NASCAR, All Is Forgiven

It wasn't until I sat down with a friend of mine and actually watched a NASCAR race that I understood accelerating through the curve.

I'd heard vague rumors of this move in my thirty-plus years of driving: "Slow down on the approach, accelerate as you exit."

The trick is in assessing when you are actually exiting the curve. Watching NASCAR made it graphic and understandable.

I enter a curve from as wide an angle as possible--if the near-left lane is empty I'll swing over the dotted line--and hug the outside until I spot a point to move across and follow the inside stripe, until the curve flattens out under me and I'm floating to the outside again.

"The point" is where I can draw a straight line to the end, cutting across the top of the curve instead of following it. Or something like that. I don't know exactly what the rule is, but, like the judge said, I know it when I see it.

Every curve is different. Interstate 270 south gives a wide and tipped-up curve onto I-44 east. No brakes needed if you can swing in wide under 50 mph and float left. It's good to vroom out past the Watson Road exit onto 44 while the brake-touchy are still getting going.

Another good one is northbound I-270 onto westbound US 40, a downsloping gentle curl; like a good girdle, one feels held by the banked curve, cupped in safety while rolling under the legs of the overpasses.

Then there's the curve that takes off US 40 west onto North Outer 40 and then under the highway to South Outer 40--essentially a 180-degree turn in a hairpin-plus-J curve. A sharp curve to the right down an exit ramp that immediately swings a tight left and doesn't let up until you're near the Yield sign, lurking under the skirt of US 40, watching for the cars shooting past on the protected green at 141 South.

If I make onto South Outer 40 without using the brakes more than twice (once is ideal) . . . then I win.

The Beautiful Ballas Bypass

The stretch of Interstate 270 around the west side of St. Louis frequently slows just before Manchester Road, and you don't get back up to speed until after the Dougherty Ferry bridge construction is well behind you.

I hate being in constipated traffic, nudging along at 15 mph and hypervigilant front and back.

So I've cut off to Ballas Road south of Interstate 64, a blissfully quiet two-lane that parallels 270 on the east through Sugar Creek Valley (Please Help Preserve Its Beauty) past the tricky stoplight on on a hilltop curve at Dougherty Ferry, climbing hills and coasting valleys on smooth shaded asphalt striped clean as a snake.

Ballas Road presents you with a left fork to Adams Street and downtown Kirkwood, or a tail end of Ballas that reaches Big Bend in Webster, where you can rejoin the Highway 44 at Berry Road, or lose yourself in the shady streets of Shrewsbury. During the worst times of bridge construction it was faster to take Ballas and much less hectic.

I saw a white F-150 with a cross-and-lilies and "In Loving Memory of My Wife and Mother" on the cab's rear window. The driver was a somewhat senior white man.

Was the truck purchased with proceeds from his wife and mother's demise? Does he drive to honor them? I have not seen anything like it before.

One Crosstown Drive

Tonight I took Delmar east from the Loop, turned right onto Skinker, left on Forest Park Parkway, and then right on De Baliviere, winging around past the History Museum, following a train of cars who seemed to know quite well where they were going. Right again, then around the lovely fresh fountains below Art Hill, perfectly white; navigating the tiny arrowed lanes to turn left up the west side of the hill, to the Art Museum, behind the statue of Louis pointing his sword, around the Zoo's grid of bird cage and into the new roundabout and finally onto Hampton.

I cut through The Hill instead of charging down Hampton's stoplight-strewn curves. Sublette will take you past Cunetto's House of Pasta, a park where baseball is continously played, past the old State Hospital and the Crematorium; down to the boulevard of Utah, right on Brannon, left on Neosho, right on south Kingshighway and finally Gravois to Loughborough. Probably a twelve-mile trip.

I drove this random alternate route without thinking too much about anything other than staying off the interstate and avoiding the four-lane secondary roads. A good time for 30 mph driving, with the window open and the grassy smells of summer flowing in, and the houses hushed and lowlit.

That Certain Feeling: Fear

You're cruising at standard speed, safe from the car ahead of you and nothing but converging lines behind you in the mirror.

You glance up again and in your rearview are eyes and teeth. The eagle glare of the new Dodge Charger headlamps is distinctly predatory. Or maybe it's the gleaming grille of a Denali flexing itself against your personal automotive space. It's a Spielbergian moment: turning to see the T. rex in your face.

Whoa. Stress hormones flood the bloodstream, eyes widen, your heartbeat jumps. Can you easily move left or right and get out of its way? Is it weaving and charging, looking for a way to slice around your left or right bumper? Which will it be? Grip and hold steady until it backs off or roars into another lane.

Calm down and go on. You still gotta drive.

My Left Lane

The far left lane on the interstate is not for such as me, slowpoke at 65 mph. The fast lane is for the frank speeders, the fwaumm flyby of Harleys or the tornado roar of a semi.

It is also, of course, where speeders go and are spotted by the law. To slot yourself into the far-left passing lane and stay there invites the radar gun.

Like most urban interstates, our local five-lane (ours are the Inner and Outer Loops) has exits every two miles or so and connects with four other major interstates in its clock-face circle. Three lanes become two, become Exit Only; your on-ramp is now an off-ramp. Riding the right lane as a demure Slow Driver means constantly adjusting to accommodate people zeroing and zooming in on the exits. Exits are where mistakes are made, where accidents happen. Signage over a hill or curve can confuse on first glance by tricks of perspective and angle. I prefer to stay out of crowds trying to figure out, at highway speed, Where am I s'posed to be?

This leaves the far-left lane unoccupied, a clean tube, for miles at a time, even in heavy traffic. So I shift over, keep an eye on the rearview for fast-approaching Speederados, and move out of the way when I need to. Sometimes I can stay in the left lane, doing 65/60 (my speed/speed limit), for many miles without blocking any other driver. Just move out of the way and let the SUV doing its comfortable 80 mph go by.

I like the left lane. It's a notch quieter. I'm away from the lane-shifting taillight-flashing exit dance. Speeders pass me one right lane over. Grassy medians are more attractive, although the close dance with metal barriers can be unnerving if you ever think about it.

I'll get out of your way too.

Of course I can drive

Like Raymond, I consider myself "an excellent driver." I have a 5-speed compact car with cruise control. I use my seat belt reflexively. I curb my speed; I don't like to drive fast. I'm conscientious about turn signals and mirrors. I'm cheap about gas, trying to find a way to coast in neutral and keep the rpms as low as possible. I don't tailgate, slam the gas on green lights, or lane hop.

I eat, drink, look at maps while I drive. In the past, I have smoked and even read behind the wheel on long stretches of interstate. I read Kitty Kelley's biography of Frank Sinatra while sunny Kansas rolled beneath my wheels. I have been GGG behind the wheel, but only as passenger. I have misbehaved behind the wheel.

I have blown bubbles. I have cried and screamed and pounded the wheel. I have sung loud with the radio, or without. I have talked back to the radio. I have felt my foot pressing the gas harder as a particularly thrilling passage plays on the CD.

I have driven under the influence. More than once. Extremely grateful to have arrived home safely each time.

I am neither a bad driver nor a perfect one. Always room for improvement.

Driving is a state of mind

I have been slightly amazed by something many millions of us do without thinking: pilot a 2-ton+ machine of metal and rubber down asphalt highways at extremely high speed. Actions and behaviors and conditions behind the wheel describe aspects of our lives: behind the wheel, pedal to the metal, out of gas, dead-end street.

I love to drive. I hate automobile exhaust and traffic jams and car repairs and car trouble. I hate the way roads and suburban development are cutting up meadows and farmland. I hate the price of gas, the smell of gas, the oil spots on the ground, oil spills killing wildlife. I hate the way the oil in Iraq is a prize to kill people over. I hate everything that is hateable about oil, and cars, and the car culture of America. Truly, I wish 9/10ths of the personally owned automobiles, ATVs, mobile homes, and other such beasts would be gone.

But I love to drive. I love to grip the wheel and engage my hands and feet and brace my body against the seat. I like the way roads slip up and under the wheels, and the way sounds surround and roar by. I love how scenery and CD can make the trip a narrative. I am darkly bemused that my car takes me past accidents, dead things, and bad scenes at speeds that allow little more than a quick sideglance impression of the events on the ground. I have no choice--I'm already 1,000 feet down the road.

I'm trying in this blog to capture that state of mind that exists only behind the wheel. There is nothing like it on earth, there is no activity a human being can do that is as much like flying free, that is a meditation, an escape. And in the era of Peak Oil and global warming, driving may become something only a few thousands, instead of millions, do. What will we lose, then?