For the last 6 months, this was all I had dreamed of. Just the day before at school, the second day back for the year, my new 4th grade mate told me he’d actually done it. I was sceptical- until he pulled the blue and white laminated licence out of his wallet, with the chequered flags at the top and his signature in pen, below. It was real! He was also younger than me…and shorter…which meant….surely I’d be able to do it too! I’d told Mum and Dad about it as soon as I got home of course, and now this afternoon when Mum picked me up from school there were fresh clothes in the car and she told me to get changed- we were going to go and check it out!
I’d wanted to race go-karts ever since I was 3 years old, when I saw the track out at Panthers’ World of Entertainment. I was there with Mum and some family friends of ours. I’d seen these older guys racing around and got so excited at the thought of being able to drive- it’d be so much fun! But then a guy working there shook his head. I was too young or too small- something like that, I don’t know for sure. But it was the first time in my life I recall ever feeling emasculated. Not only had my chain been rattled, but I had to watch the big dogs all running around in the park on the other side of the fence, having the time of their life, while I stayed in the puppy cage. Tears welled up in my eyes and I burst out crying as we turned and walked away. It was, possibly, the first time in my life that I’d experienced heartbreak…
I’d wanted to race go-karts ever since I was 3 years old, when I saw the track out at Panthers’ World of Entertainment. I was there with Mum and some family friends of ours. I’d seen these older guys racing around and got so excited at the thought of being able to drive- it’d be so much fun! But then a guy working there shook his head. I was too young or too small- something like that, I don’t know for sure. But it was the first time in my life I recall ever feeling emasculated. Not only had my chain been rattled, but I had to watch the big dogs all running around in the park on the other side of the fence, having the time of their life, while I stayed in the puppy cage. Tears welled up in my eyes and I burst out crying as we turned and walked away. It was, possibly, the first time in my life that I’d experienced heartbreak…
Skip forward 6 years and my burning ambition was to become one of the greatest racing drivers in the world- I wanted to dominate go-karts, win the Bathurst 1000, hoist the Australian flag in victory time and again in Formula 1 and become a multiple World Champion. The V8’s had household names like Brock, Skaife and Johnson. In F1, the Germans had Schumacher to be proud of as newly crowned Champion. The Brits had Mansell. The Brazilians were still basking in the decade-long glow left behind by Senna’s name. Why shouldn’t the Australians have Mackie one day? I wanted to be compared (and remembered) with the greats. I’d lie in bed at night and imagine come from behind wins where I’d blitz the rest of the pack one after another. I’d draw pictures of myself driving at speed in various types of racing car, taking the chequered flag. To my active 9 year-old mind, anything was possible. Driving to the indoor centre with Mum, we couldn’t get there soon enough- today was the day it began- at last! I’ve never experienced either, but I imagine the feeling your wedding day or the arrival of your first-born brings, is something like how I felt as I rode along in the passenger seat that afternoon in February 1995…
We arrived in the parking lot outside the centre. I jogged up the steps, inside to the fluorescent lights of the brick building. The puttering of 2 stroke engines and shrieking tyre sounds bounced off the walls. The smell of petrol hung in the air. Older guys raced by on the main straight in tight formation, squealing around the corners on the edge of control at what seemed like such a rapid speed. This was it. Reality hit me. If I could even begin to justify my dreams of being as great as I’d imagined, I would have to start out being good at this. My legs began to tremor in a way they never had before as I realised- my dream could be on the verge of being shattered. The image flashed in my mind of bumping the kart along the barriers, swerving all over the place and spending lots of time facing the wrong direction. I could slink out of here, woken up from my dream with the blinding realisation that I was just a poser. A foolish star-gazer. Another delusional kid, day- dreaming of undeserved stardom like some naïve idiot. I felt like a man with his eye on a beautiful girl whose mystery fascinates him, but he knows that going up to her and trying to strike up conversation means he risks being completely exposed. He may be left to retreat with his tail between his legs in front of everybody. To get what he really wants, he risks losing face completely and being stripped of his dignity. I momentarily considered making some excuse to leave or chickening out straight up- but I knew I’d be furious at myself by the time we got home. This was the only way. All I could do now was find out the truth- make the grade or go down in flames…
We arrived in the parking lot outside the centre. I jogged up the steps, inside to the fluorescent lights of the brick building. The puttering of 2 stroke engines and shrieking tyre sounds bounced off the walls. The smell of petrol hung in the air. Older guys raced by on the main straight in tight formation, squealing around the corners on the edge of control at what seemed like such a rapid speed. This was it. Reality hit me. If I could even begin to justify my dreams of being as great as I’d imagined, I would have to start out being good at this. My legs began to tremor in a way they never had before as I realised- my dream could be on the verge of being shattered. The image flashed in my mind of bumping the kart along the barriers, swerving all over the place and spending lots of time facing the wrong direction. I could slink out of here, woken up from my dream with the blinding realisation that I was just a poser. A foolish star-gazer. Another delusional kid, day- dreaming of undeserved stardom like some naïve idiot. I felt like a man with his eye on a beautiful girl whose mystery fascinates him, but he knows that going up to her and trying to strike up conversation means he risks being completely exposed. He may be left to retreat with his tail between his legs in front of everybody. To get what he really wants, he risks losing face completely and being stripped of his dignity. I momentarily considered making some excuse to leave or chickening out straight up- but I knew I’d be furious at myself by the time we got home. This was the only way. All I could do now was find out the truth- make the grade or go down in flames…
The guy at the counter measured me up- I was tall enough to drive, but I’d need a booster seat. I signed my license with the best signature my shaky 9 year-old hand could muster, then watched it get laminated. My first ever license! Then stood around until the current session was up and one by one, the karts puttered into the pits and pulled up with a squeaking of brake pedals. The radio might have been playing over the speakers in that old warehouse, but I don’t recall. I just remember how still, how quiet the place suddenly was after the aggressive noise I’d walked into minutes earlier. Fortunately, as the guys filed out from the previous session I was the only driver there. If I failed miserably, only Mum and the attendant would be there to witness it. I put the correct sized helmet on, let the attendant check the buckle was taut, passed through the gate and headed up pit lane to the go-kart at the front. The thudding of my shoes on the polished concrete was dulled by the helmet covering my ears. The attendant slipped the booster seat in and I lowered myself into the cockpit of the kart. He buckled me in as I looked ahead at the first corner out of pitlane- a left-hand hairpin bend. In a moment I would be sent out towards that hairpin, and I would be left to my own ability, my own devices. This was about to actually happen. The attendant disappeared from my peripherals and the next moment, I heard him yank the pull-cord. The engine kicked over and the kart shuddered to life. I pressed my right foot cautiously down on the metal accelerator pedal. The kart moved away off the spot. Here was the hairpin coming up. I turned the steering wheel left. The kart went left as I directed it. I cleared the hairpin and straight after was a right hand bend. I pulled the wheel right this time, foot still on the throttle and again the kart turned through the corner just as I directed it. It all felt as matter-of-fact as that, in spite of how threatening the mere concept had seemed minutes earlier. “That easy?”, I thought…
I may have whooped out loud as I came around to the main straight and started my second lap of the track- I know I did the first time I drove a lap in my own go-kart a couple of years later- but this very first time I don’t recall. What I do remember of the next 5 minutes is the following: I soon realised I could hit the accelerator flat through all of the straight sections- the kart wasn’t going to leap away from me like a big dog off a leash- and I also soon realised that hugging the inside of the track leading up to the corners scrubbed off speed- taking the smoothest line possible meant I could go flat-out longer. I tried driving the whole track flat-out but then on a right hand hairpin bend I lost control on the exit and clouted the tyre wall. I already had my next plan of action decided by the time the attendant came over and pushed my kart out from the barrier so I could keep driving: use the brake to steady the kart in tighter corners. Doing that enabled me to lap even faster, and for the rest of the session I avoided contact with the tyre walls altogether. I don’t remember much between when the 5 minute siren blared signaling the end of the session and when I got home, but I must have felt 10 feet tall and been yakking about it non-stop because when Dad got home from work, Mum and I convinced him to join me back there for a night race. This time, I took on Dad and a bunch of older people, adults. And won. Mum snapped a photo of me at the end of the race, in pit lane with my helmet still on. Dad didn’t enjoy it- he said he couldn’t get a feel for it. He mentioned how he was swerving all over the place “but Ben’s going ‘Vrooooom! Vrooooom!’ and I was thinking ‘You little bugger!” I recall few times as a kid where I felt more proud or more relieved. I could do it. Maybe my dreams weren’t so silly after all?
I may have whooped out loud as I came around to the main straight and started my second lap of the track- I know I did the first time I drove a lap in my own go-kart a couple of years later- but this very first time I don’t recall. What I do remember of the next 5 minutes is the following: I soon realised I could hit the accelerator flat through all of the straight sections- the kart wasn’t going to leap away from me like a big dog off a leash- and I also soon realised that hugging the inside of the track leading up to the corners scrubbed off speed- taking the smoothest line possible meant I could go flat-out longer. I tried driving the whole track flat-out but then on a right hand hairpin bend I lost control on the exit and clouted the tyre wall. I already had my next plan of action decided by the time the attendant came over and pushed my kart out from the barrier so I could keep driving: use the brake to steady the kart in tighter corners. Doing that enabled me to lap even faster, and for the rest of the session I avoided contact with the tyre walls altogether. I don’t remember much between when the 5 minute siren blared signaling the end of the session and when I got home, but I must have felt 10 feet tall and been yakking about it non-stop because when Dad got home from work, Mum and I convinced him to join me back there for a night race. This time, I took on Dad and a bunch of older people, adults. And won. Mum snapped a photo of me at the end of the race, in pit lane with my helmet still on. Dad didn’t enjoy it- he said he couldn’t get a feel for it. He mentioned how he was swerving all over the place “but Ben’s going ‘Vrooooom! Vrooooom!’ and I was thinking ‘You little bugger!” I recall few times as a kid where I felt more proud or more relieved. I could do it. Maybe my dreams weren’t so silly after all?
The rest, as the cliché goes, is history. I would visit that place many times, racing my friends and strangers- and usually winning. I ended up getting my own go-kart a couple of years later, joining the nearest kart racing club and taking part in official race events. For the time being, a serious racing career is something I can only think of in a future tense, but I still remember how vividly something was awakened in a 9 year old kid that afternoon. I remember that lightness in my step and that buzz from deep within as I realized: I could do it. Not just that, but it felt like I could do it with ease.
Reflecting on this made me think about the lesson behind the memory- that you can’t give up on following your dreams and going after what you really want. Even if the possibility that you could fail miserably makes your palms sweat and fills you with a sense of panic, chances are that’s exactly when things will turn out as great as you imagine them- or even greater still! I have many more goals and visions that are just like that dream I had as a 9 year old kid who wasn’t afraid to expect the world. Dreams are not worth giving up on- because of how it feels and changes your life, the person you are- when they manifest and become something the rest of the world sees too.
Maybe you dream of growing your business- taking on staff, managing them, doubling your turn-over, turning your local business into a national franchise- but to get there, you have to face your fear of public speaking? Or attend constant networking events where all you want to do is keep the pot plants company for fear of being “found out” by the first person who introduces themselves to you? You’re faced with that disquieting realisation- this is the only way you can move forward. If you try enough new things, failure is inevitable. But the feeling of failure still doesn’t compare to that feeling when, against those greatest fears- you succeed. Or even do greater than how you imagined?
Think about what that thing is for you and before you have time to hesitate, go and put your helmet on. Buckle up. To borrow a quote from a motivational playlist I listen to: “The man who says ‘I failed’ is 10 times more of a man than the one who says ‘What if?’- because ‘What if?’ never went to the arena!”
Reflecting on this made me think about the lesson behind the memory- that you can’t give up on following your dreams and going after what you really want. Even if the possibility that you could fail miserably makes your palms sweat and fills you with a sense of panic, chances are that’s exactly when things will turn out as great as you imagine them- or even greater still! I have many more goals and visions that are just like that dream I had as a 9 year old kid who wasn’t afraid to expect the world. Dreams are not worth giving up on- because of how it feels and changes your life, the person you are- when they manifest and become something the rest of the world sees too.
Maybe you dream of growing your business- taking on staff, managing them, doubling your turn-over, turning your local business into a national franchise- but to get there, you have to face your fear of public speaking? Or attend constant networking events where all you want to do is keep the pot plants company for fear of being “found out” by the first person who introduces themselves to you? You’re faced with that disquieting realisation- this is the only way you can move forward. If you try enough new things, failure is inevitable. But the feeling of failure still doesn’t compare to that feeling when, against those greatest fears- you succeed. Or even do greater than how you imagined?
Think about what that thing is for you and before you have time to hesitate, go and put your helmet on. Buckle up. To borrow a quote from a motivational playlist I listen to: “The man who says ‘I failed’ is 10 times more of a man than the one who says ‘What if?’- because ‘What if?’ never went to the arena!”