As we sit back and enjoy this holiday season, I took a moment to reflect upon the season and it reminded me that Motorsports isn’t something that most people just wake up one day and are immediately interested in. It is rooted in our childhoods… It starts out with car noises and Tonka trucks. #vroom-vroom-errrr-vroooooom. Unwrapping those basic toddler toy cars, dump truck or tractor – many of which are not the most accurate replica of their real life counter parts – got us excited about cars. Those toys and stocking-stuffers we received were just the fuel we needed to ignite a life-long passion.
The next step into car culture was through hot wheels and matchbox cars! – These scaled down vehicles were so realistic to us, not only did they have real-life cars but they had their own crazy concepts! I remember admiring and day dreaming about designs of my own. It showed us we could think outside of the (match)box and my brother and I had an entire matchbox village as kids!
Some of us were fortunate enough to build “model cars” as a hobby. This was our first chance to customize a vehicle and make it our own. It could be any paint scheme we wanted and a blank canvas for our imagination! Some kits even came with parts to build a stock or souped up version and some kits came with multiple cars, JACKPOT! – early LS-swap-all-the-things!
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For most of us big wheels, scooters, and bicycles were our original Motorsports options! – There were plenty of races in my neighborhood among the kids. We would ride our bicycles and pretend to be on a motorcycle either making the noises by mouth or adding a baseball card to the spokes. And I have to point out, Big Wheels = Front Wheel Drive.
Those of us brave enough would even try to hit those sweet jumps!
Taking it to the next level, some of us had a dirt bike, 3 wheeler, ATV, or go kart. If we didn’t have one of our own we would jump on the chance to go to the neighborhood kids house that did have one!
Later we began to have control over cars with remote/radio controlled cars, slot cars, or even video games. Being a kid in the ’80s for me ExciteBike and RC ProAM for the original Nintendo were my go to racing games. It goes without saying, but video games have improved drastically in comparison to what was available back then!
Gran Tourismo was like nothing many of us had ever seen when it was first released.
Realistic damage, tire wear, fuel consumption, and drafting were real-life racing concepts that we had never seen in games before. This was a huge step towards making it more than just “an arcade game.” Today we can play against multiple individuals from all around the world, a huge change from two player split-screen mode on a 13″ CRT! With “photo-realistic graphics” and 4K the games look absolutely breath-taking!
Even after we got our drivers licenses we would journey out in our snail paced jalopies as if they were a race car on the back roads. The desire to be part of Motorsport was always there no matter what we were behind the wheel of! – Gifts in those days might have included tickets to a major race, monster jam, or sharing an experience with friends and family at car shows or other upcoming car-related gatherings.
Growing older doesn’t mean we can’t make our childhood toys adult sized. I realize we are still able to enjoy all of those childhood things whether it be making car noises with a toddler, collecting matchbox cars, riding a bicycle around a track after the cars are done for the day, hopping in a go-kart, or playing some video games with friends like the GTM Forza league! We can still have that enjoyment we had in our youth… like building a life size hot wheels loop (below) or going to the track.
No matter how old we get that child in us is still there! Hold on tight, and never let go!!! #peterpan
