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

The harsh reality is that America moves on four wheels, powered by conventional internal-combustion engines. At this point, while the elite media (excluding Newsweek) trumpet the benefits of hybrids and Ford and Toyota plan to lead the nation into a low-powered, high-mileage hybrid Utopia, the multitudes remain loyal to the gas-guzzling family bus in the driveway.

Regardless, I did rise to the editorship before embarking on a freelance career in the late '60's.

Racing is bulging at the seams with pure nutball characters, men who can drink more, screw more, fight more, laugh more, joke more, than practically any collection of people in the world.

Had I been more responsible I might have made something of myself as a junk bond trader, long-haul trucker or perhaps a plumbing contractor.

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

The appeal of the Riverside 500 was based on that overall spectacle of witnessing a mob of brightly colored, bellowing automobiles gamboling over the countryside like a herd of runaway steers. Stock car roadracing is in fact like a mechanical stampede, and we personally think it's maybe the neatest form of motor racing known to man. It's definitely the greatest spectacle in roadracing.