A Day At The Races

By Davin Edwards

What a fantastic ending to a wonderful week as I attended the Grand Prix of Denver in Colorado. My first time there, I did not know what to expect. My fun filled, action packed racing weekend began with an incredible bang. Upon my arrival on Thursday to pick up my credentials, I was issued a wristband and media identification card that allowed me access to every portion of the race circuit. From pit to paddock, press ops and victory circle, if it was accessible, I was there, including the media room located inside the Pepsi Center.

Afterwards, I proceeded across the street to Brauns Restaurant, where I enjoyed a media luncheon. The place was packed with correspondents from local newspapers, television and radio stations, magazines and websites, and of course myself. And at the table across from mine sat Frankie Muniz, the former childhood television star turned racecar driver. The Grand Prix of Denver was a three day event, and consisted of four different racing series. Champ Car, which was the main attraction, BMW featuring younger racers in their teens, Atlantic, and Vintage Race.

On Friday, fans, racers, crew and event staff engulfed the streets of Denver. My scheduled interview that I had set up several months prior was not for another few hours, so I visited the BMW paddock first. Rows of racing trailers aligned in formation, mechanics and engineers hard at work. Then I proceeded to the media room to cool down and get some water from the blistering 97 degrees heat, but that did not keep me inside for long, as I made my way towards my interview with Champ Car Rookie Dan Clarke.

I circled the Champ Car paddock area until I found the CTE Racing trailers. His team CTE stands for Cedric The Entertainer. The noise was pulsating loud, barely able to hear myself think, we conducted the interview inside one of the team trailers. But it was not your typical trailer with couches, chairs and so forth, there were two, long, tall counters and a small walk space inbetween. Dan jumped up on one side, so I jumped up on the other. We sat across from each other in the confined space with both ends of the trailer open, having to deal with the loud noises of racing engines, crew walking back and forth and gusts of wind, as I found the interview to be most interesting.

When I first met Dan Clarke, I found him to be very easy going. The 22-year-old Englishman mainly resides in an apartment in Indianapolis close to his team. He made his American racing debut at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, and was making his first appearance here in Denver. Striving towards the achievement of 2006 Rookie of the Year, Dan was elated being taken on by this team and racing in Champ Car. With the dream of one day racing in Europe’s most elite racing league, Formula 1, for now, Dan is not looking towards the future, planning ahead only for Sunday’s race.

Growing up in England, Dan began his racing career at the early age of 8, when he won a competition at an indoor track. By the time he was 9, he got his own equipment, and he and his dad drove around the country racing.

I ask him how he chose between open-wheeled racing and stock cars?

“Short answer,” he replies. “Single seats is bigger in my opinion.”

I ask him if he always wanted to be a racecar driver in life?

“No, when I was really young, I remember wanting to be an airport fireman.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, because I always played with a lot of toy cars. One of my favorite ones was a yellow fire truck.”

The interview is going well, as my questions liven up the mundane questions Dan usually gets asked in every other interview… except mine.

“What was your first job?”

“Paper boy. I did it for a year and a half.”

I read that his nickname is Speedy Dan, so I ask him where that came from?

“It was actually a cartoon character that we’re developing called Speedy Dan, it’s not actually me. See, the biggest mystery and I probably shouldn’t really reveal it now… is that I’m not actually Speedy Dan, I’m just Dan Clarke.”

“Okay,” I say, a little confused.

“Speedy Dan is a cartoon character that hasn’t been in many stories just yet. It’s set to be, hopefully with the rising career of Dan Clarke, more people will pay attention to Speedy Dan. He just kind of helps old ladies cross the road and saves small insects.”

The more I find out about Dan, the more I find that he is your typical 22 year old, except for the fact that he already has a profession that most men would kill for.

“What is your favorite aspect of racing?”

“The Challenge,” he eagerly replies.

“Do you have any superstitions or rituals before a race?”
“Not really, no.”

Dan’s typical routine of unwinding after a race consists of a checklist. First thing he likes to do is the debrief, writing his race reports, once he does all that, then he can do anything he tells me, from having a Starbucks to just acting stupid, professing that he is just a big kid at heart. His racing schedule only allows him to go back home to England every couple of months just for a week.

“So where do you hang out?”

“Well, if I’m at home with my friends back in England, then I’ll just do anything, going out to a pub…”

“Do you have a favorite pub?”

“Maybe,” he says with a grin.

“Which one?” I press further.

“It’s my little secret hideaway pub, I can’t tell you where that is,” he says with a laugh.

“I need my privacy.”

As the interview moves forward I find it very intriguing when Dan tells me, “when I’m at a track, I’m very competitive and intense, but then when I’m away, I can’t get far enough away from racing. I just want to do random stuff and be normal.”

“What’s normal?” I ask him.

“I don’t know… going shopping, watch TV, play video games.”

I ask him if he wants to be an owner someday?

“Of a race team…” he replies.

“Yes,” I tell him.

“I don’t think I would want a race team owners job right now. Maybe in 10 or 20 years when I’ve had enough of racing and want to do something else.”

So I ask him where he sees himself down the road?

“I like being active and competitive. I can see at some point I might get board with racing, maybe… life goes on, racing is not everything in life.”

Being a rookie, I ask him if he has any advice he would like to give to potential rookie racers?

“I wouldn’t give them any advice actually, because they’ll be racing against me. I would tell them… learn on your own. To give you an example, when I asked my teammate something, he tells me he doesn’t know, I can’t tell you that, figure it out for yourself.”

His teammate is Nelson Philippe from France, and I get the impression, from what Dan is telling me, that it is every man for himself.

“I’m close with him,” he added further, “but now we start day track orientation separately. Yesterday he disappeared without me, and I want everyone to know that!”

“How do you prepare for a race?”

“This year it’s quite difficult, because I haven’t done the tracks before. You have to go out, walk the track on your feet, feel the texture and see the bumps and how that would affect the car and how to drive the car, but still you don’t know until you drive the track.”

Dan tells me that too much preparation could be the wrong preparation. That he listens to music, plays with a yoyo, and reads a lot of books to relax.

“I also like to go training in the evenings just to burn calories, no weight training.”

I tell him he’s so thin.

“Well you know, you can never be to thin as a racing driver, there’s always an engineer or a manager that tells you you’ve got a bit of fat here or there.”

Surprised or rather shocked by his answer of you can never be to thin, sounds more like Hollywood with the knife thin actresses nowadays on the screen. He tells me he knows a few racers that could lose some weight, but he wouldn’t divulge their names.

I ask him what is the craziest thing you’ve done lately? A question I ask everyone I interview, that someone once asked me.

“Um… I learned to sail this year. I did a program for Martini Sports, Indianapolis Sailing club, then after a half an hour, I was thrown out into the water on my own. I enjoyed this.”

The velocity of his dangerous profession can be cut short in an instant with an unforeseen accident, a twist of fate, another racer hitting him into a wall. Crashes are frequent; it goes along with the perilous territory of his chosen career.

So I ask him if he ever gets nervous?

“I try not to think about crashing, because I think if you think about it, then that’s how you crash.”

Traveling from city to city away from home for long periods of time can be exciting, most people envy his position, but from Dan’s point of view, I get another perspective.

“That’s the problem with traveling around a lot, you forget where you are,” he tells me after he asks what city he’s in and I tell him Denver. “A lot of people say you get to travel, that’s really great, but more often then not, the only places you see are the airport, hotel, and the racetrack.”

Having been raised not to waste money, Dan does not believe he would ever buy an expensive car, even when he wins his first race and makes his first million dollars, telling me after driving a racing car, there is no road car that can give you as much thrill. The more I get to know about Dan, the more I get the distinct feeling that racing is just his job, not his life.

“Racing is work, its like being in the office,” he tells me.

Summing himself up in one word deemed just as hard a question to answer, as did telling me something about himself that most people do not know. But as the interview dwindles towards the final few seconds of our 30-minute timeslot, I move towards my final question… the question that every reader wants to know.

“Are you single?”

He looks at me and replies with a three syllable answer… “I’m taken.”… Sorry ladies!

And with that, our interview comes to a close and we step outside for a brief photo shoot, and then I thank him for his time and leave.

After the interview, I head towards the pit area where I stood inches away from the track. Crew scrambled to get ready for another practice run, as several racers passed by me, but one in particular stood out among the crowd, Brit born Justin Wilson. We exchange a few words, and I found him to be pleasant and down to earth. Then I made my way down the row towards Frenchman Sebastien Bourdais. Bourdais is looking for his third consecutive win here in Denver, and he is the first racecar driver I’ve seen who wears glasses.

As the day drew to an end, I found myself standing on the autograph line with several other racing fans wanting to meet their favorite racers. Two lines were formed, a barrier inbetween, and I felt like I was waiting on a ride at Disneyland being pushed and shoved. The crowed going wild with screams. So far, this was my favorite day.

On Saturday I watched the first trophy presentation in the prestigious victory circle. The first of two BMW races took place, and Matt Lee of team Autotecnica took the win.

Then I made my way to the go-kart area and did about ten laps around, loving the speed, although it seemed small in comparison to the racecars that were zipping along the track all around me at over 100 MPH.

On Sunday, the last day of my exhilarating race adventure, I got there early and watched the last few rounds of practices. There I spoke with a mechanic named Mark from England who works on racer Nicky Pastorelli’s team. He is responsible for the gearbox and explained to me that there are seven gears in the box. The racer briefly takes his hand off the wheel, but it is all manual, just in and out, not like shifting in a real car.

Then a tall, good looking blonde racer caught my attention in the next pit area, Charles Zwolsman from the Netherlands. His main language is Dutch, so I spoke a little German to him, but we still understood each other. The 27 year old was one of the nicest and friendliest of the racers I met over the weekend.

The second BMW presentation was first in victory circle that day, and young, talented Reed Stevens who races for HBR Motorsport Team took the win. Then Graham Rahal, son of Bobby Rahal, took the next win in the Atlantic series. And up next was the highlighted attraction that every racing fan was looking forward to, Champ Car. That was by far the most exciting of all the races with a finish that will go down in history. Innately talented racer, Sebastien Bourdais, had rapidly risen to third position. There he made his move towards second, but racer Paul Tracy would not easily relinquish his position.

So there it began, the showdown between the two fervent racers as they made their way towards the victory line. And with less than 15 seconds to the finish, after Denver favorite A.J. Allmendinger took first place, Bourdais made one final attempt to gain second position, when Tracy would not give way and hit him. Their racecars spun and Tracy took them both out of the race. Then, fuming Bourdais walked over to Tracy shaking his head, waving his hands in the air shouting, and when Tracy shrugged, Bourdais pushed him. Then Bourdais pushed him again, and the two disgruntled racers had to be separated by officials who broke up the dispute. The unfortunate accident left the remaining two positions wide open, and Bruno Junqueira of Newman/Haas Racing took second place, and Dan Clarke came in third.

It is a coincidence I have to mention, if you believe in that sort of thing, but both times I have interviewed racecar drivers before a race, they have won. Dan Wheldon who races in IRL won that day I interviewed him, and now Dan Clarke came in third. Both are British. Both are named Dan. Maybe some would call me a lucky charm!

My fourth visit to victory circle, I watched the racer of my exclusive interview stand on the podium with a huge smile on his face drinking champagne, spraying the large bottle on his fellow racers and into the crowd. The fans cheered for Allmendinger, as he boasted he was happy Bourdais was not standing on the podium next to him. As the confetti shot up in the air and cameras snapped, I saw legendary movie star Paul Newman in the background looking great for his age.

Having participated in just about everything, seeing the inside and out of racing, getting up close and personal with several racers, I think my favorite aspect of the entire weekend was the fact that I got to see everything from the pits, you cannot get any closer then that. But there was one aspect that I have to mention, only because I found it to be so distasteful… The Champ Car girls, women who paraded around in skintight outfits that barely covered them, as half their bottoms stuck out. I think it was in poor taste, especially when racing is a family thing. Men shouted rude propositions; others leered, as the young women sashayed all around the track over the three day event. I was not alone in opinion, as several other spectators commented the same. Racing is not just a sport for men anymore, women are as much a part of the sport nowadays then every before.

Putting that aside, as the exciting day came to an end, and the Grand Prix of Denver came to a close, I can only sum up my experience by saying this… I’m already looking forward to next year, meeting more racers, conducting more interviews, and with the possibility of Champ Car and IRL merging into one open-wheeled series, hopefully I’ll get the chance to do this all over again from beginning to end.

[Top] [Print this Page]