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| With apologies to the 1961 American musical romantic drama directed by Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins |
—Chuck Smythe
Reply by Paul Clark (aka motomynd)
Most people think of Paul Newman (1925-2008) as a famous American actor. I knew him as a race car driver. Preparing for the 1969 movie Winning, Newman took a driver’s course on the famed Watkins Glen road course in the Finger Lakes region of New York. From then on, acting may have made him rich and famous, but racing was arguably what inspired him.
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| Ford Shelby “Cobra” concept |
A side note: Shelby was recently portrayed by Matt Damon in the movie Ford v. Ferrari, a 2020 “Best Picture” nominee that managed to successfully cross the line from “gearhead” to general audience acclaim. Damon co-star Christian Bale’s chameleonic portrayal of driver Ken Miles (1918-1966) is almost unnerving in its realism.
| Copyright © 2020 by Chuck Smythe, Paul Clark |
Paul, as you said when you submitted the first draft of this, “I'm wondering if the idiot who recommended 125-250 words on ‘Side Story’ was...well...an idiot? I cut from 310 to 250 before I sent it. But it was a much better story at 310. What I cut included a quote from the famous Carroll Shelby about one lap at VIR being like 100 laps at Watkins Glen. I think I may have injured my heart cutting that out.”
ReplyDeleteThat sentence about injuring your heart is alarming. Would you write another “Side Story,” please, about the health dangers of too tightly editing your own writing? Would you even recommend that writers in general go easier on themselves? And should I, as an editor, go easier on them?
Note to readers: Paul’s story got even longer in the process that followed, so, yes, it’s way longer than 250 words, so don’t bother to count.
About that word count column: since I have worked as an editor and writer, sure, I have some thoughts to share on the subject of the importance of word count versus fully telling a story. And maybe I could even chare those thoughts in 250 or so words, or maybe a few more...
DeleteHaving just read my own post, maybe after we resolve the word count debate we can move on to typos?
DeleteSo, what is (or are) the typos that made it through to publication, or are you going to require me to read for them myself?
DeleteYour unerring editing record is still intact, the typo was in my reply to your comment.
DeleteWhew, that’s a relief, but I could not truthfully say that my editing is unerring. However, the main point is your commitment: “Sure, I have some thoughts to share on the subject of the importance of word count versus fully telling a story.” Please write those thoughts up, and I’ll prep another column in this informative and thought-provoking series, “Side Story.” (I did note that you avoided explicit mention of “health dangers”....)
DeleteThat's OK about the word count, Paul, mine was over the limit also. I had forgotten Paul Newman was a race driver. Now I remember him and Marty Robbins in a photo of the two racing against each other or at the same track. After Marty was told he had a heart condition and should stop racing or it would kill him. He choose to race on. I want to hear the one about Thomas Hunter, I have read all his Fear in---books and would follow him in Rolling Stone. Thanks I enjoyed it very much, it got me thinking about people who have crossed my path. Like Kris Kristofferson and Freddy Fender, Kris lived in Brownsville and Freddy lived in San Benito we were all kids back then.
ReplyDeleteOkay Ed, when do we hear more about Kris and Freddy and your connection to them? You got me on the Marty Robbins vs Paul Newman connection: I had not heard of that. I had heard that Robbins once turned himself in for running an illegal carburetor or motor that propelled him to the lead of a major race, at the time he said he had no intention of unethically taking a top spot, he just wanted people to hear his name announced as he surged past top drivers who usually beat him by several laps. Like Newman, Robbins was a highly regarded driver, if both had started racing at a younger age they probably would have become famous for driving, rather than performing.
ReplyDeleteLike I said, I'm not sure why there was a picture of the two of them at some track. I just remember the picture but nothing else about it. Not much of a story about Kris and Freddy. Kris was quarterback for Brownsville, we beat them for Regional Championship. Big fight after the game. Kris's dad was a general at Harlingen Air-force Base. I didn't put the football player together with the singer/actor until much later. I had a few beers with Freddy back when he was a skinny kid with a spit-curl singing Elvis songs. I didn't think he was that good back then. I saw him a few more times but it wasn't like we ran together.
DeleteEd, I always thought you were a West Coast guy: you grew up in Texas? Kris Kristofferson is a name I had not heard or thought of in years. My brother's first wife had a questionable fixation on him and I grew up hearing more about him and listening to more of his music than I sometimes thought I could stand. Getting in a fight with his team must have been a treat: As I recall, he was a Golden Gloves boxer...who later became a Rhodes Scholar. Quite an interesting guy, fitting that you and he would cross paths.
DeleteI knew Newman raced, but didn't know he was particularly good at it.
ReplyDeleteAnother nice backcountry track is Willow Springs, out in the California desert. My roommates and I watched motorcycle racing there. It is the track where Shelby did a lot of development, and a lot of "Ford vs Ferrari" was filmed there. A delightfully low rent place in those days.
Chuck, for us Easterners, Willow Springs was/still is motorsports mecca. Everyone I know who races, or has ever raced, still wants at least one Willow Springs lap on their bucket list. If you can imagine Willow Springs surrounded by lush greenery, with more turns and elevation changes, then you can imagine VIR. Thus the high praise from Newman, Shelby and others with countless laps of Willow Springs experience.
ReplyDeleteAll of these truly interesting tidbits about race tracks and racing sort of make even me a little bit interested in racing cars!
DeleteI'll be dipped. I had no idea the track was famous. Sure didn't LOOK famous. I thought Riverside was the big leagues, attended some Can-Am races there with a pit pass to a Lotus 23/Porsche.
DeleteChuck, you are correct that Riverside had the bigger name, before it closed something like 30 years ago, but I think it was more infamous among racers for its deservedly dangerous reputation, while Willow Springs has always been regarded as an interesting and welcoming low-key venue. Part of Riverside's reputation came from a driver being killed there the first weekend it opened, and because driver Ken Miles--portrayed by Christian Bale in Ford v Ferrari--was killed there while testing a new Ford-designed race car.
DeleteAthlon Sports rates our own Daytona International second only after the hallowed ground of Talladega. Designed to be the fastest track around, and Bill France only missed it by thaaat much. Cindy's dad was a stock-car driver in upstate New York.
ReplyDeleteRoger, was Athlon Sports rating for good racing, or bad? Maybe Daytona was rated the second-worst NASCAR restrictor plate race, with Talladega taking first because it usually has more huge wrecks? With top drivers from all over the world coming to race at the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona, that is indeed a fabulous event, but I've never understood what fans find so thrilling about going to Daytona to watch "race" cars that have been fuel restricted to run much slower than they can, only to see their favorite driver caught up in a wreck that inevitably seems to wipe out half the field. Daytona is hugely popular, but it's almost more of a survival test than a race. With that rant out of the way: May I ask where in Upstate Cindy's dad used to race, and do you know anything about racing history there? NASCAR plays up its "good ol' boy moonshiner" roots and claims to be the founder of racing here in the U.S., but I've been told by long-lost family members that oval track racing actually started in New York, either Upstate (where my family is from) or on Long Island, not far from where Charles Lindbergh launched the famous first solo transatlantic flight.
ReplyDelete