50 years and told Lee Petty what NASCAR would be like
for his grandson, he'd probably tell you to spend more time driving and
less time sampling the cargo. But yet, here it is. It happened.
Now I don't seriously expect that what we do (or some permutation) can ever
wind up _that_ big. I think we're missing some elements (pit stops,
crashes, wheel-to-wheel racing, crashes, very high speeds, crashes) that
broaden NASCAR's fan appeal beyond what we'd ever be able to expect. I
think our "fans" would be more akin to the NHRA fans, and I see the way our
sport is developing is more akin to the NHRA than NASCAR. I see strong
parallels between modern Solo and the early NHRA.
Well that's fine. There is a "big show" in the NHRA that, while it's
nowhere near as big as NASCAR, is certainly "big enough". And then there's
that I'm finding as I build my car, it's slowly (very slowly!) turning into
something akin to an FIA WRC car. Well there's a sport that's even more
bizzare and harder to follow than we are, but yet there's no shortage of
money and fans there either.
Yes, it's not an easy thing. No, it's not going to happen overnight - and
may not happen for _me_ at all (but maybe CJ Sharp or Clemens Minor) But it
_is_ doable.
So I'll buy into "extremely optimistic", but "delusional" is just
defeatest. When are y'all going to realize that we can do anything we want
to if we're just willing to work hard at it?
DG
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