A Meme - and a Man Who is Face Down in Miami
Why are you cleaning these pistons on the dining room table?
How does the Harbor Freight manager know your name?
Did you just charge $2,138 at rockauto.com?
The answer to all of these questions is of course, because race car!
Birthday #1
Today we celebrate two birthdays. The first celebration is for the Craigslist post that started it all on January 26, 2011 - an anonymous user attempting to sell a stripped out MX3 for 300 bones, 12 years ago today.
As the internet is known to do, a seemingly innocuous typo/grammar choice launched a ubiquitous meme. Think “hodl” or “all your base are belong to us”.
“Because race car” first rose to prominence via Jalopnick’s “Opposite Lock” web forum. (And fans? May it Rest In Peace…) Members there caught wind of the ad began using the phrase as a sarcastic answer to any ridiculous car question. The memes soon followed.
The phrase may very well be a “dad joke” today as we celebrate its 12th birthday - but who cares, because today we toast “sale-y7drw-2181614004” and his legendary launch of because race car!
Birthday #2
We celebrate another birthday today, because today births the newsletter you have somehow stumbled across on the World Wide Web. It’s a Substack newsletter based on the aforementioned meme.
The plan is to write about cars - fast cars, racing cars, building cars, fixing cars, driving cars, wrecking cars, and talking cars. There will be a lot of variety and hopefully something for everyone who likes some aspect of motorsport.
My aim is to build some type of respectable journalistic Substack presence and I am starting from absolute zero, so if you like like what you see… please share!
F1 Miami - Prologue
I caught the dreaded 6:05am Southwest out of Nashville. You know the one… the one that always pushes straight off the gate at 6:05am.
On my way to Gate 22 I grabbed a 4-shot iced latte at 8th & Roast. That’s my usual coffee fix, a 4-shotter. I’m not sure what the hell they put in it, but somewhere over Southern Georgia on my way down to Miami, I thought I was going to crawl out of my skin. I literally could not focus my eyes.
I headed out of the Miami airport, hopped the shuttle to Le Meridien, and hit my room for a shower and nap in an effort to shed the caffeinated stupor. Around 2:00 I hit the lobby bar, feeling like a beer might bring me back to normal.
As I walked in a guy I would later come to know as Tomás was leaning over the bar and screaming “I WANT TO KISS YOU” at the bartender while slapping his chest and slurring his words. She ignored him. I, however, sat by him - reasons unknown.
I’d come down to the bar hoping to meet some fellow race fans and fellow track marshals, but the scene was dank. It seems the Europeans had hit town the day before and my fellow Americans were still in transit. The place had a peculiar vibe - full of guys from across the pond obviously recovering from top-tier partying the night prior combined with jet and various pill of the prescribed and non-prescribed variety. It was a rough, rough scene. Some shit had gone down. Tomás, however, was still going - last man standing.
He immediately offered to by me a beer, Stella Artois of course. One thing led to another and after an hour of sharing racing stories I found myself inviting this drunken spectacle on my trip toward the “the best pizza in Miami”. The best pizza in Miami is evidently in Pompano Beach…
Then things got even more weird…
Despite a BAL that might incapacitate most, Tomás may have been more qualified to drive the car than the bloke Uber sent our way. A painfully thin Ethiopian man was at the wheel, and he spoke no English. He spoke no driving skill either. He was doing his best Sammy Hagar “one foot on the gas and one on the brake, HEY!”
When he lurched the car over a bridge doing 55+ with hard acceleration and simultaneous fits of aggressive braking we were laughing. When he veered over the double-mustard and into the opposite lane of traffic for a left turn we had a bit of a scare. When he steered off into the rumble-strips and ran his VW Jetta up onto a curbed median area we screamed “STOP! STOP THE CAR!” We ended up lodged in a big “sand trap” that looked like it belonged at TPC Sawgrass, avoiding a large palm tree by about a foot.
Tomás hopped out and went into track marshal recovery mode, walking around the scene and trying to find ways of freeing the car. I could tell that would involve too much discourse. I walked the remaining 1/4 mile to our pizza joint while messaging Uber Support, not intending to pay for this fiasco.
Once inside I ordered an IPA and settled into the bar. Tomás came in several minutes later and hit the loo - and he never returned. Cocaine heart attack? Alcohol poisoning? What is my level of responsibility for this foreigner? I had a cold Stella waiting for him…
After an uncomfortably long wait, I went looking for him in the men’s room. I never located the guy. He vanished. Nowhere to be found, inside or out. I finished a few beers and a really nice pizza, and then his Stella. I made one more cursory look in the back alley before I headed back to Le Meridien.
I have a policy - other peoples’ nightmares are not billable time. I wanted to go get a look at the track and the paddock - not waste time on drunks and inept chauffeurs.
Tomás? I deemed I had no duty. The Uber driver? Learn how to drive pal.
That evening a new party started rolling hard in the bar area of the hotel. There was a DJ pumping some really fun music and the place was packed. The Americans had arrived and the Europeans had recovered. Race fans and track marshals filled the entire lobby and bar.
Yet another drunkard was screaming at the bartender, this one wanting her to join him on a cruise. Some guys from Austin were headed out to fire some rifles into The Everglades. The “Orange Army” of UK marshals were regaling us with stories from Brands Hatch, Silverstone, and Goodwood. The Italians were talking about the action at “The Temple of Speed” - Monza. The Germans had the Mexicans dropping Jäger shots into their beers, and the Mexicans were repaying the favor with shots of blancos y reposados sliding up and down the bar. The Canadians were wearing masks and yelling about science. I was having a blast!
Then the paramedics arrived, followed by a few firemen types in white shirts and black cargo pants. Things got quiet fast. Folks were 3-4 deep against the glass looking out into the garden area near the pool. I could hear a lot of chatter, and finally picked up some English. A guy was face down poolside. Or was he tits up? Oh shit… Is that Tomás?
To Be Continued…
Miami - sun, heat, humidity, a fake marina, a lot of pink & teal, and a purpose-built street track around the Hard Rock Stadium. Vagabond racing junkies traveling the world over. We were here for one reason and one reason only.
Because race car…