Celebrating 71st birthday in the fast lane

“ ... the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue center light pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!'”-- Jack Kerouac, #8220;On the Road#8221;

The day of my 71st birthday celebration began sunshine perfect with a dead mouse in my sneaker. Our cat, Poe, presented me with a gift to accompany a present from my bride. Janet had made me aware of the gift some three weeks earlier, and the prospect had dominated my waking days until this sunny morning. Time had run out. At the Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, an Indianapolis 500 open wheel race car awaited me #8212; not as a giddy passenger, but as the driver. Janet would accompany me on the two-hour ride to the track with my filmmaker son Collin in tow with his videotaping equipment. She also brought along the family Nikons so the event would be recorded for future generations.

The two-hour drive allowed for memory flashbacks, clues to her choice of this gift. My life had accelerated along many adventurous paths following my careers as police officer, newspaper photographer, photojournalist, filmmaker, video director and producer, and finally #8212; as the knees tightened up #8212; writer and book author. Pursuing words and images had sent me flying supersonic with the Blue Angels, looking down at the Yuma desert with the Golden Knights parachute team, ballooning across the Colorado Rockies and groping about a mile underground in a Yellowknife Northwest Territories Gold Mine. Heady stuff when you're in your 20s and 30s and full of beans and vinegar. Shooting rapids down the Yellowstone, sailing up the Nile in a Felucca, crossing Sweden's canals in an 1874 steamboat, my redhead and I shared many memorable adventures in our later years as well.

I think it was in 2009 when I volunteered Janet to fly in a World War II T-6 stunt airplane, strapped in the rear cockpit under an open canopy during the Aero-Shell aerobatic team demonstration that thoughts of retribution first came to her. My little wife was enjoying this trip to Joliet way too much.

The Chicagoland Speedway stadium rose out of the flat Illinois cornfields like a gladiatorial arena and as we neared the encircling parking lots, we heard the lions roaring. Except these lions were 450 horsepower brutes circling the track in all their blattering, backfiring unmuffled glory. A fleet of nine or 10 NASCAR autos were lined up in lanes at the starting grid near trailers belonging to the Mario Andretti Racing Experience. Some crew members in red T-shirts were leading paid drivers out to cars prepped to take off down the track while others were leading drivers who had just returned back to a gray tent at trackside.

Some of the drivers were suited up in fire-retardant coveralls and large visored helmets, while others wore only the helmet. The latter were #8220;ride-alongs#8221; or passengers who rode with professional drivers #8212; all of the thrills and none of the responsibility #8212; for a reduced price and reduced anxiety. This concept was not lost on me. Was that a chill creeping up from my feet?

As each NASCAR racer rumbled back #8212; rattle, rattle, brang vroom, poketa-poketa-poketa, clunk #8212; to a stop and disgorged its occupant with the help of two crewmen to drag him through the driver-side window space (the doors are welded shut), I noticed a trancelike shuffle in the driver's gait. Each one looked like amused waterboarding victims being led back to their cells. As I slipped into my own fire retardant coverall, the apprehensive chill had reached my digestive mechanism. A call boomed from a PA horn.

#8220;All Indy car drivers report to the Media building for briefing and instruction!#8221;

Like a parade of religious mendicants, more than a dozen blue- and white-suited drivers shuffled toward a low building behind the trailers. What little conversation there was in the ranks squelched to zero as we filed in and took seats at long tables facing a TV screen and our instructor. From the beginning of his lecture outlining what was expected of us and how many ways there were for us to come to grisly ends and his conclusion, #8220; ... and have fun out there!#8221; you could have heard a mouse hiccup in the parking lot.

My head spinning with questions that sounded too dumb to ask out loud but might determine my life or death in the next hour, I followed the crowd back to the gray tent where crewmen fitted helmets on us, taking time to tape radio earpiece plugs firmly in place before settling the carapace in place. I am claustrophobic. Half-full elevators raise my blood pressure and still I find myself stuck in jet fighters, deep mines and center airplane seats screaming down deep for freedom. A sanitary hood covered my head and then down came the helmet until everything above my shoulders was encapsulated, allowing me a two-inch high slit about 10 inches wide through which to scream.

One by one, we were led away, a crewman holding an arm, a shoulder or a pinch of coverall to guide the periphery-deprived walker across the grid. By now, the Indy cars had replaced the NASCAR autos. All of us were fixated on the low, sleek pointy-nose missiles hunkered down between four thick slick tires. Some had polished paint jobs while others looked like scarred veterans, pushed into line again for the waiting novitiates. They all looked lethal.

Finally, my time came and a huge smiling man named Sebastian took my upper arm and walked me toward the waiting racers, past the dented white one, around the hot yellow one and toward the bright red bolide crouching in the far lane.

#8220;Ferrari red,#8221; I said aloud, trying to sound jovial.

#8220;Yeah, man,#8221; Sebastian nodded, #8220;Ferrari red!#8221;

I looked down into the slot they call the #8220;cockpit#8221; and I was struck by the seating arrangements. The low-slung derrière accommodation was constructed for a person about 6frac12; feet tall, weighing 125 pounds with very long legs, very short arms and no shoulders to speak of. I am 5frac12; feet, weigh about 230 with short legs, broad chest and short arms #8212; kind of a fireplug with feet. I also have bursitis, arthritis and joints 71 years old. In my head, I am shrieking and yet with three crewmen reaching for me and the black pit beneath the fiberglass cowling yawning up as I gingerly step down into its maw, a limp calm of resignation settles over my antique body. With much stuffing, folding, creasing, sliding, more folding and tamping, the body parts are wedged into the coffin-like compression chamber designed for a giant dwarf.

Everything followed quickly. Helmet radio attached to the car's plug. The five-point seat harness latched into place with its quick-rip removal buckle front and center. With a snap, the steering wheel clamped into place totally barring any further thoughts of frenzied thrashing escape. I felt the four wheel push-tug nudge my racer's rear bumper and heard the tug's go-cart-on-steroids' engine revving. The crew leaves #8212; then one returns with an afterthought. He reaches down and slaps shut my glass visor. That cold chill hit my brainstem. A radio voice boomed into my ear.

#8220;All right, Gerry, this is Billy-Boy, your spotter. I want you to mash that clutch as hard as you can and shove the red gear lever forward.#8221;

I stretched to crunch the clutch pedal down. Nothing. The tug's engine revs rose in pitch and insistence.

#8220;Push harder, Gerry.#8221;

I hyperextended my leg and foot, cramming the damned pedal. Movement. Rolling forward. Accelerating quickly up past 40, 50 miles an hour.

#8220;Attaboy!#8221; booms Billy-Boy. #8220;Hold it there!#8221; Moving forward. #8220;On three! Two! One! Let it ... #8220;

#8220;Go!#8221; never arrives, as in real time I dump the clutch and tramp the gas. With a roar, the racer bolts away from the tug as the retaining wall flashes past on my left. The apron's yellow line turns to the left and so do I, gingerly, trying to feel the steering. An inch of turn. Humpity-bump! Over the apron line. Don't do that again!

#8220;Stay on the apron, Gerry! More speed! Faster!#8221;

Mash the gas. Only my toe reaches the pedal. Com' on, Super-Toe! Mash, baby, mash!

The engine behind me is a rising, shearing whine. Super Toe is getting the job done! Cramp in left calf is forgotten, overridden, crushed into the #8220;no-pain-no-gain#8221; bin in the back of my head.

#8220;More speed, Gerry,#8221; Billy-Boy calmly intones. #8220;Keep five feet to the right of that white line. That's it. Now, more speed.#8221;

My left leg hyper extends, reaching down into that black hole like a stilt walker, crushing that gas pedal. Hands gripping the wheel. Eyes riveted straight ahead. Five feet ... five feet ... becomes a mantra. And then I'm shrieking into turn three at nightmare speed.

#8220;Now we're racing, Gerry!#8221; shouts Billy Boy.

Howling out of the turn, the engine sweet singing, every cubic millimeter alive, my Ferrari bomb and I roar, all one piece, all on rails.

#8220;Time for slowdown,#8221; Billy-Boy eventually says from his perch on the trailer roof in the middle of the track. #8220;Ease off. Good. Tap the brake.#8221;

I grip the wheel hard as we slide down toward the yellow apron line and then it's humpity-bump and the four slick tires side off the banked track and connect with the flat macadam. I'm aware of the helmet again, the glassed-over slit, the painted lanes leading back to the start line. As it slows, the engine bucks and chugs and I throw it out of gear with the red lever near my right hand. Now, I'm a passenger, just guiding the front wheels to a stop. With a soft ticking sound, it crunches to a stop and here come the three Andretti linebackers again to reverse-engineer me out of this confinement.

#8220;What did ya' think of it, man?#8221; Sebastian asks as my limbs emerge at various angles like a puppet with its strings cut.

#8220;Wonderful,#8221; I wheeze under extreme chest compression, my shoulder rising above my ear. Like an inflating balloon, the body assumes its original shape above the cockpit and I step down onto the pavement. Now, I understand the trancelike state of the drivers I had seen, marching like golems, placing each foot carefully, seeking a target with eyes that are still coping with nightmare speed. Any second, as I focus on the crew guys watching me approach the tent, solid jets of adrenaline will come exploding from my ears like twin fire hoses. Grins, high fives and fist bumps greet the Old Fart who got the job done and no one had to turn a hose on the car after I got out.

Janet and Collin steered me into the open part of the tent littered with canvas folding chairs for the audience and well-wishers. Systems were shutting down. The breeze felt good out of the fire retardant suit and when I turned it in at the trailer, I got my official certificate stamped with my top speed of 109.24 miles an hour. The day's festivities ended at Mr. B's Bar-B-Que a couple of miles from the Speedway, a biker bar with black and white checkerboard tablecloths, insanely good chili and Hacker-Pschorr beer on tap in a frosted glass. Score one#160;for#160;Geezer Power.

I told my sweetheart that my dance card is now full and she need not trouble searching the world for any more horrific exercises in testosterone-dipped challenge for her smiling mound of psychological scar tissue. Our golden anniversary is coming up and I'd like to be aware of it when it arrives.