Addiction- definition: Becoming involved in a form of a repetitive behavior. A physiological or emotional dependency for the purpose of a desired effect.
In April of 2006, Rick came to me and said, “Honey, I’m gonna buy a race car.” Great I thought. Sounds like fun ... Friday nights at Spartan Speedway would be a blast.
My mind drifted back to a late Friday afternoon about a year earlier when he said, “Honey wanna go to the race track tonight? The kids will have a great time.” He was right, the kids and I both really did have a great time. That was the start of many Friday nights out to Spartan Speedway and the start of an addiction for my husband with racing.
Yes, I said addiction ... It wasn’t long after getting started at Spartan and the addiction grew worse. One evening while the kids and I were packing up his car and gear, Rick went off to chat with the other drivers. Next thing I know he comes back just as we were finishing and said, “We’re going to Springport Speedway tomorrow night.”
Luckily for him the racing bug had bit me too. After a month or so of the every weekend racing, I began to fear that Rick was in over our heads. When the season ended I let out a huge sigh of relief and began to devise a plan for stashing money to feed his addiction. All the stashing in the world wouldn’t get us through what he was about to embark on.
One car turned into two cars after his friend Alec went with us to the track and Rick let him drive hot laps. That was the start of what is known as probably the wildest Rick adventure ... two cars turned into six cars and Rick was on a mission to get anyone started in racing if they wanted.
Yes the man of my dreams had truly lost his mind. It was during that second season that we were married and racing was beginning to take over everything. Imagine my surprise when he decided he wanted to be married in June. Then we picked our date, which by the way turned out to be the weekend of “Racin’ and Rock’n” at Springport.
Much bigger shock when he turned down my offer to get married at the track. After much planning and plenty of help from our family and friends, our big day went off without a hitch. Thanks to Russ Potter, we even took a short honeymoon.
But the very next weekend we were right back at it. That season took a lot of hard work, sacrifice and near financial ruin.
But we made it through. During the winter months I would look out the window at all those cars and think, “Man we need to sell those stupid things.” Needless to say my enchantment with racing was fading fast. Not Rick’s. His mind was “racing” with ideas of how to try and recoup some of the money we lost from that season on all those cars and equipment.
Obviously our ideas were at the opposite ends of the spectrum. Our third season in racing was very different from the first two. The bright side to that season was that he introduced several new people to racing, some of whom went on to buy cars and are planning to race this season. The down side was that he put a ton of money and time into all the cars but he personally only raced a handful of times.
His enthusiastic start to the season began to fade and I could see him becoming somewhat depressed. He was not the same guy from two seasons ago.
Late that fall brought us news that his job was being eliminated, I remember feeling like that was the beginning of the end. While I fretted over how we would make ends meet; Rick was spending countless hours on the telephone talking with numerous people, and even more countless hours on the computer doing “research”.
He was also spending a lot of time with Eaton Rapids most wanted-Dennis O’ Neil, talking about a newspaper called The MARC Times Racing News.
Sometime near Thanksgiving he came to me and presented all the information he had been compiling over the recent months.
Numbers, quotes, schedules, endless lists of names. It was at this point that I knew my husband had completely flipped his lid.
What in the name of God was he thinking? I mean seriously, Michigan’s economy was (is) spiraling downward- and he wants to start a newspaper.
I spent several days after that digesting all he said. I cried until I was sure there were no more tears and then it occurred to me - for Rick - his addiction to racing would have to be fed somehow. He had finally come to grips with the fact that he wasn’t a great racer, that he was definitely not a mechanic, and that he if he wanted to stay connected to the racing community it would have to be in another form.
He is using his gift of gab and his flair for the pen. His specialty is talking … he can talk to anyone! Anytime we are out in public, he always sees someone he knows. Most times he doesn’t know them, but after they walk away-he knows them.
It was clear that there was only one thing to do-support him in this venture. And so here I am-the woman behind the man.
What’s my role in all of this … answering his telephone, bringing him coffee and reminding him to take a break when he is knee deep in laying out the paper. I occasionally help to deliver the papers to the various tracks. The thing I like to do best is hang out at the track with him and watch him with the people.
