This weekend I’ll be in Tulsa, Oklahoma yelling into a microphone at a big diesel truck drag race. It’ll be the sixth strip I’ve visited since September first and the umpteenth I have been at since the beginning of 2013. I’ve never attended more races, announced more events, and seen more stuff than I have in 2013 and yet I find myself as excited to hit the road on this trip as I have on all the rest. I think my appetite for motorized competition is truly insatiable and in this line of work, that is a boon. I know that there are hardened veterans who have been doing this for decades that are largely “over it” so to speak but I am not one of them and I don’t think that I ever will. From land speed racing to truck pulling to drag racing, autocrosses, and whatever else I have seen this year, I’ve loved every minute of calling or covering the action. To me, the whole announcing deal has a very simple premise behind it. The people there at the event are competing their brains out and they deserve someone who is as intensely interested in the event as they are. I try to prepare for every event that I do with that in mind.

For some stuff like Drag Week I have developed a 15 page booklet of every possible stat and piece of history on the race as I can dig up. For events like the diesel extravaganza this weekend, I make sure to be up on industry news, engine family changes, and basic tech information on how guys are setting their trucks up to drag race, sled pull, etc. I have always been paranoid of being “that guy” as an announcer. In the race announcing world, to me, “that guy” is someone who has done nothing to get ready for the event and immediately shows himself to be completely uneducated about what is going on around him. There’s no quicker way to lose and audience or all street cred with racers than that.

I’ve been able to yell and scream at vast crowds and small groups since things got cranking in March. I have been able to learn and also to educate some over the PA at facilities near and far but there’s one thing that has remained the same at every event I have been at and that is my admiration for the racers that put on the show which I get to essentially become the narrator of. There are few things more fun or rewarding to me personally than seeing a racer start the weekend, find his or her mojo, and then mow down the competition and become the last person standing. Over the course of that trip from nameless qualifier to rock star hero race winner there are lots of twists and turns. The fun is seeing those twists and turns and putting them into context to the audience and making that dude the center of their world for a few hours for that day or weekend. Cooler yet? None of it is fabricated or blown out of proportion, the story plays out right there in front of our eyes.

The most important thing in any racer’s life is the particular event that the racer is competing at on any given weekend and in my opinion, good announcers are respectful of that and they try to match the intensity of the moment with that in mind. I think a lot of guys lose sight of this fact and get numb to it. The reality is, anyone who is able to leave a track with a pay check is in the EXTREME minority and should consider themselves really, really lucky. Earning that check means that your total focus should be on the task at hand. When an announcer is at a “big” event no matter the genre, the vast majority of the competitors have scraped, scrapped, and gnawed for the time off, the money to get there, and the funds to complete their cars. It may be “just another race” to someone who goes to dozens of them a year, but to those competitors, it is potentially the highlight of their entire racing season or the culmination of multi-years effort. Failing to keep those truths in your back pocket makes you lazy, apathetic, and bad at your job in my opinion anyway. I have worked with guys like this that seem to think that they are entitled to make good money just by showing up to a track because they “are who they are”. I think that is phooey and the day I fall into that trap is the day I put myself out to pasture.

Finally, you guys in readerland continue to amaze me and make me smile. Why? The other day I posted the live streaming video of the Costa Concordia salvage project over in Italy and I did so with one eye squinting because I didn’t know how it was going to go over. After all, it is basically streaming video of a ship being turned upright. I sure as heck thought it was interesting but I was interested to see what you all would think. Well, for a couple days straight it has been one of the most viewed items on the site and the emails and notes I have received after posting it confirmed that you’re all as whacko as me. I kind of knew that, but the affirmation is good every once in a while.

As always, thanks for reading. I probably do not say this nearly enough, but I really mean it and it has been fantastic to personally meet so many of you over the course of this year. I have shaken lots of hands and taken lots of photos with people from in and out of the USA at races this summer. It is humbling and shocking when someone from Sweden or Australia or Virginia walks up and greets you with a big smile and tells you how much they dig the site. We love what we do here and are eternally thankful for the people who support our efforts and for everyone that reads each day.