This is also posted on my NASCAR blog.
Maybe it’s the rain, a seemingly endless parade of storm after storm that drenched the Bay Area most every day last month and have carried through to this month. More likely it’s the growing workload, both in the office and at home. The former is accepted as part of the turf; the latter joyfully embraced as I get further into working on the new book, working out questions and carefully transcribing the words with which I have been entrusted by those who made the music and ministry real, next to mold without changing these beloved pioneers’ memories of then and observations of now into the compelling stories they are. Two interviews are already done, four are scheduled for this weekend, and many more to follow.
The gist of it all has been a recent growing disinterest in sports, particularly NASCAR as I find myself staring at races more than watching them. Take as an example yesterday’s Martinsville mash. It was obvious from shortly after the green flag’s wave Tony Stewart was the class of the field, and barring misfortune the race was his. So now we were expected to spend four plus hours of our lives waiting for the inevitable, occasionally noting whoever the latest wreck might be. Not the stuff of which memories are made, y’know?
I don’t believe this is a lasting disenfranchisement with sports in general or racing in particular. It’s true I have grown progressively less patient with the fluff constantly swirling around NASCAR. The meaningless garbage PR puff pieces, be they directly from some promotional hack or channeled through some willingly subservient pseudo-journalist. The other end of this perverse rainbow where self-satiated gloryhounds who believe they are the story spin fantastic yarns bearing no resemblance to truth. Drivers gone either Hollywood or down the ego-drenched, 24/7 spotlight trail where “you” don’t understand why “I” reign above all. Who needs any of this?
We as fans yearn for something real, some tangible reason why we should follow a given sport and the people in it. This is why as time passes I’m growing in appreciation for Earnhardt the younger, who despite every reason not to shoots straight; ditto for Robby Gordon and Stewart whose media snapbacks are a welcome retort to the aforementioned excesses. No, I’m not abandoning my unabashed Jeff Gordon fandom; just spreading it about a bit.
Above all, I’m just not that into NASCAR right now. I’d rather pursue a reawakened faith and its fruit as will be presented in the next book. No doubt somewhere along the line the fan juices will kick in, and it’s not like I’ve stopped caring or following what’s going on in the land of driving fast and turning left. But it’s not topping the list.
Which is as it should be.
