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OLSON: Spleen Test
Written by:
Jeff Olson
Senior writer, RACER Magazine http://www.racer.com/speedtv
Senior writer, RACER Magazine http://www.racer.com/speedtv
05/04/2008 - 11:51 AM
San Diego, Calif.
Yep, these guys aren't athletes. Sure... (Joerg Mitter/Red Bull photo) » More Photos
After an IRL test session at Phoenix a few years ago, I wisely accepted an invitation that changed my life. And the shape and placement of my spleen.
Cheever Racing had been asked to join Kirby Chambliss at his Flying Crown Ranch for a little upside-down fun in his tandem aerobatic plane, and I was invited to tag along. After watching from the ground as Alex Barron got spun up and down -- I swear I could hear him screaming with delight from the ground -- I wasn’t so sure if this was my shaken and stirred cup of tea. I’d always had an interest in aviation, but my interest was purely conventional. Tail up and gear down, as they say.
I did it anyway, and -- spleen be damned -- the 10-minute combination of spins, barrel rolls, flips and nosedives will forever rank as one of the great adventures of my life. I say that now because I’m sitting upright, both feet are on the ground, and I’m not currently reacquainting myself with lunch.
So it was with great enthusiasm and much less trepidation that I traveled to San Diego this weekend to cover the second race of the 2008 Red Bull Air Race World Series. At last, I have a rooting interest in a racing event. You see, Chambliss has been my hero ever since he heard grunting and wheezing over the headset and asked if I was OK.
At the time, my brain was saying “help me” but my mouth said, “I love it. Keep going.” He did, finishing with an inverted -- that’s upside-down for all you groundlubbers -- pass of the runway at an elevation of, oh, about 6 inches. My hair has never been the same.
Kirby Chambliss (Balazs Gardi/Red Bull photo) » More Photos
Every time I see Barron -- as I will again this week in Indianapolis, where he is working to secure an opportunity to race in the Indy 500 -- he talks about the trip to Chambliss’ ranch. A known thrill freak (he and his sandrails are regular visitors to the dunes of nearby Glamis), Barron stepped off Chambliss’ plane with the look of a kid stepping off a roller coaster. He wasn’t even the slightest bit green. He wanted another quarter so he could go again.
Barron hadn’t just endured all of Chambliss’ best moves; he’d devoured them. He loved the Cobra, Chambliss’ signature move, a takeoff in which he goes from standing still to a vertical climb in about the space of your living room. It‘s also been referred to (by us, anyway) as An Immediate Meeting with God.
Then there was the end of that vertical climb, when the plane stalls, you experience zero gravity and begin a freefall that will make you revisit your life within the frame of a few seconds. (Or what we referred to as I’ll Never Eat Tuna Salad Ever Again.)
Long before having my parts rearranged in Arizona, I had encountered some college students intent on arguing a point during a presentation at my alma mater. Racers, they insisted, aren’t athletes. They don’t run, don’t jump, don’t catch or throw or shoot. They just sit there. That’s not an athletic event and they aren’t athletes, they said.
I answered by disagreeing, of course, but years later my response strikes me as somewhat tepid. I’d been through several versions of racing schools and knew how difficult and physically demanding it was, but didn’t do it justice from the dais. Instead, I mentioned hand-eye coordination and precision, and the skills of a pilot. That seemed to irk them further. Pilots aren’t athletes, they said. Anybody can do that.
Au contraire, mi amigos. You know nothing of what you speak.
Had I known what I didn’t know then, I would have straightened those kids out. Had I been experienced with Kirby Chambliss’ ability to turn an airplane inside out like a reversible jacket, I would have told them what it felt like when your brain wants to leave your body by way of your nostrils. I would have told them that breathing is an athletic event under those Gs. I would have challenged them to not cry like Jimmy Swaggart while they’re falling from the sky. I would have told them that most of their basketball, baseball and football heroes aren’t in the proper shape to handle what Chambliss does.
Think guys like Chambliss and his colleagues -- guys like Mike Mangold and Hannes Arch and Paul Bonhomme and Peter Besenyei -- aren’t athletes? Then you’re clueless. Air racing, like auto racing (perhaps even more than auto racing), is far more demanding on the body than any conventional athletic event.
The argumentative kids at my alma mater had it backward. Any idiot can put a ball through a hoop. It takes a real jock to fly a plane.
My spleen will attest to this. If I can find it.
Jeff Olson is a Senior Writer for RACER magazine. For details about the current issue, visit www.racer.com.
The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEEDtv.com, FOX, NewsCorp, SPEED, or Haymarket Worldwide.
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