Yeah, I know, I'm not quite a religious blogger. I'm still more comfortable in the world.
But I did want to share news of the great night I had signing and selling my RED RACECAR books at a special mid-week race at Seekonk, Mass., Speedway June 28. It was by far my most successful event. Which is great. It only took me two years to get there, despite it not only being perhaps my favorite racetrack (and tracks are some of my favorite places) but also the track where I've done more work as a racing correspondent and TV commentator than any other.
I love the fact that at a racetrack I'm dealing with kids who are literate, and parents and other adults who wants their kids to be. Racing suffers from an ignorant image of knuckle-dragging lugs just mashing the gas and each other while grinning and picking their noses. In fact, some of the most intelligent folks I've ever met are in racing. That's saying something when I spend my days in the midst of too many "experts" waving their masters and doctorate-degrees in my face while they prove their degrees signify nothing more than the massive debts they've accumulated.
For instance, ask educators why they don't seek out books for their students that share the worlds kids want to enter instead of the worlds the teachers inhabit. This is particularly true for kids like the ones I met June 28. Likely they won't go to college. But likely as well they will grow up to fix your car, build your house, install your heating system or do your hair. These days each of these jobs require a technical understanding they never did before. Knuckle-dragging lugs need not apply.
Of course, educators might simply have read a few pages of MOTOCROSS SUMMER, where my book's protagonist, Jason Merlo, complains about how teachers make him write "How I Spent my Summer Vacation" each fall more out of laziness than anything else. Hey, he's entitled to his opinion. After all, he's a smart kid.