Navy Aircraft Pilots and NASCAR Drivers - a lesson learned?

This week had me recalling a now humorous event from my days in the Navy. I was an aircraft electrician returning to the aircraft carrier aboard a S-3 Viking aircraft. After many sudden jerking moves to test me, the pilot asked me how I was doing. "I'm just fine! You can't scare me!" The two pilots turned and looked at each other with wide grins. In an instant we were flying sideways with one wing straight up in the air pulling some serious G's!

I dug up a photo from the Navy days. That's me walking on the left in my "Old Navy" garb aboard the USS America somewhere in the Indian Ocean. Fearless, but isn't everyone at 20 years old?

This week had me shooting at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Bob Bailin, a New York Director of Photography and the CEO of Feature Systems Inc., brought his new street legal NASCAR to drive on the track along with some friends taking the SpeedTech Racing School.

Bob Bailin #13

This car is impressive. Jeff Lyman of Jeffrey's Auto Body, Inc. has delivered a drivable work of art! What attention to detail! A brilliant idea for advertising Feature Systems lighting equipment and grip on a street legal head-turner. Nice work!

What fun I had following the guys around and photographing them driving the SpeedTech cars. They insisted that racing instructor and former NASCAR driver Randy Baker take me around for a few hot laps. "Sure," I said, "that would be great!" Then something was said about me being scared and needing a diaper. Ha! You guessed it. I said it. "You can't scare me!" The next few minutes I will relive for all of my days to come. My words can't bring me close to describing the exhilaration and excitement of riding in a NASCAR around AMS several feet from the wall at 175mph! I didn't get scared, in fact, I was yelling at the top of my lungs for joy! After the ride, I asked Randy just how fast we were going. "About 175 mph," he said.

I can still close my eyes and feel the ride in the S-3 aircraft as we landed on the carrier catching the wire with the tailhook and my body still shakes from the ride with Randy Baker in the #3 Dale Earnhardt car. But there is something that I will forget and I have erased from my vocabulary - something about "can't scare me!"

Thanks Bob Bailin for an unforgettable weekend!

Randy