In my experience, there are two types of people in the world. The first type begins by trusting everyone they come in contact with and continuing that trust until the other person proves they no longer deserve it. The second type of person doesn’t trust anyone they meet until that other person gains it.
Scenery is just one factor in how much boredom a driver experiences during cross-country travel. Other factors are the number and type of passengers you have with you, what else you have on your mind, the time of day (or night), and how long it’s been since you last ate a chocolate chip cookie or drank a Pepsi.
When I talk about cross-country road trips, I’m talking about trips where the objective is to get from here to there in the shortest time, not the kind where you meander around the country looking for something to do. I know very little about this second type of trip, other than the people who do them piss me off with their speed (or lack thereof), and their seemingly carefree and clueless changes of direction.
Many people talk about how it’s not the destination that counts, it’s the journey. That does not apply to cross-country road trips. You can have the journey all you want—especially the part where you’re driving through Montana…
Shaking with fear—of being pitched into a wall and being killed, of not having time to qualify for the Indy 500, of not living up to the promises made to my sponsors—and frustration, I step into the cockpit once more. Doug straps me in and I head onto the track to begin half a dozen laps of practice prior to making a qualifying attempt…
Exiting Turn 3, I glance down to see “219” on the dash. Slow, smooth hands and full throttle through Turn 4, I tell myself. Releasing the car by straightening out the steering wheel as much as possible, I drift up to the wall onto the front straight at Indy and glance down again. “222.”