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| -Short Attention Span Theater- |
| Jackie Stewart, a Grand Prix survivor's tale |
| 2007-09-30 |
| Excerpt below. The entire essay is 3 pages long. Imagine an 11-year window of time when you lose 57 – repeat 57 – friends and colleagues, often watching them die in horrific circumstances doing exactly what you do, weekend after weekend. To be a racing driver between 1963 and 1973 was to accept not the possibility, but the probability of death. If an F1 driver was to race for five years or more, he would be more likely to lose his life on the track than to survive and retire. What the cold statistics don't record is the hush that used to descend over the pit lane when an ambulance appeared… the sense of foreboding that spread through this small community when a plume of black smoke rose on the other side of the circuit… the unimaginably brutal way people died… how it felt to be a driver continuing a race, speeding by and catching a glimpse of a crumpled car or the body of a friend… the agony of a devastated wife… the fear in the eyes of other wives as they wondered if it might be their turn next. Hardly a day goes by when I don't think of those who died during that period, particularly my closest friends Jimmy Clark, Jochen Rindt and François Cevert. The sense of loss is always there, lingering just below the surface. Every now and then this reservoir overflows. This is odd because back then, when I was immersed in the aftermath of so many accidents and attending so many funerals, I used to feel pain but hardly ever cried. I somehow taught myself to compartmentalise my emotions, to lock them in a box and put them away. That enabled me to do whatever needed to be done, whether it was to make arrangements with undertakers or make sure the widow was being looked after. Then I would be able to climb back into my car and go racing again. I believed there was a little pouch somewhere inside my chest containing a rich and precious potion that effectively diluted grief and pain, and helped me carry on; but it has emptied as the years have passed. There is now no potion left, and I find myself more emotional and vulnerable than I ever did when racing. A psychologist would have a field day analysing the repressed emotions, maybe even detecting a subconscious sense of guilt that I have been allowed to survive and enjoy the wonderful opportunities so many of my friends were denied. We were so much more than just an itinerant group of professional sportsmen. We were a small, tight-knit group of friends who travelled together, stayed in the same hotels, partied, holidayed together and had wives who became close as well. But every now and then, because we were racing in exposed cars on amazingly dangerous circuits, one of us would have a shunt and be killed. As drivers we accepted the risk, partly because we were paid reasonably well, partly because that was just what we did, but mainly because we were stimulated by driving fast and living fast. |
| Posted by:mrp |
| #4 |
| Posted by: lotp 2007-09-30 11:55 |
| #3 |
| Posted by: lotp 2007-09-30 11:54 |
| #2 |
| Posted by: HalfEmpty 2007-09-30 11:28 |
| #1 |
| Posted by: Jack Rubenstein 2007-09-30 11:08 |