Life !
At sixteen I discovered drag racing. Performance engines built for extremes, they seemed magic to me. And that sound continues to have the effect for me.
I remember the sound of those engines, – a Super Stock Plymouth, an A/FX Ford Mustang being tuned in the pits under the pine trees in North Carolina. A distinct sound, a jagged, loping idle as the engine “wants” more air, seeking harmony for an overly rich amount of fuel drawn into the cylinders…
The “magic” remains when I am around for the startup of one of those engines. There’s a knack to firing a methanol engine, an imperative step that’s not neglected. A spritz of gasoline is sprayed into the open injector butterfly. A priming of gasoline vaporizes at lower temperature than methanol, to ignite the methanol vapors to combust – and the machine roars to life. I have observed this ritual process many times, with a thrill that never wears off. There’s is a science to using methanol fuel. To learn more CLICK HERE
Words barely describe the sound of a big displacement engine for Pro-Modified racing. The engine surges to life when lit with a short spritz of gasoline, then subsiding to a ragged, undulating idle as heat builds in the engine block. There’s a slight sweet odor of methanol about. I imagine that an animal, a beast is born, built for wild, unforgettable acceleration.
Perhaps this is not unlike life. I mean the shock of volatile gasoline is similar to the unanticipated disruptions which we all encounter day to day. Change to my schedule, unanticipated demands on my time – could be interpreted as stimuli to awaken me, to prod me to see things differently. Often a good shove is just what I need.
And the magic happens! Sometimes it does. There can be no guarantee.
A race car is “animal-like”, untamed, undomesticated, and the track well, – that’s ridiculously slippery at 2,000+ horsepower…
2 thoughts on “Life !”
Despite my skepticism about the spirituality that some members of our species embrace, I also fully understand the desire to immerse oneself in a sense of magic, of the unknown or unknowable aspect of life. What you feel through the sounds, smells, and sights of a drag strip connects you to a childhood filled with that sense of magic. It wraps you in the warmth of nostalgia that circles through your life and there is nothing that will ever take that away from you. How lucky.
“Life” is the very best metaphor that I can offer to indicate the deep mystery of a cosmos of which we have come to consciousness. Is there an over-soul, some form of meta consciousness? Beats me, and I hardly care. It is sufficient to feel from time to time, the sublimity of beauty, and the various forms that meaning takes. I belong “here” not only in the pits by a double lane of asphalt, but also with a community of other humans that love similar experiences. We belong to many tribes do we not? Too many to attempt to place in a list, because we’d surely leave some out!
Sensations such as I describe taken from a venue for car racing may be rooted in my past, my special set of circumstances, nonetheless the links are extensible in a horizontal direction to other venues and communities. With our differences, (all real enough) humans are linked by the dense web of nature, and the webs of cultures. Tragically too many of us are unable to “chill” long enough to let that truth sink in.