Oilpressure

By Susan Phillips

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything here, maybe not since we went to Road America, so excuse me if I get on here to rant for just a bit. That trip to Road America was such a happy time. The weather was cool, we were both in good moods, the food was great, the drinks were even better, and that doesn’t even begin to describe how much we like being at that track. It seems like forever ago.

The very next week, George’s unsolicited job-change came on July 1; his second in two years. His previous company lost the contract to another company who did pick him up. It’s the strangest thing being in the contract world. He has been sitting in the exact same office with the same phone number for the past five years, yet he is now with his third different employer during that time. When it happened the last time in 2017, he got a nice pay raise. This time, his pay has been cut by one-third of what he was making in June—even though he is doing the same job with even a few more responsibilities. He hasn’t said much about it, but I can tell it’s weighing on him. When you’ve known somebody this long, you can just tell without them saying a word.

I live in the contract world too. For the past five years, I’ve been contracted out to a very large retailer. They prematurely ended our contract two years ago, in order to go with another company. I was lucky that the new company picked me up, but I lost my company car and took a significant pay-cut in the process. Who knows what the future holds with my current position? I guess nothing lasts forever.

It’s safe to say that this is a stressful time in the Oilpressure household.

Added to that stress is that this is the month of August. Why is August bad? Because that’s when football starts back as racing season winds down. What’s even worse? We are in a 3-week stretch with no racing.

I didn’t grow up a racing fan, like most of you. I’m not sure I ever watched the Indy 500 until George and I reconnected in 2001, after dating in college in the seventies. In 2002, George took me to the IndyCar race at Nashville Superspeedway. We sprung for garage passes where we could walk right next to the cars as they were being worked on. I remember seeing a driver who was cute and very easy on the eyes, so I asked George who it was. He said it was Alex Barron, who ended up winning the race that night. Seeing those cars and drivers so up-close sort of hooked me.

For the next several years, our two races to attend were Indy and Nashville. Then after Nashville went away, it became Barber and Indy. By the time Barber showed up on the schedule, George had started this blog site. With our media credentials, we could get even closer than ever. When we went to Fontana at the end of the 2013 season, that really gave us a taste for going to other races. By then we had developed friendships with people within the IndyCar community. We then started going to more and more races. For the past three or four years, we have been going to about half the races each season.

I went through all that to let you all know how much I have grown to love IndyCar racing through the years. The friendships we’ve made and being able to follow the racing closely has really added to that. When we stay home and watch the races on television, it’s always fun to see the people we know in the background. I don’t hesitate to say that I now love IndyCar racing, and I never, OK…rarely, balk when George puts it on television.

I can’t say the same about football. Last Thursday night, I had no idea there was a football game on. But sure enough, he came in and changed the channel to a pre-season game between Denver and Atlanta. It was August 1st, for God’s sake! I didn’t even know there was football that early. Then I noticed that they were playing at what looked like a high school stadium. It was immediately explained to me that this was the Hall of Fame game played in Canton, OH, in a tone that suggested how stupid I was to not know that.

I always forget about the pre-season. I always think about football starting after Labor Day. To make matters worse, he proudly announced that the Mid-Ohio weekend was the last weekend with no football until Mid-February. I wanted to cry.

I love watching the Tennessee Vols and the Tennessee Titans, especially when we go to their games in person. I would enjoy watching them at home, but George gets so wrapped up in them that it has sort of taken the fun out of it. Once he let out such a loud “Nooooooo!!!!!!” that the dogs both ran out of the room scared to death.

I think if you were to ask him what his favorite sport is, he would say IndyCar racing. But he doesn’t get so wrapped up in an IndyCar race on television. Any given Race Day at our home usually involves cooking wings or getting a pizza and relaxing as we watch on television. He keeps a pad nearby so he can jot down a few notes for his follow-up article, but he never gets angry or dejected. Sometimes in the closing laps of an intense race like Texas, he will move up and sit on the edge of the ottoman, but that’s about as intense as things get for a race in our house.

Football is different. It seems like life or death. He used to scream at the coach when Butch Jones was coaching the Vols, but he likes both of the current coaches of the Vols and Titans, so at least I don’t hear those rants now. But why does anyone yell at a television? If it is that frustrating, why not just turn it off and read the score when the game is over?

But of all my complaints about football, my biggest complaint is that it’s always on. I get it that he wants to watch the Titans and Vols, but please tell me what joy he gets out of watching Oregon State play Arizona at 10:00 on a Saturday night or the Bills and Jets on a Thursday night? I’ll bet I could ask him right now who won the Hall of Fame game last week and he won’t know, but he sat and watched the whole thing talking about how good it was to have football back.

I know he has been stressed out over the job situation. Two job changes in two years is tough on anyone and he needs an outlet for his stress. But I’m feeling stressed too, and may be looking at the same thing soon. Non-stop football is coming at me at the wrong time.

At least we’ll be going to Pocono next weekend. I have found that being at a race track is some of the best therapy for both of us. We tend to forget all of our problems when we are isolated in our racing bubble. It can’t get here fast enough.

This entry was posted on August 7, 2019 at 4:03 am and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.