I love windmills for the same reason I love race cars; they somehow have the same spirit. They are larger than life. They are testaments to progress. They're neat looking. And they give me endless hope for the future.
There are layers upon layers of things to love about racing, and many of the things that make this sport special to me, I got from my family. In a perfect world, I would never let the month of May pass without getting to see my aunts and uncles in Indianapolis and listening to them talk about the old days. One of the highlights of Indy weekend is seeing the vintage cars out on the track. I do love my DW12, and I also love knowing that one day, I'll see a DW12 the same way my dad sees a March. The roadsters of the fifties and sixties, which look positively ancient now, were the cars of my great aunts and uncles' generation. Tradition is a significant part of all of this.
Racing traditions--the personal and the universal--began long ago and are still being made. But there is one that stands out from the rest, because it has been there from the beginning: the tradition of being every that's good about innovation. Racing has always been the testing ground for new technology that can be applied to our daily lives. This progress has always been an intensely beautiful thought to me. It's like the feeling I get when I land a window seat on a plane, right on top of the wing, and I get to see it rise up from the ground. It's proof that humans are capable of defying every accepted definition of possible.
In times like these, it is crucial that we push innovation in racing. We are facing a global climate crisis. This past winter pushed this crisis to the very front of my mind. Though some people got plenty of snow, many of us were sweating. Here in North Carolina, temperatures often reached the seventies.
Climate change has always been an issue of concern for me. But we're no longer talking about what will happen if we don't make a change. We're watching it happening. The ship is leaving the harbor. People of my generation are now having to prepare for huge changes in the not-so-distant future. It's easier to brush it off as a hoax than it is to face the problem head on, because it is, in a word, terrifying. But it doesn't have to be. We can fix it. We don't have to sit idly by. Why shouldn't auto racing lead the charge? Our future can be greener, cleaner, and more beautiful. It makes sense that the fastest route there is with the fastest cars on earth.
