Last Sunday, Ross Chastain, needing to pass two cars to race his way into the championship, tried something never seen outside of a video game: he slammed his car into the wall, then used the curve of the wall to increase his velocity and slingshot him into the championship. And our C Thomas has discovered a common trait that Ross Chastain and Abraham Lincoln share.
Good morning, I’m Austerity Jones and I am here with C Thomas Printer. C Thomas, I thought you were ready to talk finance and the Federal Reserve raising 75 basis points, but it seems you have made a detour.
C Thomas: Good morning, Austerity. Sometimes you have to color or in this case drive outside the lines to make your mark noticeable. I’ve said it before and I will say it again, a legend is doing something when no one asks you to do it, and doing it well, and at considerable peril to yourself. That brings us to the 8th generation watermelon farmer, Ross Chastain. Some call him Melon Man or Ross the Boss but we shall just call him a legend after what he did last weekend. Now I haven’t been a watcher of the rowdy rednecks of auto racing for a good many years so I was not aware of the little bearded left hand turning legend in the making. If you haven’t seen his dramatic last lap pass at Martinsville Motor Speedway this week, go to Cthomasprinter.com where we have posted the link. It is one of the most incredible things I have ever seen in sports. It doesn’t look real. The only thing I can compare it to is watching Secretariat finish 31 lengths ahead of Twice a Prince at Belmont in 1973. It made you wonder if your eyes were working properly. On the last lap he was two spots down from advancing to the final four racers who would have a chance to win the Nascar Championship next week. Nascar drivers have a spotter that is positioned above and gives them information throughout the race and Ross’s spotter told him that they needed two spots, and Ross asked again and his spotter said you need two. The problem was that he wasn’t close enough to pass anyone else, he wasn’t close enough to try and bang into someone as they all turned toward the finish line at the bottom of the track. So entering the last turn instead of slowing down- he floored it right into the wall and he kept the pedal to the metal and it looked like and was a video game move. He was going approximately 130 mph right into the wall. He was able to maintain that speed banging the wall all through the corner while all the other cars exiting the turn were going around 60. His racecar was a slingshot and it catapulted him past enough cars and the man that he needed to beat to get into the final championship round, Denny Hamlin. No one has ever done that successfully and you don’t get to be a legend if it doesn’t work. The video game move was not only successful, it spoke to the sheer desperation of the moment, and the ingenuity of the man. I have done some reading about Ross Chastain this week and couldn’t believe how persistent he had to be just to become a Nascar driver. He has driven just about everything that had four wheels and needed a pit stop. He never gave up and kept trying and when faced with certain failure of advancing no one would have even noticed if he finished two spots behind or said anything about finishing fifth on the season. Yet, Ross didn’t believe that his season was over even if everyone else did and the sheer astonishment of his team, the crowd, and his spotter spoke volumes about the magnitude of what he had just done. His spotter said “I don’t know how long you have been sitting on that move, but it was fucking awesome.” Deciding to drive into a corner wall at 130 mph is something that no one would ever ask you to do, not spinning out and holding the turn and getting the spots you needed was imperative, but putting yourself in that amount of danger just for a chance to win makes you a legend. Ross will be racing for the championship next week at Phoenix and Ross we are rooting for you. If Ross wins the championship next week, he will smash a watermelon as a salute to his family’s long history of raising watermelons in the southeast.
Ross may not be the most talented driver in Nascar, but he has the best trait to be successful. That trait is simply never giving up if there is any chance to win. That brings us to our word of the week.
Persistence- firm or obstinate continuance in a course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition.
Ross’s story reminds me of our most persistent president. Abraham Lincoln did not have an easy life. He wasn’t a high school dropout but a grade school drop out and was self taught and educating himself through his love of reading. He filed bankruptcy from a failed business as a shopkeeper and like Mark Twain, did his duty and paid back his creditors. It took years and cemented Lincoln as a poor but honourable man for doing what would be incomprehensible today. His wife died of Typhoid fever and he battled depression. He failed as a politician, losing Senate races twice and races to the House of Representatives twice before finally winning his first term in Washington. Even as president in 1860 he didn’t even gather 40% of the vote and even before he was sworn in the South was making plans to secede from the union, even though his presidency didn’t have an easy period. No, the war broke out shortly after Lincoln became president and for the first few years it seemed nothing went right. Despite having an advantage in manpower, industry, and supplies the South ran roughshod over the Union army as the confederacy had the better fighters, better strategy, and better leaders in the field like Robert E Lee. The only thing required for Lincoln to win the war was the thing he had been training for all his life: don’t give up. He was steadfast in his conviction that the only thing that mattered was the continued union of the United States as constituted. He never wavered from that core belief and only victory would only achieve that goal. No president in history was ever more perfectly prepared for the task at hand. The Union army’s best laid plans were stymied again and again, with Lincoln having to replace general after general. Lincoln finally received a stroke of luck when the Confederacy decided to attack an uphill fortified position at Gettysburg and the momentum of the war changed forever after those three bloody days in 1863. Lincoln returned later that fall to that battlefield and gave what is perhaps the greatest speech in American history, the Gettysburg Address. He closed his speech with this “…we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain-that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” Lincoln was referring to his own legends in that field who doubled not just as legends but heroes.
While we can find inspiration in our sports today and courageous stock car drivers like Ross Chastain, let’s not forget the blood spilt by true legends. Let’s not forget that even though we might soon venture into our own tough times, the best way to win and succeed is to persist. To not give up, to never cave, and to never stop trying until the end. Lincoln met his end shortly after the conclusion of the war when he was killed by a bullet to the back of his head by a southern sympathizer. Ross Chastain will always be remembered as a legend in Nascar and will be talked about for as long as the sport continues because he shared some characteristics with our former president. Sports are just escapes from reality and thus the sports legends it produces are memorable but don’t resonate through history like true legends. Lincoln, for example, is on currency. May we all be so inspired while remembering his story, his remembrance of legends in his care, and his words, because despite him being self educated, he became a great orator. Abraham Lincoln the grade school dropout, the lifetime loser Abraham Lincoln, turned into one of the greatest winners in history by simply never giving up.
Sincerely Yours,
C Thomas Printer
On this date in history
162 years ago to be exact, Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States.
This week’s financial tip
Make your donation to your savings account. This requires persistence. There are no weeks off, no not because of the holidays coming up, no not because you have been good. Be as steadfast as Lincoln. Consistency in savings is key. The first goal is to get three months of bills saved. This is your emergency fund. If something goes wrong, you don’t have to make a bad or sudden decision out of desperation. Get your three months of savings and put it aside. You aren’t there yet if you only started a few weeks ago so be consistent and hold the line saver.
Also born on this date
Emma Stone, Sally Field, Suleiman the Magnificent, the legend Pat Tillman, Walter Johnson, Charles Dow of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the founder of basketball James A. Naismith.