The Ferrari Effect
Last week I wrote a story about cancer. It used a little movie called The Art of Racing in the Rain to develop the theme that life is fragile and fleeting and that everyone needs to learn how to operate under the inclement conditions of life. The story is told through a golden retriever named Enzo, as in Enzo Ferrari. And sure enough, the main protagonist ends up becoming a test track driver for Ferrari in Maranello, Italy. Ferrari is held up as the epitome of excellence in both engineering and design, and I’m sure there are many who would agree with that sentiment.
I think it has been years since I’ve seen a movie that features a race car, much less a Ferrari. So, why is it that there is suddenly another movie that features the racing and rearing black stallion on a field of yellow and red? That logo came from Count Francesco Baracca, a famous WWI Italian ace that painted the symbol on his fighter plane. It may be one of the great brands of the modern world and certainly one of the sexiest brands in the automotive world. The new movie I just saw is called Ford v. Ferrari with Matt Damon as Carroll Shelby and Christian Bale as Ken Miles. Carroll Shelby is the famous race car designer and ex-driver and Ken Miles was one of the greatest race car drivers of all time. They lead the Ford team against Ferrari in this true story.
This movie is the story of people who live life on the edge for the greater glory of achievement. These are people who live life with great gusto and who dare greatly, sometimes fail and other times succeed spectacularly. They also sometimes lay dying by the side of the track when they flame out in their failed attempts. This is folly to some and true heroism to others. I suppose the difference is whether you think race car driving is worth the risk. While some gear-heads will undoubtedly claim that car racing is what leads to advancement in auto mechanics, I think the young Lee Iacocca character in the movie, the main driver of the Ford Motor Company’s drive to get into racing, says it best up-front in the Ford corporate meeting when he states that car sales need the spark of sexiness that comes from something like Ford prevailing on the race track. I would contrast that with what drives Carroll Shelby and Ken Miles, which is perhaps best described by the non-pragmatic answer given by top mountain climbers when they simply say, “because it is there” when asked why they do it.
I will never be a race car driver. Watching Henry Ford II, nicknamed “Deuce”, wedge his portly and XXXL body into the Ford GT race car when Shelby scares the bejesus out of him by driving him around the race track at speed, made me remember why I am unlikely to ever drive a race car. Some bodies are not meant to fit into a race car. I would hope that I wouldn’t scream like a scared little girl and cry openly as Deuce does, but we will probably never find out. It’s a funny scene and the closest I can claim to seeing that reaction personally was the time I took my manly, rugby-playing, bar-fighting Welsh friend Michael on a motorcycle ride and he squealed like a little girl when I gave him a fast ride way back when. I guess we all have different things that scare the bejesus out of us. I ride motorcycles very fast and love it, but might pee my pants in a race car and would certainly hurl chunks in a jet fighter.
But back to Ken Miles (Christian Bale) for a moment. He was a Brit who drove a tank across Europe from Normandy to Berlin during WWII. I think that qualifies in spades as him having looked into the abyss and found his inner strength. There is little doubt in my mind that that experience shaped his psyche with regard to risk-taking. He would not be the first warrior who was forever changed by battle. But he had something else which is equally worthy of respect, and that was that he had the technical expertise and familiarity with his vehicle that combined with his driving skill and his risk-taking manner to allow him to push his car further and faster than other drivers who were less familiar with the wrench. In fact, the wrench he throws at Carroll Shelby early in the film is the symbol that stays until the end as the basis of his driving excellence. That makes his feats all the more impressive because they were predicated on informed risk-taking, not carelessness.
When I ride my motorcycle and I ride it fast I do so when I know the bike is sound, when the road is dry and in good shape and when the variables of the traffic are minimal. It is one of the reasons I do most of my really fast driving in the southwest. It does not mean that I have eliminated risk, that would both be impossible and probably (secretly) undesirable. The risk ingredient in life is the rush and the spice that drives many of us to some degree. I will go so far as to say that it is one of the things that makes life worth living. But, I pride myself as a rider of over fifty years as minimizing the risk and maximizing the rush. That is what Ken Miles seems to have done.
What I also liked about Miles was that in the end of his run at LeMans (no spoiler alert here) he shows why he is made of the right stuff and is a worthy star of this film and an historical character that deserves the tip of the hat he gets from afar from Enzo Ferrari after the race. And there again, we have the essence of Ferrari coming through in this story. Ferrari dominated LeMans from 1949-1965. It was their golden age. They are the New York Yankees of car racing and the growing dominance of Ford, Porsche and a host of newer pretenders to the throne in no way diminish the standing of the brand and the prestige of that black prancing stallion. I would argue that it is the Ferrari Effect that breeds men like Carroll Shelby and Ken Miles and that they are worlds different from Deuce Ford and other corporate functionaries. Only Lee Iacocca shows through to be enough of a corporate maverick to earn a place on the same page as the heroes of racing.