volume VIII, number 10--october 2001

Safety and What's Important
Editor's Notebook
by T.W. Theodore

Now might be a good time to step back, take a breath, look around, and decide what is important. We’ve all had a jolt to our comfortable sense of homeland security. Whether you are American, Canadian, British, Australian, or are reading this from some other national perspective, you probably are thinking and feeling a bit differently from how you thought and felt at the beginning of September.

I’ve certainly been jolted. The jolt has caused me to consider once more some basic questions. I’m going to ramble a bit here and hope you ramble along with me. We won't reach many conclusions, but the journey may lead us to interesting new pathways.

I’ve written in these pages, over the past six years, of the ever-changing landscape of Thunder Valley, that quiet little tree shaded glen in Wisconsin, USA, with the ribbon of asphalt running through it. I’ve written, and some of you have read, of winter turning to spring, of the quiet foraging of deer being replaced by the roar of internal combustion engines, and of the return to solitude as the race cars disappear beyond the Billy Mitchell bridge or as the summer turns to fall and, inevitably, to winter once more.

That roar, that knife-edge of passion, is a fleeting thing. The racing season is too short. The time between races is too long. The seat time on the track is never enough and the waiting around the paddock always seems interminable.

Is racing a metaphor for life? Is life a poor substitute for racing? Am I just completely full of hot air? Perhaps, perhaps, and, perhaps.

Contents Article Safety and What's Important Also Search this web site Previous Issues of Distant Thunder: September 2001 August 2001 July 2001 June 2001 May 2001 April 2001 March 2001 February 2001 January 2001 December 2000 November 2000 Browse the Archive Here's the current weather in Thunder Valley

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