Racing

”If you don’t know the track in three laps, then you’re not talented enough to become a professional.”

His son was a former world champion. He had the authority to be controversial, but teenage me thought it was just crazy talk.
Have you ever fired a new hire five minutes into their first day because they didn’t deliver better than anyone else on the team?
Welcome to the world of motorsport, dear corporate managers – where cut-throat isn’t enough to describe the pressure.

This morning I couldn’t get out of bed. My body felt completely destroyed, sore after yesterday. Last Saturday, my phone buzzed while I was enjoying a cold beer on the flybridge with my dad, admiring the beautiful view of the Stockholm archipelago.

”Are you available next Saturday?”
Just by the sender, I knew what this was about.

Without a thought, I answered:
”Yes, I’m free.”
”Gelleråsen,” was his only reply.

Once again, I’d managed to triple-book myself.

The anxiety over this decision made me sleep-deprived every night this week.
I’m in the worst shape of my life. I’ve rejected every request to even run go-karts with my friends over the past few years. The last time I did a full race stint was at Indianapolis – six years ago.

Lying there in bed, the worst memories of my career flashed by.
Crashes. Pain. The ambulance nurse yelling, ”Stay with me.”
The sound of a cheering grandstand section as I walked out of a car so totaled that pictures of it would be marked as ”sensitive content” by most social media platforms.

I remember how I tore off the helmet and angrily yelled,
”This is the risk I’m taking for your damn entertainment!”
The clapping hands immediately stopped.

I finally fell asleep after midnight between Friday and Saturday.
The alarm went off at 04:00. I went to Solna in the northern outskirts of Stockholm to pick up Musse, the engine tuner of the car – and the one who texted me.

At 8:30 we had the drivers’ meeting.
I asked the Race Director if we followed Appendix L when it came to overtaking regulations.

I sincerely wanted to know, but I also know that the only kind of drivers who find this specific question interesting are the ones aggressive enough to be in the gray area of penalties.
The kind who give you a simple choice:
Let me by, or we crash.

Unfortunately, I’m one of those.
Or at least, that’s what I want everybody to think – so they let me by without fighting.

Gelleråsen is almost legendary in Sweden. It’s been around forever and is located in the dead center of the southern half of the country. Yet, I’d never run a single lap on the track until yesterday.

The track was wet but drying up – one of the most difficult conditions you can face. And I love it. It’s been my favorite challenge since I started karting as a kid. Now though, not even knowing if I’d dare to go fast again after all these years of boating instead of racing, it just made my nerves worse.

I tied my gear on, struggling with the helmet. But the hybrid clicked in like I’d raced last weekend. I started the car and rolled out in the fast lane, parking behind a line of cars waiting for the green light to turn on and let us out for the practice session.

The light turned green. I said to myself:
”Lights out and off we go!” ironically, as the cars started to creep out on the track.

I let the cars in front of me get a bit of a head start I wanted room in case I messed up braking on any of the corners on the first lap.

I passed the pit line and went on the throttle – wheelspin. The RPM-meter hit red. All my doubts disappeared. I slammed the brakes into the first corner, and the car just did as I told it to as it launched toward turn two.

Memories started to flash through my head:
The perfect downhill exit in Spain,
The qualifying lap in France,
The start in Falkenberg in the Camaro,
The first overtake in NASCAR K&N Pro Series in California,
The banks of Daytona in 300+ km/h.

They just kept coming.
Victories. Pole laps. Hugging my dad after the good races. Stepping onto the top of the podium. Meeting the mechanics in extascy. Late evening test runs while being alone on the track in the sunset. The first victory in pouring rain. 20 years of racing.
All of a sudden, I was inside the car I let go out in front of me – passing and clearing him.

This is the rush.
The complete lack of negative thoughts and the overwhelming satisfaction of positive ones.
When negative stress turns into positive stress. It’s the gateway into flow. You forget about the present, and your subconscious makes the split-second decisions. It feels like you and the machine are one – like you’re flying forward as a single unit.

I didn’t get any practice on a dry track until it was time for the race. Claes, the team owner decided that since I was the fast guy, I should start the 6-hour long effort. Our goal was a top 10.

”There’s no real pressure from behind, and the cars in front of you will pull away” he said on the radio.

When the lights went out, I went side-by-side with the cars ahead of me. I couldn’t care less about “the cars in front of you will pull away”.

After the 75-minute stint, I got out of the car. I stood up for not more than 10 seconds – then collapsed to the ground.
The sweat burned in my eyes. My pulse was four beats per minute below maximum.
”This will hurt tomorrow” I thought.

The Claes, the team owner gave me a fist bump while I was still kneeling on the ground beside the refuel station.
”4th time overall, set on the second lap.”

Four hours and forty-five minutes later, my comeback was done. We finished 5th in the class.

Maybe old man Mislijevic was right.
But I don’t agree that if you aren’t fast after three laps on a new track, you can’t become a professional.
All I say is: I only need two.