5. GRAND PRIX TEST RUN
While spending a few days in Paris just wandering through parks, museums, cathedrals, and other quiet places, I continued thinking about the lessons I had learned from Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Occasionally, I would thumb through the book and read selected passages. I felt a strange sense of awe and joy in considering the questions, “What is my higher purpose in life? Why am I really here?” I had never considered these for myself. But, looking back, I realize I was unable to ponder very deeply such crucial life issues. In Paris I was only taking my first “baby steps” in this direction.
I also began to consider the question of how we might ever be able to fulfill an ultimate dream of ours. What would that process look like? How is it that we actually create new circumstances or a future that we envision? In taking another baby step, I began thinking—what if I set up a short-term challenge for myself that seemed impossible, but that I would go for and see if I could accomplish it? That would be a great experiment and a wonderful way to start off my European adventure! Ever since I was a teenager I had been fascinated by Ferraris, and in later years I enjoyed Grand Prix racing. By the mid-1970s, Ferrari had been involved in racing for around twenty-five years and had been enormously successful. Niki Lauda was driving that year for Ferrari. Above anything else, I wanted to go to the Grand Prix at Monza, Italy, and be there in the pits with Lauda and the Ferrari racing team. That would be my challenge.
I began calling the factory in Modena and telexing various acquaintances in the United States to see if anyone could help get me any tickets to the Italian Grand Prix. Finally, a close friend of mine opened the door for me to contact Dr. Gotti, who was a senior executive at Ferrari. Gotti told me that it was absolutely impossible to get any tickets to the Grand Prix. All the seats had been completely sold-out for over six months, and for the last several months, only infield tickets were available. He said there would be over two hundred thousand people in the infield alone. He said it was dangerous, and the crowd surge might engulf people; riots could break out on the infield. He said the race actually started on September 12, but that people camped out at least two days in advance to get in. Just to get out there, to fight through the crowds, one would have to leave Milan by train at eight in the morning to be there in time for the three-thirty race that afternoon. He felt it would be impossible to get in. But I was determined to go to the race and to fulfill my dream of being in the pits next to Lauda prior to the beginning of the race.
I went to Milan and spent the night there, but when I woke up at four in the morning, rain was pouring down. I was dismayed because I knew there was a long walk from the train station in Monza to the Autodroma—at least forty-five minutes. I would be drenched to the bone if I had no raingear, and I knew it was crazy to stay soaked all day and into the evening. There were no shops open at that time in the morning, so I sat down in the lobby and began trying to figure out what my next step would be.
I looked up, and there was a man about my size who was just walking over to the reception desk. He had a raincoat and an umbrella. I went over to him and touched him on the elbow. As he turned around, I looked him straight in the eye and said, “Pardon me for bothering you, sir, but my name is Joe Jaworski; I’m from Houston, and I need your raincoat and umbrella for the day.”
He didn’t say anything, so I went on. “I’m going out to the race at Monza, and I left my raincoat and umbrella in Switzerland. It’s really important that I get out there right away. Please let me borrow your umbrella and raincoat, and I promise you I’ll bring them back tomorrow.”
He looked at me a moment more, and then with a half-smile, he said, “Sure, why not?” He put his briefcase down, took off his raincoat, handed it to me, and said, “I’m Manny Deitz. I’ll be here for a couple of days. Give me a call tomorrow when you get back.” He gave me his card, and I told him how deeply grateful I was. Then I was off.
As I made my way out to the Autodroma Nazionale Di Monza, I couldn’t believe my eyes. There were hordes of people streaming into the area. I wrote in my journal, “I can describe it only as ten times the Super Bowl. If Rice Stadium holds eighty-five thousand, there must have been half a million people out there.” What a challenge. I cased the area for over an hour. I thought about every conceivable way to get inside. There were guard dogs, high fences with barbed wire, police and soldiers everywhere. I first went to the most imposing area I could find, the VIP entrance. They called it the “Tribune” entrance. It was guarded by a high-ranking military officer. I tried to talk my way in there and almost succeeded, but an officer they referred to as “Generalissimo” finally came and ultimately turned me away.
I next went over to the area where all of the television trucks were located, thinking I might impersonate a television sportscaster. This involved a kind of deception I would find unacceptable now. But at that stage of my development I simply operated at a different level. (Part of my developmental path has been to learn compassion, including compassion toward myself for my earlier shortcomings.)
I began gathering information by talking to workers around the television trucks, and then talking to some of their superiors. I finally went up to the entrance to the press room and told the guard that I needed to see the secretary of the press corps. I was shown up to the office and told the people there that I was a CBS correspondent. I had left my pass at the hotel and I had come all the way from Texas and needed only to gain access to the pits in order to find my colleagues. I spent thirty minutes chatting with them. The secretary of the press corps at one point said she had only one pass left that she was holding for a correspondent from Spain whom she was expecting momentarily. She took it out of her purse and held it. I looked into her eyes and said, “I really need this.” She stood there momentarily and then reached behind her and pulled an extra pass from a file and handed it to me. I kissed her on the cheek and was off.
It was a huge green plastic pass that was hung around your neck. You could go anywhere with it. I ran down to the main entrance and walked in past the guard dogs, the officials, the police, and the army. I first went to the “ready area” where all of the formula one cars were being prepared and fueled. I stood next to Niki Lauda’s Ferrari, then Jody Schekter’s Tyrrell, and Clay Regazzoni’s Ferrari 312-T. There was a businesslike atmosphere in the ready area, but with more to it than just a quiet efficiency. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what I felt there, but I was absolutely drawn to the drama that was about to unfold.
It was close to race time, so I went down to the private sponsors’ dining rooms near the ready area for some lunch. I met a number of people but hurried through lunch in order to go back to the pits before the race. As I was leaving, a man walked up and introduced himself. He was French but spoke excellent English. His name was Bernard Cahier, President of the International Racing Press Association, headquartered in Paris. He told me that rather than taking a seat in the sponsors’ area, which was a comfortable but detached way to watch the race, I should find the best vantage points to see the race—and he showed me what these were. Cahier particularly recommended a certain spot at the Curva Parabolica. I thanked him warmly for his help and then quickly went back over to the pits to be with the drivers and their teams.
Just before the beginning of the race, I watched as the different teams pushed the cars from the pits onto the track, where the cars were “gridded out” in a series of staggered rows with the fastest driver in practice occupying the “pole” position. The few minutes just before the flag dropped were very special—in these moments seemed to be crystalized all the drama, tension, and expectancy that make up the attraction of motor racing. There was a great deal of activity at this moment on the grid, but in a way, in the midst of all the noise in the grandstands, a kind of quiet pervaded the area of the grid. I was about ten feet from Lauda when he entered his car. I noticed his eyes as he was looking out of his helmet, and I felt I saw real fear there, but also fierce determination. Here was a man who, six weeks before, had almost been destroyed in a terrible crash and was now making his return to the track. There seemed to be a special energy out there on the grid—and for a moment I thought it strangely seemed like my experience at Chartres.
After the start, I made my way over to the place at the Curva Parabolica that Cahier had suggested. It was a fine vantage point, and from there I watched as the race began to settle into its own rhythm. The leaders widened a gap between themselves and the rest of the field, and an order began to take shape as the race took on a collective flow. From my vantage point I could watch the lines the various drivers took through this corner using literally every inch of the track. I could also clearly see the dicing that took place at the corner as drivers sought to pass one another at high speed when their cars were only inches apart. Being there was a deeply enjoyable experience for me.
The next day I found Manny Deitz so I could return his raincoat and umbrella. I told him how much I appreciated what he had done and invited him for lunch. At lunch that day, he told me his story.
In World War II, Manny was a fighter pilot for the American Air Force. During a dogfight off the coast of Italy, he shot down an Italian plane whose pilot managed to parachute out. Instead of flying off, which he probably should have done since he had a limited amount of fuel, Manny waited to make sure the pilot’s life vest was fully inflated and that he was okay. Then he radioed for help for the downed pilot, and he circled around until it got there. When our people finally reached the flyer, Manny made a low pass and gave him the thumbs-up sign, and the Italian returned it. As he flew off, Manny wagged his wings as if to say goodbye.
When the war ended, Manny went back to Philadelphia. One day, a letter came from the Italian flyer, who had tracked Manny down from the number on the plane’s wings. The flyer asked if he could come see him, and Manny said yes. When they finally met, the Italian said, “You know, you saved my life, and I feel as if I would like to stay connected to you. I’d like for us to work together. My family has a leather goods factory that makes shoes and purses. Would you be my partner? We could start a branch over in the States.” So ever since the war, this Italian and Manny have been co-owners of a successful manufacturing business in shoes and handbags made in Italy and marketed in Europe and the United States, and they’ve been the best of friends as well as business partners.
I’ve thought a great deal about Manny and his story and about the race I had seen and about all that had happened. I now know that this adventure was an important early step toward significant learning later in my life.
In the first place, years later in life it provided a kind of landmark in memory of how not to operate as we move to create new circumstances. Yes, it’s important to see the world as full of possibilities—to shift our world view from one of resignation to one of possibility. But if we are to participate in the unfolding process of the universe, we must let life flow through us, rather than attempt to control life. Again, my usual pattern had been just the contrary: to commit to something and then move to fulfill that commitment at all costs, to do whatever it took to “make it happen.” That’s exactly what had happened at the Grand Prix—I had even resorted to deception when the possibility of success looked least likely. As I was to learn over the ensuing years, this is a much less powerful way of operating in life.
This experience also provided some early insight into what I later understood as the collective state of flow. Back then, it wasn’t entirely clear what had attracted me so strongly to that motor race, but I knew something about the state of consciousness people achieve when they are so engaged in an activity that nothing else seems to matter. The experience in and of itself is so rare and so enjoyable that people will seek to replicate it at great cost—even at the risk of life itself—just for the sake of having it again. I later came to know this as the “flow state.” I had experienced this state of flow myself from time to time while listening to music, writing in my journal, running, and backpacking in the wilderness. What attracted me to motor racing was the desire to be near people who were experiencing the flow state together in dramatic and unmistakable circumstances, and where one interruption in the flow could mean death.
To see drivers pass one another around corners approaching two hundred miles per hour at extremely close tolerances is an astonishing and singular experience. It’s true that a high degree of skill, sensitive control, and good judgment are prerequisites at this level of the sport, but there is far more to it than that. In professional racing there is a code between drivers that allows close passing with a minimum of danger. It’s not often discussed, but all professional drivers at some level recognize the altered state of consciousness that occurs during a high-speed race. Relatively few drivers have the language to describe these flow states, and very little of it finds its way into their biographies or their reports to the news media.
In this state there is an extraordinary clarity, focus, and concentration. The flow of time is altered. The world champion Jackie Stewart once described it as an uncanny sense of everything in the race slowing down, as if everyone was moving in slow motion, thus permitting him to make maneuvers that would be impossible in his ordinary state.
And finally, this adventure provided to me the gift of Manny Deitz. It was a gift of many aspects. His appearance in the lobby at four-thirty in the morning when I needed him; his absolute trust in me; and, of course, his story, which spoke so clearly to me about how love and human connectedness can transcend even the circumstance of two fighter pilots locked in mortal combat. At one level it seemed such an unlikely story—yet at another level it seemed not surprising at all to me. This was another guiding event, preparing me for the shift of mind that would eventually allow me to see relationship as the organizing principle of the universe.