Spotter's Guide To The June 2014 Road&Track

Well, this feels like the end of a very long journey. Page 98 has my feature story, "Big In Malaysia", covering the events of last May and June. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that now seems like it happened a million years ago.

When I was an eleven-year-old reading R&T at the Miller Park Library, it never occurred to me that someday I'd be on the far side of the globe racing on a Formula One track. Getting this story done and published required a fair amount of bravery from a number of people, including:

• Bobby Ang, the ringmaster of the circus

• Mohamed Azman, who let a crazy stranger drive his car without so much as a five-ringgit note's worth of crash deposit

• Nicholas Gomez, who made sure I had a car to drive and places to go and some local ice cream

• Sam Smith, who was an early champion of the idea and who whipped me along when I had some early issues writing it up

• Larry Webster, who fought for the story, the money required to do it, and the tremendous space needed in the magazine

• John Krewson, who patiently edited the more patently offensive parts out so the story read like Road&Track and not Penthouse Forum

• Rebecca Jones, who did all the fact-checking --- in itself, a massive task

• My former boss at my day job, who supported my taking over two weeks off in the middle of a major product push. Too bad his replacement wasn't nearly as understanding

• Jeff and Dell at TrackGuys who let me warm up for the trip at Sebring

• The nice people at Nissan who let me borrow a Juke to drive around Sebring

• The young lady who kept me company in Sebring

• The younger lady who sent me the "Nashville" shirt I wore on the podium

• The mother of my son, who scheduled a trip to Florida in such a way that I was able to return to the States and spend two days with him at Disneyworld

Now that this story is out and done, I suppose it's time for another adventure, isn't it?