In 2007 I went to 29 races, in 2008 I attended 38 races and in 2009 I set a personal record with 44. In 2010 I was down to 25 and in 2011 I came in at just 18, the lowest total since 2001 when I was hobbled due to a neck injury that required surgery at the end of the season.
There will be even fewer races in 2012 but more on that later. Doing racing media work is for all intents and purposes volunteer work, a lot like a non-paying second job that requires travel and weekly expense. Anybody who has volunteered for anything knows that a person needs to have a passion for it in order to devote their time, resources and energy to it. My enthusiasm level has waned during the past couple of years, no fault of the racing but due to personal circumstances. Going into 2012 I decided that it would make more sense to fit my racing schedule more closely to my circumstances than to take my frustration out on everyone and everything. In other words I had to make my mind up that I was going to let it go. Once I did that I started to get enthused about other things besides racing and it became easier to accept the fact that my circumstances wouldn't allow me to chase races for the first time in 15 years.
I was looking for something that didn't require so my travel and expense so I added some more guitars and 24 track recording software for my computer. It was a bit of an expense up front but doesn't come anywhere near the $50 to $100 per week I was spending chasing races for all those years in the long run. I'm not a great guitar player and I can't sing a note, in fact it could be debated whether I'm even a good guitar player but I enjoy it. My only goal playing and recording music is for the songs to be listenable and to improve a little with each new tune. If I think of it in those terms I will be a success. I have no desire to ever make money or play in a band and oddly enough that's what makes it so much fun. Money as they say is the root of all evil, add money to the equation and it can screw up a lot of formerly fun things. One needs to look no further than some of the miserable racers to realize that. Not that money is bad but I've got a day job that wears me out so I don't want my weekend relaxation to become an endless pursuit of financial gain.
So here's the plan for 2012. Keep the gotomn.com website up and running. I am paid up through next May and plan to stay online as long as possible. It costs me around $120 a year for the domain and hosting and that is all out of pocket. The site still gets a good number of visitors because of it's longevity (online since 1999) even though I'm not doing a lot with it right now. I am contemplating splitting it up into several interests where a person would enter a start page at gotomn.com and could go into the racing section, the street rod section and a couple other areas as well. Again, the site is unsponsored and there's no obligations to anybody so I can do anything I want to with it. I just turned 60 in September and have just under six years left to work. I find as I get older that my energy level for pushing stuff onto a website in my free time isn't as intense as it was at 45 when I first got into it. It's kind of interesting that I didn't even start this until I was 45 years old when you think about it. That's a long time in internet years.
Other plans for 2012 are to maybe do some limited work for the Midwest Racing Connection. I'm not sure how that's going to shake out for me or their needs though. I'm only planning on going to about six of my favorite races in 2012 and the incentive for doing racing media work and the only compensation is a media pass. Is it worth working on a column all summer just to get into a handful of races? I don't know, we'll see if we can work anything out and go from there. I just finished an article for Flat Out magazine and would like to continue to do some work for them as well. In addition to any racing I do I'd like to attend the two big Street Rod shows at the Fairgrounds, Back to the 50's and Car Craft Summer Nationals. Aside from those things I'll be doing some home projects and spending time with family. The idea is that I'd like to pick up the pace of the racing back up in a couple years after I get some things sorted out. We'll see if the sport allows me to lay low for a year or two due to personal circumstances or if I end up getting kicked to the curb and spit out never to return. I'd say that I've been pretty loyal and gave it everything I had but I'm afraid it could be one of those "what have you done for us lately" situations. I can't go back to sitting in the stands because I'd lose interest and get bored with it. Like a lot of people involved in racing I'm not a very good fan.
Well, I guess that kind of sums it up for me. I'm not going to announce this blog post on Facebook or the message boards. I'd feel presumptuous doing that. I'm just putting it out here and the good karma will lead those who are interested to this place.
Later, Stan
