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.

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

Why the hell not run a race across the United States? A balls-out, shoot-the-moon, f***-the-establishment rumble from New York to Los Angeles to prove what we had been harping about for years, for example, that good drivers in good automobiles could employ the American Interstate system the same way the Germans were using their Autobahns? Yes, make high-speed travel by car a reality! Truth and justice affirmed by an overtly illegal act.

As the saying goes, truth is stranger than fiction. But only when the reality has not been subsumed by foamy legends and fantasies that radiate outward from the actual event.

Don't get me wrong, I think bikes are terrific. I own several of my own, including a trendy mountain style, and ride them for pleasure and light exercise.

The bicycle is a former child's toy that has now been elevated to icon status because, presumably, it can move the human form from pillar to post without damage to the environment.

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.