Some folks have recently inquired . . . check that . . . a surprising number of folks (for which this hack is very grateful) have wondered aloud, some repeatedly (thanks, JJ and MG and JM and IM and BM and . . .), as to why Cold Pit has gone, um, “cold.”
My response to each is the same as that which has been repeatedly employed: There wasn’t much of anything about which to write. Well, there was that white lie told to JJ (notice how one can choose the colors of his lies?) that a certain facebook account is where one might find “warmer” and newer words instead of the now gone ColdPit blog. By the way (in a little personal message, here. So if you’ll please excuse us . . .) it isn’t really gone, JJ. It’s just that you wouldn’t have believed yours truly had no words to write, when I really didn’t!
(And should anyone get all agog over the use of a lowercase “facebook,” suggested then is a peek at one’s upper-left corner whilst visiting facebook, which evidently feels that should an organization’s all-caps moniker get printed, then so, too, should an alphabetical counterpart.
More recently, instead of grousing about there being little of substantive nature about which to write, this writer instead has been inclined to use metaphor, such as: “The middle of North American sports car racing has recently been like that of someone standing in a 7-ft. dinghy while in the midst of 20-ft. seas.”
Put a different way: Confusion and uncertainty now reigns in North American sports car racing.
Oh, the upper echelon of the new, um, “lon” (?) is trying hard, though there are plenty of people, a “majority” is what might claim, who know not what these people are doing with the investments originally made and currently carried by team owners.
“They’ll have these get-togethers for which advertised is information disbursement but during which the only thing actually seen is a thorough patting upon their respective backs,” say a composite of the chieftains made whilst standing aside cars which represent millions of dollars in a business that is, for the most part, controlled by others.
That they have little control over their own fortunes is not an easy pill to swallow for team owners who are accustomed to determining their own diagnosis and the medicine necessary for countering what ails them, now becoming especially concerned for those who are dependent on the team owners taking the right treatment so that everyone safely awakens where each seek to be, financially.
One can only wonder what the paddock’s topmost control freak - the control freak of control freaks - is doing to calm himself while awaiting results from what the efforts of others, minions all, are doing to a series he personally built from ground upward.
It must be pure hell.
Indeed, and in fact, it’s also pure hell for that team’s crew members - and not just from their “master’s” increased anxiousness, either. Some of these, um, scum-of-the-earth, greasy over-the-wall types are themselves captains of industry, whether situated in major metropolitan areas or guiding their own little “industry” back in Hometown, USA. What they aren’t lacking is smarts, many having educations that few would come close to imagining, with advanced degrees in business, scientific, medical and engineering fields, judicial and many other fields – all of whom are gladly taking vacations, an event at a time, and who need to know the when and where of a following season because they really have need of planning that far in advance.
It sometimes can’t help but be wondered if series’ administrators know the credentials of those who they readily pass when strolling along almost any pit lane in sports car racing.
Indeed, it’s doubtful anyone who labors at all in the paddock is absent of apprehension over a future which is now being built more by those responsible for building the new series than anyone or anything else.
While it’s easy to think one could or should easily “chill,” such really is doubtful when someone has little clue – other than repeatedly saying, nay, chanting – much as did Little Miss Dorothy and her ruby red heels – “There’ll be a season next year; There’ll be a season next year; There’ll be a season next year” – when the bosses are responsible not only to crews – many if not most being as close to family as one can get absent of matching DNA – as well as, sometimes, stockholders and boards of directors for the haulers, shops, equipment, supplies, race cars and whatever else whose assets easily number in the millions of dollars for each team, regardless of team.
When seen at each race in the media center is worry etched into the faces of those who labor over a keyboard or whose vision has been fouled by one eye constantly seeing something through a telescopic lens, it doesn’t take long to learn of that person’s angst over the following season and whether he or she will have anything at all to do with it.
In fact, inflaming the worry over prospective change and uncertainty are the loss of jobs by those who presently don’t know how or where a lost income will be replaced. Furthermore, rarely paid in the world of racing journalism is severance, which is about as rare as jobs are today. Yet, if one is inclined toward and thinks highly of people who truly hustle for a living, look no farther than a media center. It’s full of ‘em.
Believe: Concern about having jobs or fulfilling roles while away from jobs is an honest-to-goodness issue at a time when the U.S. is experiencing the worst, longest-lasting, so-called “recovery” (should one dare call it that) since World War II.
There is now at least a couple of teams – race- or even championship-winning teams at that – which for the 2014 season felt there was no choice but to shelve respective plans to step up a racing-class grade or, maybe, two because timely information was lacking in its arrival.
To be somewhat fair in this litany of negativism by a self-admitted, at-this-moment “nabob” (ask your grandfather), the bringing together of two sanctioning bodies, or companies for all that’s worth, isn’t an easy task. Indeed, the process likely is more difficult than is quarterbacking a professional football team (no, unlike others, I will not grant the use of “NFL” as sufficient in conveying the idea of professional football. After all, there’s the Lingerie League, the games of which grab this armchair quarterback’s rapt attention rather quickly, despite his state of rapid overall decline).
As tough as it has been for this observer to see any member of this racing family walk through the gate for a last time – even those with whom this writer disagreed, because they have families, too – it’s probably pretty easy to grasp how uncomfortable it must be to fire someone. Especially if that “someone” is an otherwise likeable sort.
Now, multiply “firing” many, many times over. It hurts on both sides.
No, laying unclaimed by this writer is any hint at all of the “ease” experienced by those who’ve taken IMSA, versions 1.998 – 2.013, and Grand-Am apart, examined the many pieces and duplicates in each, then started reassembling them as IMSA ver. 3.0.
Not gonna go there at all; there being a lot on the plates of those having to divine the proper 2014-and-beyond path for professional sports car racing.
Still, there are a whole bunch of wound-up souls who need to know how the 2014 International Sports Car Racing series will function, from top to bottom . . .
Like yesterday.
Later,
DC
