Lebanon Valley Raceway
By aya rosen
18 Aug 2008
Well, first of all, I just want to say that I'm not, or never though I would be a car person. I don't know how to identify car models, I'm not excited about things that goes fast, I get motion sickness and I don't have a drivers license. However, about a year ago, me and my husband attended a really cool hot rod show in our neighborhood and I did find the cars beautiful and the car culture fascinating.
So when we got invitation to a drag race event in West Lebanon from a friend, I thought it would be cool to go, if only for the chance to get out of the city and have a nice ride on our motorcycle.
The beginning of this trip was really not all that promising, about half an hour after we left the city, a pouring rain started to come down, we got soaked in less then 10 minutes, it was so bad, that water even managed to penetrate though leather jackets and leather boots. We stopped at some sprawl mall and waited till it stopped raining, but even then we did the rest of the ride soaked and very cold, because of the weather it took us about 8 hours to get there.
The next morning was sunny and beautiful, we left the hotel and rode to the race park. It was full of trailers of people bringing in their cars for the race, very cool cars and a lot of people wondering around.
Only after I got to the race track I realized that i had a pretty set idea in my mind of what this event is going to be like, I expected a lot of young aggressive men and a lot of testosterone, boozing and shouting. It turned out to be a beautiful community event, whole families and groups of friends coming together for a day out, barbecue and watching on of their owns go 170 miles per hour on the track.
The idea of people pulling together, investing a massive amount of time, energy and money to make a car go as fast as possible was really interesting and moving to me. As I was talking to more people, trying to understand the strange rules of drag racing (which honestly, I still don't really get) I realized how much goes into this. how people who have really ordinary lives, with their family and work and all, can pull away from that and make something bigger, break a record and feel on to of the world for those 7.5 seconds or so. It made me feel so hopeful and inspired, especially the way that though this is a competitive event, the whole community of drag racer works together, help each other and support one another to keep going.
One of the other things I was really amazed at was the total lack of boundaries between spectators and competitor. The same people who you were sharing a joke with a second before, was getting into cars, go real fast and come back to finish the conversation. We were walking around taking pictures and talking to the drivers as they were waiting on the track for their time to run.
I thought about the Olympic games and how this time around, it feels so remote from myself, remote enough for me to be not interested in it at all. I thought of myself and how in recent year, I'm really not interested in anything I have no active part it, since I got rid of the TV, almost all of my entertainment, news source and any media interaction has to effect me personally or to allow me open means of expression to catch my interest, and because of this connection I could from with the racers and their teams, I was suddenly very interested in the results of the race (not that I'm sure who won at the end). Every time I was talking or taking a picture of somebody, I really rooted for them to win.
It was interesting to visit and be a part of, if only for one day, of this amazing community, which reminded me a lot of on line communities and the way people connect based on a mutual interest rather then a common socio-economical upbringing.
I think I could have probably related to any type of event, a pie eating contest or a horse riding showdown or a napkins folding competition (well, maybe not a napkins folding competition...) if it gives me the wonderful opportunity to meet and interact with new and open people.
