SPEED

Colin Ternus ’24

And the back end stepped out. The back end of a car. The back end of my car. My car that was traveling eighty God-forsaken miles an hour around a turn. But not just any turn, the most dangerous turn on the entire track: the infamous Sonoma turn ten. My car that just got loose on the most dangerous turn on the entire track at eighty miles an hour. My car. With me in it. I am now half a second away from wrecking my car, decimating my confidence, and making myself the fool of the autosport community.

But to understand how we got here, we have to go back. Way back. Back to my childhood, back to the days where wonder and magic and intrigue still filled the world. My love for automobiles was apparent in my childhood (my parents like to say that my first word was “car”), and I would spend hours upon hours racing little matchbox cars around on the couch, their little ungreased wheels making a cute little squeaking sound as they barreled through imaginary turns, their old bitter-tasting paint chipping away as they jostled for position. I can still smell their metallic scent today, a bitter but warm smell of days long past. They left tracks on the couch, little grooves where their tires disrupted the grain, creating little skid marks and in some cases mapping out boundaries for the tracks. Those matchbox cars likely have more miles on them than most cars on the road, their paperclip-like axles still holding strong to this day. I used to play with them till my knees were marked with the pattern of the carpet they rested on, a bumpy and red texture. Yet to get the full context we need to go even further back. Back to before I was born, to my father and his brother, and their amateur Spec Miata racing careers. Spec Miata is a fascinating racing division. A large sum of drivers cram themselves into these tiny automobiles, these tiny Mazdas, and compete with reckless abandon to gain that revered first place. This was the world that my father and his brother dove into. At this point, they had steady jobs and a disposable income, so they decided to buy into Spec Miata. It really wasn’t much of a purchase, with the most expensive part of the process being buying a hard top for the car (which initially came with a convertible soft top that was not suited for racing), and paying for a driving school in order to obtain the necessary licenses and knowledge for racing.

The start of a Spec Miata race is something one has to observe in person. There are about thirty cars or so all running within feet of each other, their small engines making the most monstrous sound you’ve ever heard, and their tires squealing and crying out as the drivers violently warm them up by rapidly accelerating and slowing.

Let’s take a moment to appreciate the sound a Spec Miata makes. It’s this raspy sound, closer to a bumblebee than any other car engine, but it holds this power over you. It’s this growl, this menacing powerful growl that lets you know it means business. Most Spec Miatas have muffler deletes or modifications (the muffler being the part of your exhaust system that quiets the sound down), meaning they are extremely loud. That raspy growl of power is projected all over the track, a sign of the fight to come and the grittiness of these cars.

The drivers stay in a tight one-two one-two formation till the green flag drops (the green flag is used as a signal to start racing, and when I say “It drops” I mean the person holding it by the front straight shakes it) and the Miatas are off. They race, jostling and fighting for position up till the first turn, the titans battling over glory and reputation, and then it’s a mad dash to slow down in order to complete the turn. The sound of squealing tires, screaming engines, and banging metal saturate the air, and the beautiful smell of burning rubber and gasoline permeates through everything. By the time the dust and smoke settle at turn one, chances are more likely than not that you’re gonna see a driver stuck in the dirt or smashed into a wall or slowly putting their way back to the pitlane to attempt to salvage their ravaged car.

This is the world that my father and his brother competed in, the cutthroat monstrous world of these small regulation Japanese cars. They competed in local races on local tracks and did pretty well for themselves, and they learned the values of hard work and determination. They did almost everything for their cars: setting them up, maintenance issues, suspension tuning, creating a makeshift cooling rig (a cooler that was strapped down in the back of the car with a tube running to the driver in order to pump cooler air into the cockpit for longer endurance races). Spec Miata racing was a bonding experience, and it brought the family closer together over this common interest of strapping oneself into a metal box and going as fast as possible.

My father was still competing in Spec Miata two years after I was born, and he and his brother had collected two cars that they now ran in races (one being a gray Miata that we still drive on the track today and the other being a red Miata that… well, you’ll see). Both his racing career and having the two Miatas were soon to change.

It started like any other race weekend: bolt on a new set of tires, refuel the car, do any necessary tech inspections, and go go go! He placed well in qualifying (every race starts with qualifying, a time period where drivers compete to set the fastest lap and that lap time is then used to determine the order they start in), being able to secure P6 (sixth place) as his starting position for the race. Everything seemed business as usual during the warmup lap (race tires and brakes need to be warmed up in order to perform well, so a formation lap under a safety car is used to get all the cars up to temperature), and my father was lined up on the right side of the grid (they line up in a grid formation, so it is called a grid), meaning he would be on the outside of turn one. He completed his warmup lap and the safety car got out of the way. They were ready. These titans in their tiny cars, ready to do the battle of steel and rubber. Engines floored and gasoline poured as the green flag dropped, as they stampeded their way to turn one. My father was on the outside of the turn as the frantic braking began, trying to make a move on the car on the inside. That is, until the car on the inside wasn’t on the inside anymore, and had now lost control and bumped into my father, sending him slightly up the hill into the rough dirt. This wouldn’t have been a problem, except for the slight ditch that lay in front of his tires. His front tire dug in, and every driver’s worst fear occurred. The car flipped. And this wasn’t a measly flip. No. This was a cartwheel, a dance, a roll. End over end over end over end he went, dirt flying into the car and the sound of screaming metal surrounding him. Over and over and over, the ground rising to the sky and the sky falling to the ground. Over and over and over and over until he stopped. And as the dust settled and the smoke cleared out, he was the car that faced the turn one curse. He was a victim of the titans.

Despite all his flips, and the fact that he went off the track at sixty miles an hour, he escaped the crash with only a sprained leg. The same can’t be said for the car, which was quickly sent to what I can only assume to be a scrapyard, as it was more blop of sharp metal than car. My father, seeing the luck in his crash, then decided to stop entering into Spec Miata races, his family obviously being more important than the drive for pride (he continued to do track days, however).

All this to say that racing and driving has been part of my family and my life for as long as I have lived. I breathe gasoline, cry wiper fluid, and bleed transmission fluid. For as long as I can remember, Sunday mornings have been times to sit down and watch F1, and sometimes Nascar and Indycar. I always dreamed of being up there with them, fighting for position and flying around the track. And then, when the chance came to drive on an actual track in an actual car, I was almost too afraid to take it.

“You wanna come drive at Sonoma next weekend?” my dad asked with a smile from the kitchen, a question receiving a resounding “YES!” from me. This would be my chance to experience that thrill of speed. That drug of acceleration. That joy of strapping yourself into a box and going as fast as possible around a tight track. But what if I mess up? What if I’m slow? What if I crash?

These were the thoughts that filled my head, thoughts of failure and dismay, thoughts of disappointment and letdown. What if I’m slow? This day at Sonoma quickly became a nightmare, a seemingly life-altering event that would sink me down into the darkest depths of shame, not good enough to keep up with my family.

Every time Sonoma was mentioned I felt sick to my stomach. I feigned a face of excitement, but dreaded the day as it quickly approached.

And then the day came. We packed up our tools, our gloves, and our helmets and headed out the door at a nice 5:00 AM. The cool air was refreshing, but it in addition to my fear sent shivers down my body that shook me to my core. What if I’m slow? We loaded up our stuff into our respective cars, and took off. It was a two hour long journey, at one point going through San Francisco and across the Golden Gate Bridge. The beautiful California fog blanketed everything, creating a soothing atmosphere that did nothing to calm my nerves. I watched as the time ticked, ticked, ticked away on the dashboard. What if I’m slow? And as the distance to the track decreased, my fears skyrocketed. The black interior of the car seemed to be reaching for me, suffocating me. I was trapped in this void of self doubt, this bubble of fear and expectation. My whole life had been leading to this moment. WHAT IF I’M SLOW? The seatbelt felt tighter and tighter, the wheel of the car closer and closer, the temperature seemed to rapidly increase.

Then we reached the track, and I got out of my car. The sound of engines filled the air, and the smell of fresh rubber and gasoline wafted to my nose. Supercars drove by on my right, stock cars on my left. The sound was deafening. Shooom Shoooom Shoooooom, cars raced by on the track, trailing dust and rubber. WHAT IF I’M SLOW? I retreat back into my car after signing in, and wait in petrified silence for my group’s session to be called.

“Group C, please report to the pitlane. I repeat: Group C, please report to the pitlane.”

The announcement is made. It is my time. I push the clutch in, start the engine, and shift into first. My engine whimpers as I set off through the paddock to get to the grid. WHAT IF I’M SLOW? I pull up behind a Supra and wait for the inevitable. The car is no longer a car. It’s a trash compactor. The walls have fully closed in, the seat belt as tight as it could go. My legs shake in fear as I grip the steering wheel and hold on for dear life. The Supra revved its engine and took off, leaving a small chunk of rubber on the hood of my car. I watched as it flew away and waited for my turn to take off, trying to manifest the flag bearer not to drop the flag.

The flag fell. The green impending fear-striking titan-commanding flag fell, and my life flashed before my eyes. Years of racing matchbox cars on the couch, my fathers racing, yelling “Gwo ungle pweter” into the mic during one of his races, getting my license, it all appeared before my eyes. This was my dream, and suddenly I felt a flash of anger for letting something as stupid as expectation take the joy of that dream away from me. So what if I’m not fast? I’m gonna have fun. I dropped the clutch and slammed the accelerator, my front wheel drive civic squealing off the line. The wind rushed in from my open windows (NASA requires you to have your windows down), filling my helmet with the cool smooth air. As my car accelerated over the turn one hill, the sun hit my vision and my whole world was alight and alive with color and life.

And I had fun. After a couple of warm up laps the car felt amazing, I was able to put my full faith into my trusty Civic, my noble steed whose hands I was placing my life in. His little engine roared as I powered out of turns (granted a much smaller roar than the Miatas because the Civic still has to be street legal), and his all weather tires squealed a pain-ridden squeal, being put through more than they were ever supposed to be. Little chunks of rubber spit out from behind my car, and the turbo spooled as I shredded through the corners. My confidence began to grow. I’ll go a little faster here, break a little later there, and change up my line here. And best of all, I was getting quicker, beating out the other people in my group. I felt good. I felt great! I was in control of a car going ninety miles per hour around a tight, wall-surrounded track. Nothing could stop me! I’m on top of the world! And then the back end stepped out. The back end of my car. On the most dangerous turn. Traveling eighty miles per hour. I had come in a little hot, and the track was a little oily from a whole day of titans trampling over it. The perfect storm. Time slowed down, I watched a chunk of rubber fly in through the left window and out the right. My tires let out a dying scream, accompanied by a small scream of my own. I was toast, done, a failure. I could see it all now, my car sliding into the wall, the front end crumpling like paper. The whole track would be shut down as they lugged my crumpled car off the circuit, debris and rubber falling off of it all the while. This is the worst moment of my life.

But it wasn’t. Instinct took over: I turned into the slide, shifting the momentum of the car away from the back and towards the front. I then corrected the snap oversteer, and with tires squealing, pulled out of an inevitable crash. My heart rate lowered, it was over. It took me an entire lap to comprehend everything that had just happened. I was screwed, but I wasn’t? I had just made the biggest mistake of my life yet I was completely unscathed. How?

Racing for me has been more than just a sport. It’s been a lesson in hard work, a lesson in confidence, a lesson in life. That’s what I learned during that fateful track day: I am capable of more than I think if I just work hard enough at it. I cannot allow myself to sike out of important events. I faced my fear head on, driving eighty miles an hour at it, and had come out on top. I took an out of control car heading for impending destruction, and brought it back on track. I did that. I, under my own power and control, took a metal machine and drove it as hard as I could. That sense of accomplishment has never left me, and it probably never will. Racing is life. It’s getting knocked down and standing back up, ready for another punch. It’s going eighty miles per hour through a sixty miles per hour turn, knowing full well that you could mess up and total your car, but having the confidence in yourself to pull it off. It’s having trust in your car and your own mechanic skills, the only thing between you and a spectacular car failure. It’s drive. It’s passion. It’s love. It’s life. The joy of strapping yourself into a metal box and going as fast as you possibly can is quite possibly one of the most life-changing things that can happen to you. Without it I never would have learned self-confidence and belief, never learned the importance of hard work and determination, and I would never have known that you never, ever, under any circumstances, want to be on the outside of turn one at Sonoma.