The God Room
I don’t talk very much about what I do for my hobby, other than it involves a lot of travel and cars that go fast. But, someone said something last weekend that got stuck in my mind and refuses to let go.
I went out to dinner and ran into some friends and with them was a cardiologist from the Cleveland Clinic who is working on some new technology with us that they will then be able to implement in ambulances and emergency rooms around the world. Now, the group of people was quite fascinating since it had 3 doctors, a physical therapist, a nurse and the technologist working on the project. Then there was me. I was asked what do I do and I tried to give my standard explanation about I do analysis of data for Race Control and one of the doctors piped up, she works in the God Room.
The God Room, what a fascinating and descriptive way to explain where I work and yet at the same time, it doesn’t explain the people in the room at all. It is a group of 7 people who I don’t think could be less god like. I remember when I first got into racing and people would mention Race Control or someone worked in there, I felt awe and I got shy and nervous and felt very small since why would such powerful people want to spend time with little ole me. Now after being in the room, I can tell you that we are just normal people with a whole bunch of flaws working as hard as possible and doing the best we can.
Do you remember Junior High/High School and all the cliques? You had the Student Body, the Athletes, the Cheerleaders and the Geeks (oh yeah, and the band J ). Well Racing is just like that. Race Control is the Student Body, the Drivers are the Athletes, the Cheerleaders are the Pace Car Girls and the Geeks/Band is Timing and Scoring. I am not quite sure how I ended up in the student body but the reality is that we are exactly the same as the Band in regards to our insecurities and geekiness and after all this time, I am beginning to think that ALL of the cliques were exactly the same, it just depends on how good you are at hiding the insecurity and what people’s perception is of you more than it matters who and what you are.
A part of me is still kind of unable to grasp the fact that I am someone ‘of interest’ to people. I guess, once you are a band member that you can never quite grasp the being ‘popular’ concept. Hmmmm… I wonder how much of that is the fact I work in the God Room in comparison to ME being fascinating?
