Blog Post 8/23/2007
When I was young we didn’t have cable TV, it wasn’t even available. At midnight the national anthem played to a background of a beautiful flying American flag set in front of a perfect summer sky. Just after this scene you heard the crashing sound of non-broadcast along with television “snow”. If you had stayed up this late you were certain it was time for bed. For many years we didn’t even have a television when I was growing up, and that was pretty alright too. I’m not trying to suggest that TV is bad or good, just that it is not a necessity. More important than all of this though was how excited I got by the changing of the seasons on television.
You see, like so many things when I was a kid you didn’t have the access to the world the way we do now. I grew up in a small farming community in Michigan, so we were perhaps even slightly more isolated than was common at the time. Just as we couldn’t always get every type of fruit and vegetable year round we also only saw certain types of programs during certain times of the year, or on certain days. With only a handful of channels to choose from the competition for air-time was fierce. Home video systems were still scarce so watching broadcasted, edited for TV or even made for TV movies were a big thing. More than that though was a lack of constant coverage of world events, world events of all kinds.
Last night I watched a succession of television shows which covered in length and breadth the issues of people living in Romania, Alaska, Africa and other remote locations. When I was young there just wasn’t the airspace to cover so many stories like these at all, much less so indepth. One show though that I could always count on was the ABC Wide World of Sports. I tried to never miss an episode. I learned about boxing, downhill skiing, tennis, rugby, soccer, cycling, motorcycle racing, and most impressive to me was the 24 Houres du Le Mans. The weekend of that 24 hour race captivated me like little else could. These people from all over Europe who looked like me but spoke exotic languages made me want to travel. Everyone joking, laughing, cooking, camping, excited and in total anticipation of what would happen next in the race. I remember sitting in front of the TV listening to Howard Cossel, Jim McKay and co-commentators of various foreign decent explaining the action. As I listened and watched I drew pictures of the cars, imagining that one day I would be in the picture, racing those cars.
Over the years I have come to realize that I will never race at that level. I have had my turn behind race cars and race bikes and enjoyed the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, but racing at Le Mans is not in my future. I intend to make it there someday, to someday listen to the rev of those muscular engines and smell the sweet exhaust of high octane fuel and burning oil. For now though, well, I have one perfect little piece of movie history that brings so many of these feelings rushing back to me.
In the film Le Mans, starring Steve McQueen, the director has so perfectly captured the excitement and anticipation of the race that I like to replay this scene more than any other. Fortunately someone on YouTube has the same sort of feeling so I’m able to deliver you to this exact moment in time. Turn up your volume, imagine yourself in France in 1970. International design has just plateaued for the century, innovation is taking huge leaps forward and all of the pagentry that surrounds Le Mans is about to disappear into the throaty explosion of a 917 Porsche v12. 1500bhp of pure muscle with sexy lines to boot. Enjoy.