- Aug 8, 2007
- 5,256
PS Baseball, golf, tennis, ext are games. If you can't die doing it, then it's not a sport.
Just sayin...if you're willing to endure this, you earn some leeway in my opinion. Realistically, what do many of these drivers get paid? I read once in Racer that Sebastien Bourdais was estimated to earn base pay of $500k a year in IndyCar. He's won the 24 Hours of Le Mans and Rolex 24, won many ChampCar and IndyCar races, raced in Formula One, ALMS, etc. If THAT guy makes $500k, which is a lot less than a great deal of people on this site, what do you really think guys like Dirk and Joey got paid? Personally I think they should literally have just given the car to Joey, Dirk and Seb for free, and that's before I even get into what happened to all these guys' racing careers with the slow-motion deflation of the GT race program.
Obviously Nascar guys can make a lot more money than Sportscar drivers.
Either way, not many people do work that periodically leaves you with a pit in your stomach waiting to see if they survived. For the record, basically everyone that ever drove the GT in competition got an allocation. Hand, Bourdais, Mueller, Westbrook, Briscoe, Dixon, Tincknell, Priaulx, Pla, Mucke, Johnson, Kanaan, Derani. I'm sure many of them will be sold and I hope those dudes get a nice bonus out of it.
Agree completely
That guy needs a new job. I could say that about being a career pilot. Except it was, and still is fun. If it's just a job, quit. Go do what you love to do. If you don't have the passion for the sport to teach it, your students will not learn. I know 75 year old flight instructors that still teach because they can't fly anymore. That's passion, not a job. As a side note, I left Atlanta from the Petit and drove my car down to Bozard Ford in St. Augustine for service. Bozard had a '17 Heritage...for 2 years and sold it. Everyone saw it here go up. One of the first. I asked all that met me why he sold it. He wasn't a car guy.I first got irritated, then realized the investment he committed to Ford to service these special cars. Would have loved to seen that car going to a Forum member. But it was Ford's choice and I am okay with it. They treated me right and I would recommend to anyone to have service there if needed. My .02 worth...Can't help but also agree with this.
Went to the Ford Racing School at Miller, we had Grand Am drivers as instructors then.
One time I commented on all I was learning and plus how much dang fun I was having.
Must be blast to be a pro racer I said.
I will never forget what one of them told me.
"When you start to drive professionally, week after week, year after year at the intense level we do, it becomes just a job you do,
a really dangerous job that can ware on you at times, a job that can kill you're ass. Sure, its great to win, that's what its all about,
but fun, not so much anymore, it's just a job you do"
I hope the lucky people who get to buy one of these ex racer GT's really appreciate it, and its not for profit.
These GT's will automatically already have built in prominence and cool factor.
The 17 Heritage is just sick, wish I had the extra resources to grab one of those, dang!