The Outsider Auto Racing & Photo Blog: A New America?

I recently wrote another article for a different blog. A portion of that article contained some info and pictures from the good old days when I used to make car racing images for publications. You will of course find more photos and info in the first post on this blog Below you will find two paragraphs from the post belonging to the other blog.

Car racing is sponsorship driven. One only needs to watch a post race interview to know that. It is definitely a sport that embraces the free market Capitalist model of life, and this does not suit some 21^st Century Americans.

As a photographer (back in the day) it was up to us to tell the true story of the race, but without shame for its Capitalist leanings. The top levels of drivers make (like most athletes, entertainers, etc) millions and millions of dollars, but there is no players union so to speak. They are on their own to receive as sweet or bitter of a contract as they can negotiate. They seem to like to have their lives in their own hands. Racing is however an absolute team sport. I as someone who was once sort of on the inside, can tell you that the person who cleans the restrooms at the shop is never made to feel any less than anyone else on the team.

A comment was made, by someone who chose (on this blog) to remain
anonymous. Among the many portions of my article they took offense to was my mention of the janitor being considered a part of the team too. He promoted his point by asking the question of "how much less does the custodian make than the driver?" He added "how much less does the custodian make than one of the mechanics on the crew?" He proclaimed that a "phony" (his words) pat on the back won't pay his bills.

My own question is do I still live in the same country I grew up in?

I am currently dirt poor and many years ago while I was building a business, I worked part time for a janitorial service. I have absolutely nothing against janitors. It is an honorable and worthwhile profession.

Where has this new America come from? Why in the world should the janitor make as much as the person (the mechanic) who has the unique skill and knowledge to help build and maintain a car that wins the prize money that pays the wages of himself and the janitor. It is amazing to me that anybody would think that the janitor should also be on an equal pay scale as the driver who in addition to driving the car to the finishes that win that same prize money, is able to attract and satisfy the sponsors who pay the bills to make everything possible. As near as I can tell, you get paid in the real world based on how unique your talents are, and how much money you make for the company you work for. That money makes it possible to hire all of those that work for and provide services to the company. The driver has several special talents or he will soon be sent packing. To a lesser degree the same is true for the mechanic. Four out of five people walking down the street can fulfill the janitors duties. That driver and the mechanic could probable handle the janitorial job but I am not so sure about the janitor handling the other two jobs. If he/she can, then he/she should persue one of those professions. That was called pursuing the American Dream.

The commentator went on to say that the same injustice occurs when a plant manager of a factory is paid three times the wages of an assembly line worker. Yes, you guessed it, I once worked on an assembly line in an outboard motor factory. A chimpanzee could have done my job. The plant manager knew every job in the factory, as he worked his way up through the ranks. If the commentator's assembly line worker was as good as the plant manager, he /she should set that as their goal. The day might just come when they are the plant manager. I do know that the plant manager will be the first to go if that plant loses money. That is just as it should be and is one of the reasons that he makes more than the assembly line worker.

The great thing about America or any democracy (representative republic) is that we can disagree and try to see to it, (through democratic means) that what we believe in, will become the way of the nation. I am just not sure where so many in America turned the corner to believe that everyone or anyone automatically "has a right" to whatever anybody else has, without the expertise or blood sweat and tears, that others have garnered or given, in order to reach their accomplishments. I am guessing that the very same person who asks for monetary equality without neccessarily having the needed talent, or surely without paying the price, will be the first to complain when the product or service that he/she purchases, is sub-standard. I think I am safe in that assumption.

The Outsider

Now back to race cars.

As with my first post on this blog any pictures you see below were made within the final four years I photographed car racing. I did very few events during that time. I captured only a couple of crashes and they were not the best images. In earlier times at one point I photographed primarily dirt sprint cars for four Years. A lot of crash (flips, etc.) shots resulted but only a small percentage of those negatives, prints and slides still exist, and frankly I have little desire to search around for them and do scans.

The race cars pictured below is (was?) a group of classic stock cars. They were all modeled after well known cars from the past and were built to resemble them. These are real race cars and they were racing at Lake Geneva Raceway in Wisconsin, round about 2006. I do not have the names of the owners or drivers but below I have listed who would have been driving the car when it was originally raced.

The David Pearson driven, Holman & Moody owned, NASCAR 1969 Ford Torino (#17 inside), and the LeRoy Yarbrough driven, Junior Johnson owned, mid 1960s NASCAR Chevy.