Lifters are losers

Racing played a large role in my formative years. My dad raced BMWs and then a late-model Mustang for the better part of two decades. I watched a lot of NASCAR and drove too fast.

My first car was an old parts car my dad had purchased to chop up, but I got my license before he got the chance. It was a crappy looking 1976 BMW 2002, already an antique when I got behind the wheel. It came off the line in Germany a beautiful Kelly green, but by then was mostly dark orange and brown from all the rust. We sandblasted the trunk and hood, and I left them the robin’s egg blue primer. It had a four on the floor, and a buddy did me the favor of cutting off the muffler and replacing it with a straight four-inch pipe.

It had holes in the floor, the windows didn’t roll up, the speedometer was busted, which didn’t matter because the instrumentation was all in German.

It was, essentially, a real-wheel drive death machine that I got up to 140 mph on the outskirts of Toledo, Ohio the summer I turned 16. I loved it. I got so many speeding tickets and moving violations with it that I had my license suspended until I was 18. I had, as one police officer told me, “a cavalier attitude toward driving.”

That attitude is genetic. My dad and his friends ran Groundhog Racing, so called for the way the nose of a 2002 looks when you reattach the grill with zip ties after too many bumps. They ran souped-up versions of my beater every weekend in the summer. I spent a lot of time at various tracks in Ohio and Michigan, wandering around the paddock, doing timing and scoring and breathing in a lot of high-octane exhaust. (Which, now that I think of it, explains a lot.)

Racing has always appealed to my less-than-athletic nature. It’s a sport of engineers and nerds, combined with the heart-stopping thrill of seeing a car go greasy side up and explode in a ball of fire. What’s not to love?

There’s an expression – one I attribute to the great Darrell Waltrip – tossed around during every NASCAR broadcast: Lifters are losers. Meaning, for the uninitiated, that drivers who take their foot off the gas and don’t push to the absolute limit will be left in the dust, especially at the end of a race.
 

The same is true of your business. This month, we’ve put together an issue designed to help you work on your business, not just in it. Use this winter as a time to plan for a successful 2014. Set aside some time to think about what you want your business to be, and how you’re going to get there. Don’t let winter slow you down. Stay focused and stand on it.

– Chuck Bowen