OK, so this was supposed to be my story about how and when I knew I was a car and motorcycle person, but dumb me had to go and invite the gang to contribute their own stories. You know, just a little something, because my story wasn’t going to be particularly long or interesting. And thus, the more the merrier.
I didn’t need extra stories, I merely thought it would be nice to include them if anyone wanted to contribute. “Just a couple or three sentences,” I said.
I did not get a couple or three sentences. I got novellas. Well, good! I was just going to say I fell in love with Speed Racer and my Dad took me to Seekonk Speedway on the regular, which sealed the deal. I was a car kid and knew I’d be a car person for life. I was also an Evel Knievel kid, which set the motorcycle hook.
Of course, it was going to be a while before I could drive a car or a real motorcycle, so I had to content myself with Hot Wheels and Stick Shifters and bicycles that did their best to be hot rods and/or choppers, or in the case of the Huffy Wheel, both.
Oh, and I had R-R-R-Raw Power, a must.
But enough about me, it’s time for the show to be stolen:
Alanis King
When I was 13 years old, my mom got free tickets to a NASCAR race from her job. I didn’t know anything about NASCAR, and I didn’t want to go. But she said: “It’s the recession, so if we’re doing anything ‘fun’ this year, it’s this.”
We arrived at Texas Motor Speedway, and it was the biggest facility I’d ever seen — like a tall, shimmering glass kingdom in the middle of Texas. I got to my grandstand seat and felt like I could see the end of the Earth, and when 40 cars took the green flag, the shrieks and ground-shaking could’ve opened a portal to the center of the planet.
That’s when I decided I wanted to do motorsports for a living, and cars just came along with it. I never missed another NASCAR national series race after that day. [Ed note: Hey everybody, go follow Alanis on YouTube – Pete]
Mercedes Steeter
I trace the beginning of my car enthusiasm to the day when a now long-distant uncle gave me a Pontiac Firebird Matchbox car. I think I was maybe four at the time, but I suppose I never realized how that little car would turn into something so much bigger. As a kid, I would go on to collect hundreds, if not thousands of Matchbox, Maisto, and Hot Wheels cars. Every single time I went to a store I figured out a way to bring at least one car home with me.
My car enthusiasm truly blossomed through the help of go-karts. Back in the 1990s and early 2000s, Wisconsin Dells wasn’t just known as the so-called “Waterpark Capital Of The World,” but also a sort of go-kart mecca. Basically every theme park in the Dells had a go-kart track, and there were some parks that were nothing but go-karts. My favorite was Big Chief Go-Karts, where the teens running the place tweaked the governors on the go-kart engines, resulting in tracks where you could go so fast that you could actually get airtime.
Kid-me adored driving fast more than perhaps anything else in the world. My mom would come into a bunch of money soon after and treated my brother and I to a pair of off-road go-karts. My kart was the faster of the two, and I spent basically every summer weekend racing the big kids on the secret dirt track they built in a nearby forest. These kids had much more powerful ATVs and dirt bikes, but I made that 5 HP Manco Critter Kart work hard. I even managed to crash it into a tree trying to drift around a corner. I panicked at first, but eventually I brushed myself off, pulled the kart out of the tree, and got back racing.
That kart, diecast cars, and racing games helped me get through my confusing childhood. My body was changing in ways I did not understand and perhaps worse, my brain began realizing that there was a disconnect between my body and its own expectations. Eventually, I got to a point where I looked at myself in a mirror, understood that something was wrong, but couldn’t determine what.
I would go on to experiment with my identity and slowly become who I am today. But I couldn’t have done it without that Firebird, Gran Turismo, Forza Motorsport, and a little red go-kart with a bald drive tire.
Stephen! Walter! Gossin!
I distinctly remember being around 10 years old and having a Dodge Stealth poster on my bedroom wall above the black & white TV that was hooked up to my shiny new NES (Nintendo Entertainment System). This was in 1990. I recall lying there at night, trying to fall asleep, staring at the curves of that Stealth poster and wondering what my dream garage was going to look like when I got older. 6 years later I bought my first car (’84 Cougar) for $400 that I made lifeguarding and working at a guitar store and immediately removed and rebuilt the 3.8 V6. I’m a lucky guy to still be here, 35 years and 151 cars later, living that dream and doing what I love, each day. [Ed note: You don’t have to use the exclamation points when you say Stephen’s name, that’s just how I do it – Pete]
Adrian Clarke
I was probably only a couple of years old maybe even younger. I remember having a green Dinky McLaren Can Am car in my cot as a baby, as well as a friction car that made sparks when you pushed it. It had lead screws which i used to like licking. Yes, I am old. What age do babies outgrow cots? Like five or something? When I was big enough for a proper bed I had one of those police car bedspreads, which I used to sit on and pretend to drive. Mother Dearest and I lived in a 9th floor council flat on a main road out of east London, and as an extremely child small I would sit transfixed for hours watching the traffic.
Your turn, finally: How And When Did You Realize You Were A Car Person?
Top graphic images: Schwinn; Mattel
By the time I was in middle school I could tell every car on the road by their headlights and taillights. Am I secretly one of Torch’s kids he never knew he had? maybe.