I’ve never been a fan of celebrity philosophy. You know the sort of thing I mean. It’s all over the internet. Somehow the idea of taking life advice from some pimply-faced “star” who has made such a spectacular success of their life (!) seems to be somewhat incongruous. Anyway, never mind. Occasionally there IS someone in the public realm who DOES say something that is worth remembering and the title of my little missive today is one of them.
The quote is, of course, from the late Peter Brock, legendary Australian racing driver. He is quoted as saying, “People say you shouldn’t bite off more than you can chew. I disagree. I think you SHOULD bite off more than you can chew then just chew harder.” (or words to that effect). As a piece of home-grown philosophy, it’s not bad, is it? Instead of being afraid of failure, we should attempt what seems impossible and work as hard as we can to achieve it.
The saying has a great deal to do with the events of last weekend. While it has little or nothing to do with motorcycling, it has a great deal to do with life and ordinary people achieving extraordinary things by simply biting off a big bit of life and chewing harder.
As regular lifers will know, one of my other non-motorcycling hats is commentating at my local speedway in Nowra. My speedway passion predates my motorcycling passion by many years and my involvement in the sport as firstly a spectator and soon a participant goes back to the very start of my motorcycling life, 1976, in fact, just three years after I first rode.
Over the years I have been commentating at Nowra I have seen many committees and promoters come and go. Speedway is a funny sport and, like many other club-run ventures, it is subject to almost constant change for a myriad of reasons, many of them having a great deal to do with personalities, political in-fighting, money (and the lack thereof) and the changing nature of peoples’ interests. So, when I found out a couple of months ago that the administration of my local track had been taken over by a new club and its new committee, I was a little concerned.
It became clear that the new committee was on a “new broom” campaign but I was assured from the beginning that my services would most definitely still be required and the new guys took me into their confidence as to what was happening from Day 1. Now I must explain that I have never been a member of any organising club for very good reasons. As a commentator I always try to remain impartial and it has always been my feeling that, were I to be a member of the organising club, that that impartiality could be compromised. I had clarified my position with previous organising committees and my wishes have always been respected as they have been by the new administration.
I was very concerned, however, when it became clear that the committee was made up of three guys who had never actually done the job before. One was a currently competing driver, and the other two were ex-drivers and none of them appeared to have the necessary CV to take on the daunting task of running and promoting a speedway track. Having had some experience in that kind of endeavour, I was more than a little anxious that they had the enthusiasm but not the means wherewith to put it into effect.
I was heartened by the enthusiasm but I knew that this job can very quickly grind it away with its constant demands and I was worried if the guys could stay the course. Nevertheless, I threw my weight behind them and agreed to do what I could to help without becoming involved in the “nitty gritty” of their job. Attendance at a couple of committee meetings to be briefed on what the “big picture” encouraged me and I agreed to take on a few small jobs to help them out.
You can see where this is heading, can’t you? One of the small jobs was a re-vamp of the track’s web site which had been created then left to atrophy due to the usual reasons that this happens in most organisations. As you have most probably found yourself, creating a web presence isn’t that difficult these days but MAINTAINING it and keeping it up to date and relevant is where most businesses and organisations fall down.
It took several days to update every page, delete outdated information and cull a great deal of rubbish. What we were left with is a useful web site. BUT, having a good web site is no longer enough in this digital age. The previous administration had also created a Facebook group page and was disseminating much of its information through this medium as it is much easier to manage for non-tech-savvy people. The problem was that the initial rush of enthusiasm for social media had also stalled and the Facebook site was a bit “stale” too. Since my philosophy has always been that the Facebook site should be the first point of contact and should point interested parties TO the web site where the detailed information is found, it took a bit of juggling to align the two entities so that they both were “on the same page” as the saying goes.
I’m happy to say that that is now the case and, with some regular, but not arduous input, the two are now clicking along nicely. Chewing harder has its rewards.
However, just three meetings into its new season, the new committee was faced with an enormous challenge, one which would test, to the limits, its ability to bite off a huge task and digest it.
The Australian Speedcar Grand Prix is one of the most prestigious stand-alone races on the Australian speedway calendar. First staged in 1938 and continuing to the present day (with an hiatus during WWII) the race has been won by the cream of both Australian and American drivers (think Gary Rush, George Tatnell, Steve Kinser, Bob Tattersall, A J Foyt and you’ll get some idea). For the last 4 seasons the race has been run at Nowra, a track that suits the little speedcars so well, but it has to be said that, in the last few years, it wasn’t run especially well. Could the new committee not only RUN such a prestigious and demanding event, but could the also erase the memory of a chaotic 2015 show that caused bad feelings in almost every camp?
The task of organising ANY race meeting is a headache, trust me, I know. Organising such a BIG event is a logistical nightmare. But, to their credit the guys chewed harder. Race night saw the pits packed to the doors with 82 cars from several different classes of cars racing that night. Free-to-air advertising and extensive digital exposure combined with an area crammed with summer holiday tourists meant a crowd that was vastly bigger than any that the “old hands” had ever seen swarmed into the venue. The usual car parking areas were filled and cars were parked in vacant areas that had never been used before and THEY filled up too. The club called on every volunteer that they could and the call was answered. Old political enmities were laid to rest (even if only temporarily) as everyone did what had to be done to make it work. It was a heartening sight.
Was it a success? Heck, yes. The racing was champagne. Possibly the only “downer” for the parochial NSW crowd was that the AGP was won by a Queenslander (driving a Victorian car). Anthony Chaffey, seen above, took out the race ahead of Matt Jackson who pipped Jaimie McKinlay right on the line after 30 laps of furious racing.
Feedback on social media indicates that the meeting was a promotional success; happy, smiling faces in the pits afterwards were in abundance and the general feeling was that, not only had the club erased the memories of the unfortunate events of 2015, but that they had also ensured that the track would be well positioned to be asked to run the event again when its turn comes around again.
It’s silly to say that nothing is impossible, but, sometimes things that SEEM to be impossible can actually be accomplished if you bite them off and chew as hard as you can. And there is a bit of “celebrity philosophy” with which I DO agree.