Imagine if racing were a high school sport

It was the Skip Barber regional championship in Lime Rock, Conn. and my son, Conor Daly, led the first ten laps from the pole position. He won the day before, so I knew he felt comfortable on this track. There was something a little different about this race though. He was under a lot of pressure from second place, who was right in his wheel tracks. The speeds were around 130 miles per hour at the end of the straight away before he hit the brakes for turn one, I could hear the engine rev hard as he ratcheted down through the gears to second gear. He looked very consistent lap after lap. He made a few slight errors and allowed second place to inch a little closer. With three laps to go, I began to feel the pressure. It was approaching "take a deep breath time" even for me. With two laps to go I watched and waited for him to appear at the top of the hill. And there he was...in a blur of red bodywork. Down the hill at around 100 miles per hour and flat out through the last corner before the long straight, he was pushing the car right to its very limits lap after lap through this all important last corner, maintaining that delicate balance between the edge of control and disaster. Suddenly it happened. He lost control. He had pushed the car so hard that the back end grip suddenly gave up and began to slide out from under him. He attempted to correct the slide, but the speed was just too great. He spun to the outside first and then across the track to the inside. The tires screeched and tire smoke filled the air. I watched with a slightly blank feeling as he disappeared from my view, still traveling at a high speed. About a second later there was the impact. There was an eerie silence as people who watched with me wondered. I saw safety workers begin running in his direction. I swallowed hard and waited a few seconds to see if he could use his radio. I wondered how hard he hit...was it a frontal impact...might he have hit the wall sideways? The long seconds ticked away (which felt like minutes) and then he jumped on the radio and said "I'm sorry...I just cost us a bunch of money". I said, "Don't worry about the car, are you OK"? About an hour later, we headed to the airport to fly home to get ready for Monday morning in 9th grade at Heritage Christian School....what an experience. So, what if motorsport was a high school sport? Students would have to accelerate their ability to communicate with adults, since adults would be preparing and setting up the race cars; the set up they put on the car (and therefore the speed it can attain) would be a direct reflection of the feedback given to them by the driver. The driver also has to describe, in detail, what the car is doing and be able to understand feedback given to them by engineers. Students would also have to accelerate the development of their physical and mental skills. The physical skills needed to drive a race car are way above what most student athletes endure: High heartbeats while in a hot and humid environment and while withstanding high G loads (gravity) take a high physical toll on the body. At the highest levels, race car drivers heart beats can average 175 beats per minute for as long as two hours; only professional cyclists have been measured as high and sustained. Strong mental skills would need to be developed a little more quickly than normal as they are needed to remain focused and mistake free under pressure while at high speeds. Mistakes in a football game might loose you a down, or at the very worst, might loose you a game. A mistake in a race car at high speeds could be a lot more costly. Students would have to start to understand the business of motorsports and become involved in creating sponsorship proposals to try to get enough support to cover the budget for each seasons racing. The budget to develop a driver at the high school level starts at around $50,000 and by the time he/she is ready to graduate, the really good drivers would need a budget of $300,000 to $500,000 per year. If the driver has the talent and secures the backing, they would then have to convince the school principal to allow them enough days off to test and race the cars; learning would be available online. Lastly, he would attempt to convince the principal that some of the school fundraising should go to the race car driver development budget. That level of fundraising would teach the schools how to negotiate bigger deals with corporate America - what a step for education that might be.