Top level racing, like most professional sports, is all consuming for its participants. As the days leading up to the race wind down, emotional intensity and focus build exponentially. By the time the checkered flag falls, all participants – crew, engineers, drivers, support personnel, and yes, even writers and photographers covering the event – are focused to the exclusion of all else. For a brief span, everything else in the world is irrelevant. There is a race in progress and nothing else matters. In fact, nothing else even exists.
This intense, singular devotion creates the unmitigated ecstasy that accompanies victory and the unqualified misery that comes with failure. And so it was in last year’s Daytona race when the Corvette finished a scant 30.879 seconds behind the winning Viper. Ron Fellows drove his Corvette with such intensity trying to catch the Viper that he could