Indy Report: Two Winners and a Sponsor

by Tammy

I'm sure you all know the big news from Indy yesterday: that other TK finally won the Indy 500. My sense is that almost no one doesn't like Tony Kanaan, so it seemed like a pretty popular victory ... in that way of "if it can't be me, then I'm glad it's him." I imagine TK winning Indy would be like Mark Martin winning Daytona. Not many people would mind.

Anyway, the Indy 500 was an epic race, with not too many cautions but so many lead changes you couldn't type a social media update before the lead changed again. And a great result, even if the last two laps were under caution.

But there was another big winner in Indy this weekend, though he won't be making the media tours this week or picking up a check the size of TK's (sorry, Rick).

He will, however, be receiving a nice prize package from me and Team Kate. Yes, that's right, someone won the grand prize in the Team Kate Contest: which includes a Team Kate shirt, signed books, and an official Kate Reilly special edition Kreisel Timepiece!

So kudos to Rick Hunt, who found a member of Team Kate and a racing driver sponsored by Glass Hammer Racing (hi, Jessica Bean!) in the Indy social media garage and tweeted this photo. I'm pretty excited to send out a prize pack.

And let's be honest: I'm just pretty freaked out and excited that members of Team Kate were running around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. And that other people, like Rick, recognized and cared who they were.

It's one thing to think about my words out there in the world (hopefully) entertaining people, but to have my fictional world come to life in a real-world setting is really, extremely astonishing and thrilling.

Oh, and the sponsor I mentioned in the title? Kate picked up a real-world sponsor over the weekend also: Glass Hammer Racing. Full details in the official release: It's For Real: Fictional Race Car Driver Gets Real-World Partnership with Glass Hammer Racing. 

Good times from Indy! Did you like the weekend?

Are Racecar Drivers Athletes?

It's a question that pops up now and then, mostly, as in this case, posed by the uninformed. With disdain.

Last week, during the ESPY (Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly) Awards, a football player for the Seattle Seahawks, Golden Tate, unleashed a firestorm in Twitter, which quickly made its way to the media. The spark? In response to five-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson’s nomination for Male Athlete of the Year, Tate tweeted “Jimmy johnson up for best athlete???? Um nooo .. Driving a car does not show athleticism.” (There's Jimmie with the ESPY he did win for best driver.)

Now, part of the problem with this situation is the source. Golden Tate (no disrespect to his ability on the playing field) is, perhaps, easy to make fun of, having recently broken into a donut shop because of an overwhelming need for maple bars. Really. Not to mention the bad grammar, spelling, and punctuation of his tweets (hey, I’m a writer, these things matter to me).

And in our current age, it’s really easy for anyone with a computer to toss out an opinion—often vituperative—whether in an article, blog, tweet, or comment. So the twitterverse quickly responded to Tate—and it wasn’t just NASCAR fans responding, but fans of all kinds of racing, amateur and pro drivers, and reporters who cover the sport. Plus, of course, those who agreed with him.

In the end, Tate backtracked, saying “I'm not saying NASCAR isn't hard I'm just saying u don't have to be athletic to do that...” and following it up later in a radio interview, saying, “I did read up and educate myself, and I will say this: They are incredible people to do that. After reading up on it I do have respect and I do want to apologize to NASCAR nation.”

Here’s my take. I think of drivers and golfers the same way. Does being professional driver/golfer require being an Olympic-level decathlete? No. Will you be better at it if you’re fit and strong and have a lot of endurance? Absolutely, yes. I have seen plenty of drivers with pot-bellies or who look like they’d have trouble running a couple miles. But the drivers I know, both pro and amateur (and I’ve met quite a few), are some of the fittest people I’ve ever seen. They run marathons and triathlons in their spare time. (Oh, and do you see that photo of Tony Kanaan, IndyCar driver? Tell me he’s not an athlete.)

Do they have the dexterity and athleticism of a top-level basketball player (the comparison Tate was making)? Perhaps not. But for two, three, or four hours at a time, their heartrates are raised, they’re withstanding high g-forces, they’re sitting in a 100-degree sauna, and they’re maintaining the kind of focus required of a fighter pilot—where the slightest lapse of attention can have dramatic consequences. All while they’re going up to 200 miles per hour, just inches away from dozens of other cars.

You can call it athleticism or not. But I certainly do.