would be a good read. Enjoy.
The city name
Dalton, GA doesn't ring too many bells, and really why should it?
We're known as the “Carpet Capital Of The World,” meaning if you
have carpet at home, it was made here. There's not much that's
exciting in this town, but being deep in the heart of stock car
country, things can get interesting. Across from the bargain
supermarket is the bike shop owned by Tammy Jo Kirk, the former
motorcycle and NASCAR Truck racer, and one town over in Chatsworth,
Jody Ridley's family still participates in weekly events at North
Georgia Speedway. Not to mention, we're a short drive away from
historic Dawsonville, birthplace of a who's who of racing legends.
Indeed, it is a slice of racing heaven.....unless you're an IndyCar
fan.
Dixie ain't
the place for people like me, the kind of people who can tell you as
much about Bobby Labonte as Bobby Rahal, Dale Earnhardt as Dale
Coyne, or Jeff Gordon as Jeff Andretti. I fit in well enough, but
conversations are tough when you're talking to someone who can
pronounce Kulwicki, Keselowski, or even Maggiacomo but not Kanaan,
Castroneves, or even Salazar. While I do enjoy a good fender bangin'
showdown at Martinsville, and while I always enjoy supporting the
local late model racers, I often find myself wishing I was Back Home
Again In Indiana rather than having Georgia On My Mind. (No offense
to Ray Charles.)
But when I was
15, a bit of the yankee life headed my way. The IRL had left
Nashville after 2008, but the IndyCars returned to the south in a big
way, announcing the Indy Grand Prix Of Alabama at Barber Motorsports
Park. Finally, just two hours away my favorite racing series would
get to show everyone else what I had always been raving about. Who
would have thought the pulse pounding symphony of chaos that is the
IndyCar Series would come to life just a stone's throw from the home
of stock car racing's Alabama Gang? And in the 7 years since,
something must have worked, as over 80,000 fans from 41 states and
six countries attended this year's event.
Through my
years attending as a fan, I've seen the event grow from just another
stop on the schedule to a destination for spectators and competitors
alike. But this year, I had the opportunity to be on the other side
of the fence and experience my favorite sport in pure, raw, unfiltered
fashion. Working freelance with a television station out of
Chattanooga, TN whose building is akin to the size of a 25 cent pack
of Juicy Fruit, I signed up for a media credential with no
expectation of being approved. My dream is to follow in the footsteps
of a Paul Page or a Dave Despain, but would little old me really get
the chance to chase it? Then, 8 days before the event, I received
confirmation that I had been granted media access. Great! But what
now?
Having only 8
days to make something from nothing, I scrambled into action,
emailing and Tweeting to anyone I could find that could help, and
thanks to some kind people, I had interviews lined up with Dale
Coyne, Graham Rahal, and Mikhail Aleshin. So I packed up my '91 Crown
Vic and motored down I59 for my first true
IndyCar
experience. Sure, I've been to a plethora of NASCAR races, an Indy
500 and 3 Grands Prix at Barber, but nothing prepared me for my first
experience as media.
Getting
to the track at dawn, hauling around 40 pounds of equipment, and
setting things up as a one man band was tough, even shooting B-roll
alone was mentally exhausting. What made it worth it, however, was seeing up close
the dedication, the focus, the intensity of crews preparing cars for
the race. Schmidt Peterson's PR representative Veronica Knowlton
allowed me to shoot footage of pit practice, and I'll tell ya what,
pit stops from 3 feet away will take your breath away. The views of
the course that I got to sink in were incredible, even if I was
wearing a suit in near 90 degree temperatures. Running around the
paddock, I felt like a turkey in the rain, I was so confused. Setting
up interviews on the fly and trying to get just the right shot for my
television piece was hard enough, and then suddenly I realized I left
my media pass in Mikhail Aleshin's transporter! (Imagine that,
though. A Russian and a southern boy got along very well for the
interview.)
But
how fitting it was that with a handful of laps to go, another
southerner took the lead and never let go?
I
stood behind the pitbox of Josef Newgarden's team for the end of the
race , and before I knew it, everyone was hugging and high fiving,
and I ended up invited to victory lane. While I wasn't quite sure if I
belonged, I remembered the advice of a longtime friend from my days in pro wrestling who told me
“Act like you belong and nobody will question it.” That rang true
as I wound up part of the party all the way until the post race press
conference. Trust me when I say the excitement was so intoxicating,
it was hard to stay professional.
The
GP of Alabama is tremendous in that it helps expose southern race
fans to a form of auto racing they only otherwise hear about every
May. My hope through my media work was to convey my personal
excitement for a sport I love so dearly, so that maybe we'll see more
races in the south's most beautiful cities, like a Chattanooga street
race perhaps? (Hey, one can dream, right?)
I've
been to The Daytona 500, I've been to Petit LeMans, Bristol at night, Darlington when the Southern 500 came home, you
name it. But the greatest experience of both my professional and
personal lives came at the 2017 Grand Prix of Alabama. To put a twist
on the old country classic, “If Heaven ain't a lot like Indy, I
don't wanna go..”
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