I’m sitting at the bar at the local sushi restaurant watching drag racing.
What else am I going to do on a Sunday night?
The current heat features dueling Funny Cars.
They resemble the stock cars driven in NASCAR races, but longer.
You may be more familiar with the Funny Car’s sleeker cousin, the Top Fuel Dragster.
That’s the car with the huge tires in back and awkwardly small wheels in front.
Like Tyrannosaurus Rex arms.
It runs about ten percent faster than a Funny Car.
Both versions clock speeds north of 300 miles per hour, approaching Mach 0.5.
And drivers experience forces of nearly five Gs through the course of a quarter-mile, four-second race.
That’s more than what an F/A-18 Hornet pilot experiences during a catapult shot off an aircraft carrier.
Not that I give a shit about any of this.
But that’s what’s on the TV behind the bar, muted, while two Japanese guys turn out spicy salmon rolls.
My wife and daughter are out with friends, so I’m flying solo for dinner.
Not wanting to look like a loser sitting at a mostly empty table, I opted for the bar.
The guys making sushi pay no attention to what’s on TV.
It’s always tuned to the same channel: ESPN 2.
Usually, it’s golf.
Occasionally, it’s cornhole.
Today, it’s drag racing.
The featured race, at Seattle’s Pacific Raceways, is the latest stop on the Summer 2023 NHRA West Coast Swing.
The NHRA is the National Hot Rod Association.
But you already knew that, of course.
I continue watching the TV as the light on the post between the two Funny Cars flashes green.
The cars take off screaming down the track, smoke trailing behind them.
Seconds later, they both pop parachutes and begin decelerating.
I have no idea who won.
Until I see members of the pit crew for one of the cars start jumping around and high-fiving.
Yay, team.
Whatever.
Eventually, the winning car winds its way back to the pits, and the driver emerges from the “cockpit,” as they call it.
He takes off his helmet while champagne goes spraying over his head.
The driver looks . . . old.
Okay, maybe that’s unfair.
Let’s say he looks older than I was expecting.
Not that I should have any expectation, given my complete ignorance of, and lack of interest in, drag racing.
Still, I pull out my phone to look up the driver.
I learn that Tim Wilkerson of Springfield, Illinois, is sixty-two years old.
Sixty-two. Hm.
Even if sixty is the new fifty in drag racing, I can’t help but think Wilkerson is past his prime.
I decide to investigate further as I wait for my seaweed salad.
That’s when I discover “Big Daddy” Don Garlits.
He drove his last qualifying race at 320 miles per hour.
When he was seventy-one years old.
Wow.
But Big Daddy has nothing on “The Golden Greek,” Chris Karamesines.
He clocked speeds in excess of 300 miles per hour right up until his retirement.
At age eighty-six.
Eighty-six, for Chrissakes!
So then I’m thinking maybe this drag racing stuff isn’t nearly as impressive as it looks.
Maybe you just strap in and hang on.
I mean, how else does an octogenarian do anything at half the speed of sound?
Turns out, there’s a lot going on in the cockpit during a race.
The driver must continually tweak the engine’s fuel mixture to achieve optimum performance, taking numerous variables into account.
He must also shift gears – five, in total – through the course of a four-second race.
And he must steer.
Well, for the last couple of seconds, at least.
The front wheels typically leave the ground during the car’s initial acceleration, making steering impossible.
So, yeah. The driver’s workload is pretty damn high.
To be capable of doing all this with a Medicare card in one’s back pocket would seem to contradict Arthur Brooks’ premise in From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life.
According to Brooks, most people have already entered a state of cognitive decline by the time they turn forty.
We get slower on the uptake and begin to experience a deficit of what psychologists call fluid intelligence, or that which gives us the ability to learn new things and gain new skills.
So, be it from muscles or neurons, a person’s fast-twitch capabilities decline much sooner than they perhaps realize.
There are exceptions, of course.
The remedy, as explained by Brooks, is to find ways to employ one’s crystallized intelligence, or knowledge gained through experience, to add value in the latter half of one’s career.
I suppose that makes sense.
For most people.
But I have two issues with this.
First, I’ve never done the same thing twice in my career.
I’m an inch deep and a mile wide.
That means I have no repository of accumulated knowledge in any industry, function, or geography.
Second, the only thing at which I’ve proven adept in my career is finding new and creative ways to get kicked in the nuts.
Mine is not an experience to be emulated. By anyone.
Therefore, I see no opportunity to leverage whatever wisdom I’ve gained to transition to a slow-twitch, crystallized-intelligence kind of existence.
Sorry, Arthur Brooks.
I’ll need to continue to move-shoot-communicate my way through whatever series of bizarro situations I face for the foreseeable future. Perhaps indefinitely.
For that, I’ll need every ounce of fast-twitch, fluid-intelligence capability I can muster.
That’s why I love the stories of Big Daddy and The Golden Greek.
Yes, things slow down as you gain experience.
You begin to feel the wind in the helm . . . the slip of the plane in the rudder pedals.
I’m sure there’s plenty of that going on with seasoned drag racers.
But there’s also a lot of split-second, in-the-moment, hair-trigger reacting and decision-making going on.
And for guys to be doing it effectively in their eighth and ninth decades of life is nothing less than extraordinary.
Most studies on longevity feature Okinawans skilled in gardening and Tai Chi.
Not American Funny Car racers who routinely strap their asses to flame-spitting rockets.
Who knew drag racing could be so enlightening . . . and inspiring?
Thanks, Big Daddy. Thanks, Golden Greek.
And rest assured, Tim Wilkerson of Springfield, Illinois.
At sixty-two years young, you still have a long way to go.
And me?
I don’t know.
What’s the corporate equivalent of Funny Cars?
Maybe that’s the business I should be in.
I’ll have to catch the NHRA Midwestern Swing.
If there is such a thing.
In the meantime, I’m signing off.
My nigiri platter just arrived.
Your friend,
Dan
“Big Daddy”
Bozung