Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Alaskans love our engines even if nobody knows it

This is a short video of a snowmachine ski race at the 2009
Arctic Man. They hit speeds of nearly 100 mph at times.


The Alaska Commons website, a well-known and respected news blog in Alaska published a story yesterday asking the question, "Why don't Alaskans embrace our passion for the sound of engines?" I think I know the answer.

To begin with, a whole lot of Alaska's motor sports take place outside the broad public view. That is the reason for them, for snowmachines and four-wheelers and small airplanes, transportation to the far places where you a can be on your own, or in the Bush villages, for hunting and fishing and trapping. The machines are now an integral part of the subsistence lifestyle of Alaska's Natives. One man's sport machine is another's basic tool for survival. And most likely there is no one around the publicize those endeavors and very few people who want anyone to do that. The only way a casual observer might get a picture of the size of this motoring group is to watch the parade of trailers holding snowmachines or four-wheelers heading out of Anchorage on weekends.

The big exception to those rules is the Arctic Man gathering when every spring the Hoodoo Mountains become Alaska's fourth largest city, hosting a a crowd of snowmachine riders from just about everywhere in the state. It's a winter Sturgis.

But there's another, more likely reason motor sports in Alaska aren't publicized well. Despite the probability that Alaska's residents are at or near the top of the list for per capita ownership of snowmachines, four-wheelers, airplanes, and yes, maybe even river boats, you seldom read about them in any of the news media that serve the state.

This is the subtle myopia of the press these days, or perhaps it always has been. For more than 40 years I have worked on and off in the Alaska news media and in that time I don't recall meeting one person at least on the editorial side of things who owns any of the above vehicles. The possible exception might be Craig Medred who likes to go against the grain, any grain. (Written with respect, Craig.)

At least as some radical conservatives like to point out, a stereotypical reporter lives in a city and owns a Subaru. Recreational preferences of these folks include cross-country skiing; climbing Flattop; running; my favorite, winter bicycling; bicycling in general; and a wealth of urban sports, not one stinky, loud engine necessary among any of those activities. There was a joke in the newsroom that if Congress burned down and somebody local won a 10K, the 10k would lead the paper that night. Instead of trailer hitches, their vehicles are adorned with ski racks and bicycle carriers.

The Alaska Commons article pointed to all the motor racing that goes on in the state. I am well aware of that, but never having gone, I wonder how many fans motor sports draw. I live close enough to Alaska Raceway Park to hear the drag races every Sunday in the summer. Now, you would think someone who constantly seeks the solitude and quiet of the wilderness would hate that disruption. Not for this person. In my late teens and early 20s I spent time at drag races and can still hear the radio ads that pervaded the airwaves in those days."SUNDAAAAAAY!!!   NIAGARA INTERNAITONAL DRAG STRIP,  SUNDAAAAAY!!!!"

When I hear those high-rev engines over at the raceway park on SUNDAAAAAYs, I love it.  Warm reminders of a misspent youth with loud engines fast cars, lots of beer and a Sunday sunburn from the bleachers or pits. I have yet to wander over there to watch but I look forward to the engines I can hear every weekend.  I doubt the sound of a Subaru would even carry this far.

The owner of that raceway has petitioned to build an oval track on the grounds. Of course residents howled loudly about the noise and traffic that would bring into a relatively quiet neighborhood. Supposedly petitions were circulated to stop the project, but no one ever approached me to sign one. I wouldn't have. Friday or Saturday dirt track stock car racing would be another welcome sound over here. In the days of that misspent youth a whole gang of us often went to the dirt track races in Holland, New York. The odor of exhaust, loud engines, beer and warm summer nights made for an intoxicating mix. Often it was the place to take a date though that might have been the reason those relationships never went very far. There are races here not far away but again, I have yet to venture to see them. Maybe next year.

Even the public nature (and romance) of racing doesn't draw the media. I recall editing paragraph-long stories with a lot of agate listing who won what race at what race track on a Saturday night, but that was it. It's surprising given that auto racing nationally is supposed to be the country's most popular spectator sport.

It's back to that stereotype and the myopia. Newsman or not, if you aren't interested in something, you are a lot less likely to want to write about it or assign someone else to write about it. And when an entire media is pretty much inured with quiet sports, the stories just don't come out. And if it doesn't get written about or put on TV, it looks like Alaskans aren't embracing their love of engines.

I can't count the number of stories I have edited about climbing Flattop or hiking Powerline Pass, but I don't recall any about an extended snowmachine trip into the Bush unless it was about the Iron Dog, and even that race gets minimal coverage.  A picture of Sarah Palin kissing her husband good-bye at the start and a three paragraph story about the finish in Fairbanks a couple of days later.

This myopia isn't unique to Alaska. Almost anywhere outside the NASCAR cities of the South, motor racing takes a back page in the sports sections to any sport involving a ball, or at least fancy running shoes.

It's not that we don't embrace the sounds of our engines, it's that nobody else hears them, at least not the way we hear them. And, if they do, it brings more complaint than appreciation.



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Memorable quotations

The best way to know you are having an adventure is when you wish you were home talking about it." — a mechanic on the Alaska State Ferry System. Or as in my own case planning how I will be writing it on this blog.

"You can't promote principled anti-corruption without pissing off corrupt people." — George Kent

"If only the British had held on to the airports, the whole thing might have gone differently for us." — Mick Jagger

"You can do anything as long as you don't scare the horses." — a mother's favorite saying recalled by a friend

A poem is an egg with a horse inside” — anonymous fourth grader

“My children will likely turn my picture to the wall but what the hell, you only get old once." — Joe May

“Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.” — Ernest Hemingway

When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth. Kurt Vonnegut

“If you wrote something for which someone sent you a cheque, if you cashed the cheque and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented.”Stephen King

The thing about ignorance is, you don't have to remain ignorant. — me again"

"It was like the aftermath of an orgasm with the wrong partner." – David Lagercrants “The Girl in the Spider’s Web.”

Why worry about dying, you aren't going to live to regret it.

Never debate with someone who gets ink by the barrel" — George Hayes, former Alaska Attorney General who died recently

My dear Mr. Frost: two roads never diverge in a yellow wood. Three roads meet there. — @Shakespeare on Twitter

Normal is how somebody else thinks you should act.

"The mark of a great shiphandler is never getting into situations that require great shiphandling," Adm. Ernest King, USN

Me: Does the restaurant have cute waitresses?

My friend Gail: All waitresses are cute when you're hungry.

I'm not a writer, but sometimes I push around words to see what happens. – Scott Berry

I realized today how many of my stories start out "years ago." What's next? Once upon a time?"

“The rivers of Alaska are strewn with the bones of men who made but one mistake” - Fred McGarry, a Nushagak Trapper

Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stared at walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing. – Meg Chittenden

A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity. – Franz Kafka

We are all immortal until the one day we are not. – me again

If the muse is late, start without her – Peter S. Beagle

Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. ~Mark Twain Actually you could do the same thing with the word "really" as in "really cold."

If you are looking for an experience that will temper your vanity, this is it. There's no one to impress when you're alone on the trap line. – Michael Carey quoting his father's journal

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. – Benjamin Franklin

It’s nervous work. The state you need to write in is the state that others are paying large sums of money to get rid of. – Shirley Hazzard

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence -- Bertrand Russell

You know that I always just wanted to have a small ship to take stuff from a place that had a lot of that stuff to a place that did not have a lot of that stuff and so prosper.—Jackie Faber, “The Wake of the Lorelei Lee”

If you attack the arguer instead of the argument, you lose both

If an insurance company won’t pay for damages caused by an “act of God,” shouldn’t it then have to prove the existence of God? – I said that

I used to think getting old was about vanity—but actually it’s about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial. – Eugene O’Neill

German General to Swiss General: “You have only 500,000 men in your army; what would you do if I invaded with 1 million men?”

Swiss General: “Well, I suppose every one of my soldiers would need to fire twice.”

Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.—Gloria Steinem

Exceed your bandwidth—sign on the wall of the maintenance shop at the West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center

One thing I do know, if you keep at it, you usually wind up getting something done.—Patricia Monaghan

Do you want to know what kind of person makes the best reporter? I’ll tell you. A borderline sociopath. Someone smart, inquisitive, stubborn, disorganized, chaotic, and in a perpetual state of simmering rage at the failings of the world.—Brett Arends

It is a very simple mind that only knows how to spell a word one way.—Andrew Jackson

3:30 is too late or too early to do anything—Rene Descartes

Everything is okay when it’s 50-below as long as everything is okay. – an Alaskan in Tom Walker’s “The Seventymile Kid”

You can have your own opinion but you can’t have your own science.—commenter arguing on a story about polar bears and global warming

He looks at three ex wives as a good start—TV police drama

Talkeetna: A friendly little drinking town with a climbing problem.—a handmade bumper sticker

“You’re either into the wall or into the show”—Marco Andretti on giving it all to qualify last at the 2011 Indy 500

Makeup is not for the faint of heart—the makeup guerrilla

“I’m going to relax in a very adult manner.”—Danica Patrick after sweating it out and qualifying half an hour before Andretti

“Asking Congress to come back is like asking a mugger to come back because he forgot your wallet.”—a roundtable participant on Fox of all places

As Republicans go further back in the conception process to define when life actually begins, I am beginning to think the eventual definition will be life begins in the beer I was drinking when I met her.—me again

Hunting is a “critical element for the long-term conservation of wood bison.”—a state department of Fish and Game official explaining why the state would not go along with a federal plan to reintroduce wood bison in Alaska because the agreement did not specifically allow hunting

Each day do something that won’t compute – anon

I can’t belive I still have to protest this shit – a sign carriend by an elderly woman at an Occupy demonstration

Life should be a little nuts or else it’s just a bunch of Thursdays strung together—Kevin Costner as Beau Burroughs in “Rumor has it”

You’re just a wanker whipping up fear —Irish President Michael D. Higgins to a tea party radio announcer

Being president doesn’t change who you are; it reveals who you are—Michelle Obama

Sports malaprops

Commenting on an athlete with hearing impairment he said the player didn’t show any “uncomfortability.” “He's not doing things he can't do."

"… there's a fearlessment about him …"

"He's got to have the lead if he's going to win this race." "

"Kansas has always had the ability to score with the basketball."

"NFL to put computer chips in balls." Oh, that's gotta hurt.

"Now that you're in the finals you have to run the race that's going to get you on the podium."

"It's very important for both sides that they stay on their feet."

This is why you get to hate sportscasters. Kansas beats Texas for the first time since 1938. So the pundits open their segment with the question "let's talk about what went wrong." Wrong? Kansas WON a football game! That's what went RIGHT!

"I brought out the thermostat to show you how cold it is here." Points to a thermometer reading zero in Minneapolis.

"It's tough to win on the road when you turn the ball over." Oh, really? Like you can do all right if you turn the ball over playing at home?

Cliches so embedded in sportscasters' minds they can't help themselves: "Minnesota fell from the ranks of the undefeated today." What ranks? They were the only undefeated team left.

A good one: A 5'10" player went up and caught a pass off a defensive back over six feet tall. The quote? "He's got some hops."

Best homonym of the day so far: "It's all tied. Alabama 34, Kentucky 3." Oh, Tide.

"Steve Hooker commentates on his Olympic pole vault gold medal." When "comments" just won't do.

"He's certainly capable of the top ten, maybe even higher than that."

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"First you have to get two strikes on the hitter before you get the strikeout."

"The game ended in the final seconds." You have to wonder when the others ended or are they still going on?

How is a team down by one touchdown before the half "totally demoralized?"

"If they score runs they will win."

"I think the matchup is what it is"

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"Somebody is going to be the quarterback or we're going to see a new quarterback."

"That was a playmaker making a play.”