HAYDEN: Beyond the Visor; Trust

Trust is one of the most important elements of any relationship. If you think about it, in order to function in society, we put a lot of trust in others. Children put their trust in adults to get them places and take care of them. Adults put their trust in each other when they drive down the road; we trust that everyone on the road will follow the rules. We trust family and friends with secrets, and we trust spouses to support us and to be faithful.

There is so much trust involved in racing, too. When I drive down into a corner under someone, I have to trust that they will leave me space to race them. They also have to trust that I will not slide up and run into them. Some of the best racing you’ll ever see is between people who share that trust in each other, because they will race extremely hard and extremely close.

But trust in racing extends beyond that as well. I think about my relationship with my dad in terms of racing. As I have mentioned in previous columns, I didn’t start racing until I was 17. I had been around it and understood the basic concepts, but I was still a newbie. During those first few years, my dad would basically watch me make laps and then make adjustments based on what he saw. Sure, he would ask me what I thought, but at the end of the day he would do what he felt was best. There was not a lot of trust in me to give effective feedback about what I needed to go faster. Heck, I even recently found out that he took our race truck to a practice session without me, and had my cousin drive it to get his feedback on what the truck was doing! I had never heard that story until a month ago!

That’s the thing about trust — it has to be earned. I clearly hadn’t earned that trust from my dad yet. If we fast forward to my third year of racing, I probably had 40 total races under my belt by the end of the season. We were racing factory stocks then, and after the first part of the 2005 season we were very competitive and even won a couple of races in the middle of the year. My dad would listen to me about the car, but he never really consulted me on what changes we would make. I can remember many times walking up to the pit stands at Auto City to watch some practice, and if I looked back at my pit area, my dad would be under the hood or under the rear end doing something. Before I went back out again, he would give me a heads-up about what might be different, but he didn’t usually consult me about those changes.

At the very end of the 2005 season, Auto City had a no-rules race called “The Finale.” It was still on 8-inch tires and wheels, and for cars with a 108-inch wheelbase or longer, but other than that you could pretty much do what you wanted. Most guys built a small sideboard and strapped on a big carb (factory stocks were a 2-barrel class back then). However, my dad was retired, so he had two weeks to tinker — and my dad loved to tinker.

To prepare for this race, we put long skirts on the sides of the car, added a lengthened front valance to the nose, removed the exhaust completely after the headers, took the tail panel off, removed all of the lead, installed a large curved spoiler with a small sideboard, bolted on a 650 cfm 2-barrel carburetor, and soaked a set of tires. We got out there and, boy, were we fast. There was really only one other car in our league — a guy by the name of Mike Walther, who had a Nova that was a bad fast car. I think he had fast time by .01 that night, and nobody else was really close to the two of us. There was a qualifying race that set the lineup for the feature. In that race, Mike won and I finished second, but he definitely had the better car at that point, and now would be starting ahead of me in the feature. My car was trending loose the longer the race went, so I really had to baby the steering wheel and the throttle.

After the race, I went up in the stands to say hi to my family and friends who were there.

When I got back to the car, my dad was under the back of it.

“Whatcha doin’ under there?” I asked.

“Gotta free this thing up if we’re gonna win,” he replied.

“No, no, no — it was already too free. We need to tighten it up a little bit!” I exclaimed.

He crawled out from under the car and looked at me. “Well, I don’t know. It looked to me like it wouldn’t turn good enough,” he said.

“Dad, I promise you, if you can tighten this car up a little bit, I am going to win this race.” I don’t know if it was the look in my eye or the way I said it, but that was the moment my dad knew he had to trust me.

“Well, you’re driving it, so I guess it’s up to you,” he replied.

Then we actually talked about what to change. We decided on a round of wedge, closed up the stagger just a hair, and assumed the track would tighten up a little more as the night went on.  

Feature time rolled around. I was starting eighth, and the race was 40 laps. As soon as the green dropped, I drove straight to the front. I think I took the lead around lap 15. The last 25 laps went all green, and I drove off and left the field. With the open headers, she was just screaming! I crossed the line to comfortably take the win, and a few moments later, as I climbed out, I saw my dad with a huge smile on his face.

From that point on, he trusted me when it came to the car. But I had to earn that trust — and he had to give me the opportunity to earn it. As people, we have to give others chances to show they are trustworthy. At the end of the day, part of being a contributing member of society is showing we are trustworthy, and placing our trust in others. If you think about it, many of the times we feel the most hurt (or when we hurt others) are when trust is broken. So as you move forward, think about what type of parent, spouse, employee, or friend you want to be — and what you want those people to be to you. Surround yourself with people you trust, and give them reasons to trust you, too. Just like my dad trusted me that day in 2005. Trust can create magical memories.

As always, please feel free to leave feedback on Facebook, or you can email me at kylehayden2214@gmail.com. Hopefully you thought this was as good as a three-wide finish for a win in the slow heat! Until next time — race on!