Keeping In The Groove 

It was my privilege a few weeks ago to be around a young racer on his first week out.  He was not raised up through the Jr. dragster program and his only racing exposure had been attending a couple of National events. This is how many of us first got involved in racing. Of course, that was long before the many programs that we have today such as High School drags and the Jr. program.

As he was learning to get staging and the lights down, people were trying to give him just as much information on the other end of the track.  His head must have been spinning with so much information coming at him from all around.  What I thought was the best was when he lost in second round; he got in the second chance race and lost there in first round.  Yet he still had a giant smile on his face and you would have thought that he’d won the entire race.  Can you still remember how great it was when you first started…even when you went out early?  That’s what it’s all about: having fun.

With all of this information being given to this young racer, I just wanted him to be safe, have a good time, and keep in the groove.  With so much inexperience and a fairly quick car, I just wanted him to have fun and not lose it all.  I mean you can train for everything, cutting a good light, playing the stripe at the end, and all of the mind games, but you can’t train for getting out of the groove.  I have seen people with a lifetime of experience get into trouble when it happened to them.

Sometimes it seems that when your mind is on one thing, you will see it every where that you look.  Such as in my Bible study, just a few days before that weekend, I had read “Stay always within the boundaries where God’s love can reach and bless you.” (Jude v21)  Of course this made me think about our lives and how we can get out of the groove.  The verse was talking about keeping in the love of God, not doing anything that would take you away from where He can bless you…such as allowing sin to have it’s way in your life.  You might ask, “What is sin?”  Let me just say it’s not a long list of things you can and cannot do at all.  It’s simply put in the Bible, “All unrighteousness is sin.” (1 John 5:17).

Keep on the right path and keep away from anything that can ruin your life or testimony. In other words “Stay In The Groove!”

Dan Laterza