|
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Multimedia Central Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities Work in Sports
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE |  |
Finally, I'm back Sitting out Watkins Glen was not my idea!
As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted..... I guess you know by now that I’ve been out for a couple of weeks after an accident during practice at Indianapolis. In fact, you might very well have known I was injured before I did. I don’t remember a whole lot. I know we had one of the fastest cars at Indianapolis and, in that practice session, we were a half-second faster than anybody else who was on race setup. We were feeling pretty good when the roof caved in. Chad Little blew an engine up in the third turn, laying down a ton of oil. I was running in a pack with Rusty Wallace and Joe Nemechek. They both hit the oil and wiggled pretty bad, but I was running about a half lane different than they were. That’s all it took. I hit the oil, turned around and slammed the third-turn wall pretty hard. Luckily, even though I hit on the driver’s side of the car, I kind of hit at an angle and the rear end hit a fraction of a second before the rest of the car did. The rest of it, I don’t really remember. I was awake when I got to the medical center in the infield but they told me I didn’t recognize much of anything. I went to Methodist Hospital at Indianapolis from there, and slowly started figuring things out. The doctors told me I had a concussion and couldn’t race. A few days later, they told me to skip Watkins Glen too. I didn’t agree -- and still don’t -- but they are the guys who make the decisions, and I know they are doing what they think is right. I really have to thank Kyle Petty and Tom Hubert for filling in for me. It’s a tough deal to get into somebody else’s car and try to make something out of it with a team you haven’t worked with before and a car you’ve never driven. But those guys did everything they could and I really appreciate it. Everybody on the team does. But, now I’m back. It’s Michigan this week, and I am so ready to race again. It’s going to feel awfully good to get behind the wheel of that car again. I’ve missed driving, I’ve missed racing, and I’ve missed my Mobil 1 guys. You have to remember that racing is all I have ever wanted to do, from the time I was really young -- as far back as I can remember, I guess. From the time I got one of those little Indian motorcycles when I was about five, I’ve wanted to race. I went through the regular deal -- go karts and late models and ARCA and on up to Winston Cup. But from the very first, I wanted to be a Winston Cup driver. I watched -- or listened on the radio -- and pulled for Cale Yarborough and Darrell Waltrip. The thing I was, though, I wanted to be Cale Yarborough and Darrell Waltrip. I wanted to be the driver for one of the top teams, winning races and winning championships. That’s all I have ever wanted. People have asked me why it always looks like I’m having a good time or while I’m always smiling. The main reason is because I’m living my dream right now. Everything I have ever wanted, I have. I am driving in Winston Cup. I am driving for one of the top teams. I’ve got a sponsor who is behind me 100 percent. I have a bunch of teammates who want to win as badly as I do. Why wouldn’t I be happy? Man, when your dreams come true, you don’t complain about it. You celebrate! If you can understand that, you can understand why the past two weeks have been absolutely miserable for me. If everything you ever wanted boiled down to you being in a race car, then you can imagine how I’ve felt not being in my race car. I was really grateful to Kyle (Petty, who drove for Mayfield at Indianapolis) and Tom Hubert (who drove at Watkins Glen), who got in the Mobil 1 Taurus and did a great job. They did their best under some trying circumstances - Kyle in a car that hadn’t even been practiced yet and Tom working with a team in a one-shot deal. Neither one of those were easy for them, any easier than it was for me watching on television. I pulled hard for them - I wore out two carpets in front of my television set. But, too, I wanted really badly to be back in the car. Looking back, it was best I didn’t drive those two races. I argued with different sets of doctors each week because I wanted to drive my race car. But they made the best decision for the long run. I knew that then, I just didn’t particularly want to accept it. I feel good. I certainly feel rested. And I know that I am 100 percent again. Part of my feeling right now, I know, is the fact that we’re heading back to Michigan. Plain and simple, I think we’re going to be the favorites to win the race. Everybody could see the Mobil 1 Taurus was the car to beat when we were there the last time, and we’re planning on picking up right where we left off. We had a great car, a great car, and we feel like we can duplicate that this time out too. Now I know a lot of people left Michigan after the last race there and did a lot of work. You can learn things from race to race. You have to learn things race to race. If you don’t, you fall behind. To be honest, I think we learned a couple of things in June that we can use in this race, things that are going to make our car even better. I’m excited, really excited. I think everybody on the Mobil 1 team is. We know what we’re capable of doing and we feel like Michigan is going to be a great place to do that. We’re realistic. Missing two races, our points deal is pretty well wiped out. Still, what we want to do is finish as high in the points as we can. And, too, we still have a very reachable goal. We can’t win the Winston Cup championship but we can finish the season with the most race wins. That’s our goal right now. So far, we’re the “Kings Of The 500-Milers,” but we’re working to be kings of the whole season too. We’ve shown we’re capable of winning just about anywhere, and certainly capable of winning on any of the tracks left on the schedule. We’ve been good on the big speedways, the intermediate speedways and run well on the short tracks too. I think we have a couple of wins left in us before the season comes to a close, and Michigan would be a great place to pick the first one of those up. We’re pumped right now. We have a lot of good things ahead for this Mobil 1 team. We’ve had the most up-and-down season anybody has ever seen in this sport. Every time we’ve been knocked down, we got right back up and got working on the business of winning. That’s what this Mobil 1 team is all about. Jeremy Mayfield’s column appears weekly on CNNSI.com. He has already won twice this year in Winston Cup to double his career total to four.
| ||||||||||||||||
