I grew up outside Cleveland, OH in the 1950's and 1960's. Not everybody was a car nut, but boys could talk cars even if they weren't interested in them. It was a topic of polite teenaged male conversation. On the radio, we heard pop songs about cars by Chuck Berry and the Beach Boys. There was a drag strip less than an hour from my house. Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course was two hours away. My best friends were as car-nutty as I was. Later, when I was a young adult, my neighbor two doors down ran a pro-stock Chevy Vega drag car. His brother-in-law rode a Harley Sportster.
Cleveland was a car town: steel mills, parts suppliers to the Big Three, tool and die shops. A Ford engine foundry was in Cleveland (still is). Akron, "the tire capital of the world" was just down the road. Toledo was the home of Jeep, and GM put up the Lordstown assembly plant (near Warren) when I was a teenager. My own little town was home to a sports car dealership (fairly exotic in those days).
In 1980 I moved to Minneapolis. It was like moving to Mars. Cars just never came up in conversation unless you, the car nut, brought them up. When you did, people listened politely and then changed the subject to the Twins, Vikings, golf, hockey, ice-fishing, or deer-hunting. It seemed like everybody drove an American sedan, and those who didn't already drive Oldsmobiles aspired to Buicks. Whitebread cars. If you drove an imported car, you were an odd duck. (Minneapolis was where I learned that normal people, without a business need, drove pickup trucks by choice. I still don't understand that.)
Brainerd (the sports car course) was over two hours away, and seemed further. Nobody I met in my new social circles had been there. I went myself once (and saw David Hobbs win a Trans Am race in a Camaro). It was flat and featureless, a pale shadow of Mid-Ohio or Watkins Glen. Not an interesting place to watch sports car racing, and I didn't go back. In 1987 I ran into a guy who said "You should try Road America in Elkhart Lake--I go every year." I did--and started going every year. But Road America was a day's drive away, on the other side of Wisconsin. Minneapolis had Jerry Hansen, an SCCA multiple championship winner, but he was considered odd, and his home track was Road America.
In 1990 I moved to Chicago. It was like moving back home, only better. I again found people who's eyes brightened when you brought cars up in conversation. Chicago had Lotus and Ferrari dealerships (it's a big town). I quickly discovered my sports car club and high-speed autocrossing. Besides Road America (which is both awesome and Chicago's road racing home track) there are three club circuits within a couple of hours of the Loop. Chicago has a Ford assembly plant, Chrysler has one in Belvidere, and GM has one in Janesville WI just across the state line (now mothballed--it built SUV's). While they're not my cup of tea, Joliet has a 1.5 mile NASCAR oval and a drag strip that runs pro NHRA events. Whatever your taste in motorsports, it is easily indulged in Chicagoland.
My best car-nut pal these days grew up in Detroit. His experience as a kid was the same as mine in Cleveland. He doesn't know what it's like to be exiled to Mars, and never will (lucky him). I've never been to Sedona, AZ. But, climate aside, I know what it's like to live there. It's worse than boredom. It's ennui.
(From my desktop dictionary--"ennui: a feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement. ORIGIN: mid-18th century French, from Latin; compare with ANNOY.")
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| Buick Ennui: Official Car of the Minneapolis/Sedona Sensibility, in that popular shade of washed-out metallic champagne. |
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