I admit to wasting my life messing around with fast cars and motorcycles.

There was a day when you could identify a NASCAR Ford, Chevrolet, or Dodge and they actually looked like "stock cars." Now they are pod machines, slick on the outside but still powered by the same Neanderthal carbureted pushrod V-8s that have been under their hoods for half a century. If this is real auto racing, then the WWF ought to be part of the Olympics.

If one is looking for cultural testosterone and raging off-the-wall competition in the world of communications, Manhattan was - and is - home plate.

The early 1970s was a time when illegal acts were in style. Everybody was going nuts with causes, most of them against the law.

More books, more racing and more foolishness with cars and motorcycles are in the works.

Unlike conventional jocks, who tend to sell aluminum siding and give canned speeches to parochial-school athletic banquets in the off-season, race drivers never shuck their image when they leave the stadium. They are supposed to be zany, nomadic soldiers of fortune who are involved in wild endeavors during every waking moment.

If any vestige of the American automobile industry is to survive, it must involve state-of-the-art vehicles that are not equal to but surpass the best imports in every way.