Welcome & Introduction to "Year of Gears" by Adam Lucas

Hello to all, and welcome to Year of Gears, a look at mostly motorsports that interest yours truly. I will be making observations of several racing series across the globe. Most of my comments and questions will be based on my own and others opinions. However, I will try to remain as neutral as possible. But hey, isn't that the beauty of a blog? I can say whatever I want and not care what others think, right? Well, yes in theory, but I also want to keep things grounded and as close to the truth as possible.

Many of you think that football consumes my entire life. Well, you're wrong. Motor racing has been in my life for longer than football. I remember watching my first race as a five year old child. It was the 1998 Daytona 500. In that race, which would go down as one of the greatest moments in NASCAR history, was how Dale Earnhardt finally broke his twenty year win less streak in the 500 to finally conquer one of racing's crown jewels. I wasn't pulling for Dale that day. Instead, a young driver in a brightly rainbow colored #24 DuPont Chevrolet Monte Carlo stole my heart. It was Jeff Gordon. That day began a long journey of love, excitement, drama, and heart ache for the foreseeable future in my life, one that would have a lot of ups and downs. That single race transformed how my bedroom would look for the next four years. It also gave me one of my fondest childhood memories, my fifth birthday party, which wasn't until eight months later in the year from February. My parents had the backyard patio and garage port decked out in rainbow themed Jeff Gordon balloons, party favors, a gigantic moon bounce, checkered flags, and even a race car cake decorated to look exactly like his car. It was the best birthday party ever!

Sweet memories right? For sure, and I'll always cherish and remember it. Thank God that my parents allowed me to continue to follow it. NASCAR was always king in my book until the 2000 Indy 500. That race introduced me to a completely different form of motorsport; open wheel racing. I only ever remember thinking that the Indy 500 was that "other" race in America. And at that point, until 2003, I thought it was the only open wheel race run. Laugh at my naive awareness, I know I do! The story of me following open wheel racing is no where as exciting or fun as my NASCAR one. Probably the biggest influence on me beginning to follow Indycar was the arrival of a different kind of driver, a female one. Most specifically, Danica Patrick. Her first season was in 2005. I was not sold on a female driver being successful in her first season, so I relied on my NASCAR connection with Roger Penske. He was a successful businessman and team owner in open wheel racing way before he ever became a NASCAR team owner. My point is that I believed that with me being a fan of his in NASCAR, that I should automatically follow one of his drivers in Indycar. I chose Sam Hornish Jr, 1) because he was a Penske driver, 2) he was from Ohio (my parents are from Ohio and I have spent several summers up there). Funny thing about Hornish, he decided to make a career switch after the 2007 Indycar season. He had entered select NASCAR races throughout 2006 and 2007. He committed fully in 2008, running for Rookie of the Year.

Switching gears (please bear with me, I'm going to be using this phrase a lot), I do remember in 2005 watching the closing laps of the San Marino Grand Prix. Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso battled wheel to wheel. The excitement was in my heart, but the curiosity of this different form of open wheel racing filled me with little fan fare at first. Formula One was a strange form of racing from a strange distant land (mainly European). I couldn't quite understand it until 2007, when a young black kid from Britain joined the ranks of men who have started a grand prix race. That kid was Lewis Hamilton, my first "favorite" driver in the sport. The thing that makes Formula One (F1) different from other forms of motorsport is that it is extremely team driven, compared to pure driver performance. Lewis found this out the hard way with his teammate in 2007 (his mate was Fernando Alonso). Both were fiercely competitive and hard charging. To speed things up, they were mates for one season, with Alonso parting ways after the season.

I also have a mutual respect for road racing, i.e. the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, or as I still refer to it as the "Old Rolex Series" (the series was sponsored by Rolex before the unification of North American sports car series; Grand Am and American Le Mans). It has been difficult to follow this series because of coverage. But now in the information age, I get daily updates from their teams, drivers, and the actual series. So yay to that!

I hope that you guys will understand and appreciate my thinking and observations of these series over the course of this year. That's my introduction, and I hope you tune into the next post. See you at the start/finish line!