Wing Side Up 4/27/09 "Car Wash Clues"

Wing Side Up

By Bob Gangwer

Car Wash Clues

(Reprinted from Wailing with Wing Side Up LIVE internet radio show)

Clovis, CA 4/27/09….

Let’s face it, as bad as many thought the car count was for the SMRA opener at Madera, a whole lot more stepped away from their computer after seeing the numbers from Shasta and either laughed, shook their head, or at the very least felt a cringe of worry for the west coast sanction.

I’ll be honest, I was hoping for at least double digits to put on a show at a track I’d heard about many times but had never seen. Most of you know that I’m one of those guys who always look at the glass half full all of the time and even with short counts can usually find something good somewhere to offset a bad situation.

Well, I’m here to tell you, even as positive as I try to stay about things I was darned near at wits end trying to figure out how to spin this one into a positive. I think it’s a good thing that I was asked to go along for the ride down to the NAPA store that was sponsoring the race, had I not, I’m pretty sure that once my rose tinted glasses were broken, I would have gotten to the race track and could have easily been dragged into the depths and downward spiral of pessimism that I try so hard to stay away from.

It just so happens that they had a car wash going on the same day. While some of the guys on the crew seemed to be more focused on the soccer moms they noticed as we pulled in, I was blinded by a bright light of possibility, and it didn’t have anything to do with the ladies standing there. No, oh no, I saw kids and lots of them. Ranging in age from about 8 to maybe 14, these girls and boys were running around on the sidewalk hawking their product. “CAR WASH TODAY!” some yelled. Others were a bit more direct with “HEY YOUR CAR IS DIRTY LET US WASH IT for ONLY $5.”

It didn’t take long for me to become infected by their enthusiasm and my mind started racing with ways to pull them in. Of course it’s not as hard as one might think especially when you drop the tailgate on trailer and the people peering inside find a supermodified sitting there.

Watching the eyes of a child light up at the sight of a super is something that is hard to put into words. It seems so innocent, and maybe it’s a hearkening back once again to the reminder that we all used to be a child once and we all used to get that excited about just one supermodified.

When we were young and just starting to figure out how cool this DIVISION was, it didn’t matter much to us how much it cost to get into the show, or what sanction it was run under. Worrying about how many cars would show up to do battle was never a cause of stress and fretting over how much cars weighed or if it was right or wrong for a team to soak tires by no means diminished our desire for the DIVISION.

Now we are older and a lot more sarcastic. We often times fall into a pattern of cynicism and distrust. We find it easy to talk smak about this that and the other thing. We offer up backhanded compliments and often simply forget to be appreciative. In the words of a fellow Hoosier “Oh how I long for those young boy days”.

But then things like this happen when we don’t get our way. Yet when you have a chance to experience the unbridled enthusiasm and innocence it becomes a little easier to be positive. When you put a 10 year old kid into a super and you see their face light up, then you see ma and pa get excited about their kids smile, some of that animosity goes away.

I think it’s just a simple matter of trying to be nice to people is all, and remembering what we thought was cool as kids. It’s about taking the time to not be selfish about the DIVISION we love. It’s kinda Zen like maybe, and maybe it’s a little weird to some of you, but to me, it’s the right thing to do because if we don’t, we don’t have a future.