It’s something that’s been discussed for a long time, but it took a man with the leadership skills, charisma, and questionable judgment of Travis Okulski, Road&Track’s new Web editor, to make it happen. Starting yesterday, you’ll be able to find me on the R&T website every Thursday.
My debut column is How To Create Your Very Own One-Man Spec Racing Series. I figured I’d start things off light and then, once everyone is hooked on the formula, begin tapping the 55-gallon drums of refined sorrow that tend to litter the deck of my emotional container ship.
I’m thrilled to have a chance to connect with the multi-millions-strong R&T reader base on a more constant basis, but I remain committed to TTAC and its uniquely cerebral “Best & Brightest”. I won’t be jumping ship any time soon, or at least I don’t think I will be. Not that it can’t happen. VerticalScope has fired me two and a half times already, I’m kind of like the Billy Martin of TheTruthAboutCars. My latest effort in the “No Fixed Abode” series, recently hijacked by W. Christian “Mental” Ward but returned to me just like Reagan got the hostages back, is A Vestigial Tale.
Just to put it in perspective, here are some word counts:
183,349 – Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
183,833 – Little Women (Books 1&2) – Louisa May Alcott
183,858 – Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
186,418 – Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
206,052 – Moby Dick – Herman Melville
211,591 – Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
265,000 - My projected output for 2015, Web and print columns
311,596 – The Fountainhead – Ayn Rand
318,540 - The current length of my book project, which is mostly rewritten items from the past but which will also have about 100k of new content
316,059 – Middlemarch – George Eliot
349,736 – Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
364,153 – The Brothers Karamazov – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
365,712 – Lonesome Dove – McMurtry, Larry
418,053 – Gone with the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
455,125 – The Lord of the Rings – J. R. R. Tolkien
540,000 - The approximate total of “One Racer’s Perspective” and “BMX Basics” columns, 1991-2003
561,996 – Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand
587,287 – War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
What does this prove? Absolutely nothing, except that L. Ron Hubbard still wrote at a much faster pace, and about much cooler stuff.
This post was a great way to start my weekend.
Since I live in the future, mines is coming to an end.
” the 55-gallon drums of refined sorrow that tend to litter the deck of my emotional container ship. ”
DING ! we have a winnah ! .
-Nate
Great article.
People, including experienced riders, often underestimate how difficult it is to make decent times on tight “tracks” on a motorcycle. Yes, your power to weight ratio is ridiculous, but braking, cornering, and especially combining the two, are very, very difficult (and dangerous) to do quickly. In general, sportbikes’ cornering abilities tend to be overstated, and most riders vastly overrate their skills at pushing their machine to its limits.
I remember a road-rage incident in my early 20s when an idiot - complete with wife and young baby in the car - was trying to run me down in his ’89 Civic while I was riding my ’89 Ninja 600R on suburban streets. He could take many more chances than me, took intersection turns at near double the speed I could, and it was all I could do to keep him at bay while hitting stupid speeds on the straights.
Switching roles, I was once in my 140hp Miata on my favourite country roads with a female passenger, mostly enjoying the view, when a group of young guys on 600-1300cc sport bikes passed me, accelerating up to about 100 MPH. I kept near the speed limit on the straights, and yet would nip at their heels whenever we got back into the curvy bits.
This is talking about clean, dry public streets. Add some wetness, gravel, or poor roads to the equation, and things become even more difficult on two wheels.
For future reference, it’s possible to shut the traction control off on the Smart ForTwo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8juyZ5DO5I
Four minutes!
Gorgeous. Is Maximum Bob writing there regularly too?
Sweet. Looking forward to the book.
And my favorite, wherein David Foster Wallace used a vocabulary of 20,584 unique words to write the 577,608-word Infinite Jest.
In fact, I’d buy an Infiniti just so I could have a personalized license plate: JEST. Right below I N F I N I T I on the decklid.
Anyway, barrels of tears aside, how much bad behavior are you allowed to elaborate upon at R&T? We’re talking Phaeton median blasts, skirt chasing, Fear and Loathing cross country adventures, etc etc. Or must you remain G-rated and car-centric, mostly?
When I’m dead and my estate releases the original draft of my Malaysia story, you can compare it to the published version
http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/features/a7645/racing-in-malaysia-65-9-roa0614/
and see the 1000 words that were left out.
Hint: contains explicit descriptions of sex with Malaysians, all of whom were (probably) female.