Gentlemen, Start Your Engines:

My Sports Autobiography

Streaks of sun bounce off the chrome moldings and then flash across my field of vision.  The engines around me rev and race, and I uncharacteristically pin the clutch of my street car to the floor as I await the starting signal.  Carmine’s yellow steward’s uniform pinches his multiple rolls of stomach, chest, and arms as he spreads out into my passenger’s seat.  “Okay.  So.  Look ahead.  Anticipate the curve. Slow in, fast out. You can do this,” he adds hesitantly, staring into my eyes.  “It’s all about the apex.  Figure out where the apexes are, and you’ll be fine.”

The verdant Lime Rock Raceway stretches before me and undulates with the Connecticut rolling hills. I process Carmine’s advice and the information from the driver’s meeting, otherwise known as rookie orientation.  Oddly, I feel cast back on this thin March afternoon to another day, a scorching Sunday, so long ago, in which I move with a small teenaged horde of males at the local speedway.  Ah, the smell of oil dripping on a hot engine!  The glorious roar of a shaking exhaust!  The vibrations retreating and flowing through my body as car upon stock car wrapped around the banked ovals.  It was paradise.

To some, being the only girl in a neighborhood of male boys must seem as if it had been a burden, a series of barriers, endless feelings of isolation and embarrassment.  But, to me, hurling a baseball across the plate and hearing the slap of bat across open air, or bracing for the thud and blow of a hip check across low and weedy skating marshes, or holding my breath while the basketball hangs in midair before a “swish-sh” joyously fills the court--- these are the memories of playing and competing as a girl right alongside the boys.

We swam in a wildlife pond, with the cattails encroaching and tickling us.  We climbed evergreen trees dabbled in pitch that hid nests of white-faced hornets.  We shot marbles, built tree houses, skipped stones, and hiked deep into the woods.  Our common connection to the natural and physical world largely transcended our childhood gender differences. 

My immersion into the world of males and sports was fully complete by the time I was a 30-something year old adult.  I was already moving daily and readily with the rhythms, habits, and culture of sport, and, so, my early love of stock car racing morphed into F1 international fandom and I traveled to various tracks to live vicariously through Mika, David, and Mark.

At the Lime Rock track day, the lights--- finally--- skip from red to green!  I let out the clutch, snap the gas pedal to the floor, and shoot down the long straight.  Looking ahead as Carmine advises, I come into the first curve.  “Don’t look at the road right in front of you.  Forget the other drivers.  Don’t break too early!  Hold the line until the last moment.  Keep up the speed!  No—don’t downshift.  Stay in gear.”  My throat closes and feels like dry parchment as my mouth drains of saliva.

The first lap of this track session consists of “follow the leader.” There is no passing allowed, and we are to all trace the column of cars in front of us so that on-track instructors like Carmen can show us the proper line to take around the track. I clench the steering wheel, my fingers bloodless and yet pulsing. I shift coming into Big Bend.  “So. Start on the outside of the track. Drive as straight as possible,” Carmine intones. I try to hide my fear of being knocked off the track, or causing an incident by pulling out to pass a slower car, or being unaware of a faster car closing in to overtake me. The curve sways and curls and tucks until a short straight.  Then the road course meanders up a quick hill to a crest, a right turn that falls away, and a long sweep down to two quick rights. Pressure builds in my temples as my body floats as one with the car.

And then I shift again as we are back by the pits and out onto the long straight.  “You’re getting it.  Use the whole track.  Better.  Look ahead, not down. No—don’t downshift.  Keep up the speed,” Carmen guides, a small smile creeping into the corners of his mouth.  “Exit all the way to the outside margin:  track out.”  My speeds increase with each successive lap until we are moving fast, really fast.  I see 90 miles per hour in a quick glance at the dashboard. More?

Again and again, I look ahead to find the apex, attempting to anticipate what is to become rather than to assess when I am.  Four times, five times:  the small track begins to embed in my memory.  Fall off, right.  Drift back and up.  Weave left, feign right.  I feel tendrils of hair escape and blow across my cheeks.

And while part of me is a 50+ year-old female out on the track for the biggest half-hour of her life, another part of me is that teenager who kept finding adventure and excitement and connection to others through the world of sport.  My adrenaline soars, my heart races, and my spirit settles into a meditative calm on that cold March day at Lime Rock.  No, I’ll not go back out onto a race track again. I’ll leave that to Felipe and Danika and Fernando.  But I’ll be one with the track, the lake, and field, and the course as a fan and occasional participant.  It’s sport that makes me, in part, who I am, and the memory of speed is enough.