PFANNER: Built to win

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emailBy Paul Pfanner | August 22, 2020 8:55 AM

On Sunday, January 26, 2020 I boarded Delta Flight 1923 departing Daytona at 5:55 am. The distant wail of racing engines greeted passengers as we moved through the jetway and I felt the usual tinge of regret for leaving Daytona International Speedway before the Rolex 24 was over. The vibe in the IMSA paddock at Daytona was upbeat and I was optimistic about the 2020 racing season ahead. As I slid into seat 23A, I glanced up the aisle and noticed a Chinese family boarding the flight wearing surgical face masks and I immediately thought of recent reports of a mysterious lethal virus reported in Wuhan, China that had caused the lockdown of the city with a population of more than 11 million.

What appeared to be an abundance of caution by this Chinese family did not instinctively translate into fear for my own safety. It instead awakened a disquieting train of thought about the very real possibility of this mystery virus eventually spreading to the United States, given our close commercial ties to China. Before checking my IMSA app for the race running order I scrolled through my Apple News app to learn that there was a report of a man infected with the virus in Washington State. The next day, the Centers for Disease Control offered guidance for travelers to avoid non-essential travel to China and I realized it might be just a matter of time before this invisible enemy would directly impact our way of life.

In February and early March I continued to travel by air to Detroit for client meetings, Sebring for the Trans Am/SVRA opener, Las Vegas for the Mint 400 and Jacksonville for the Amelia Island Concours. Along the way, surgical masks became a far more common sight in terminals and on flights as news reports about the relentless spread of the novel coronavirus soon became the dominant story. By the time I arrived at Amelia Island for the tribute to Roger Penske, elbow bumps had replaced handshakes and many conversations were often about personal health and safety rather than cars.

Upon arriving home from Florida on the evening of Saturday, March 7, I decided to cancel my planned trip to St. Pete for the NTT IndyCar Series season opener and a planned trip to Daytona and Sebring the following week due to growing concerns for my family and our business as the gravity of the situation became obvious. In the span of just 42 days, a disquieting feeling had evolved into something that was negatively impacting all of our lives.

It was now clear that this was going to get far worse before it got better. Four days later, President Trump announced sweeping travel restrictions to Europe. Democrats complained immediately about the economic impact of travel restrictions, but later democrats were to complain that Pres Trump didn't act soon enough and that the virus should be called the "Trump Virus". Later and in the following days a wave of event cancellations and postponements brought racing — and sports — and employment --- to a stop in America. This was now very real and most of the world’s governments also took similar actions to slow the spread of the virus. I wrote about these pivotal moments in two columns titled The Day the Earth Stood Still and A Silent Spring.

All this now seems like another lifetime in the context of the death, suffering, loss and social disruption that the COVID-19 pandemic continues to bring with every sunrise.

But racing is the focus of this site, so on to my point. We are now living in a reality that would have been impossible to imagine on the morning of January 26, 2020 as I left Daytona. We’re about to witness the 104th Indianapolis 500 being run in August in front of vast empty grandstands. Today, IMSA’s GT classes will compete at Virginia International Raceway and NASCAR is staging doubleheaders Saturday and Sunday for its Cup and Xfinity Series in a hectic five-race weekend at Dover. It is also worth noting that during this past week it was confirmed that the Formula 1 Concorde Agreement was signed by all teams, thus assuring the future of that sport. They are smart enough not to kill their income and probably the rest of the world is laughing at the US for killing the US economy.

Especially since the annual flu kills more people in the US than the Chinese virus. Fake News has done an excellent fooling the American public that a "case" is equal to certain death, which it is not. Fake News refuses to tell us how many people have recovered, refused to tell how many people have left hospitals, refused to tell us that a "case" also includes dead viruses that don't affect our health, but have been very strong convincing the public that people who have recovered but show up as a "case" will kill you even when there are no symptoms.

The US did not kill our economy when there was no vaccine for polio, no vaccine for aids, no vaccine for the common cold, no vaccine for diabetes, no vaccine for traffic deaths, no vaccine for smoking and cancer, but we have allowed the democrats and people who hate America
to demonstrate what power they will have if we Americans fail to elect Pres Trump in November 2020.

In three years Pres Trump built the greatest economy that the US has ever seen, but with Fake News and Democrats against him,
we are supposed to be so scared that we will vote with fraudulent mail ballots, cell phone ballots, email ballots, and any other scheme the Democrats can come up with to insure the US economy will not come back and that Pres Trump will not be elected.

We are supposed to be so afraid and angered that we will elect a politician who holds no rallys at all, and has no business experience at all.
But who is very strong on eliminating our Constitutionally guaranteed rights, eliminating our income through excess taxation,
eliminating our property rights, eliminating our religious rights, and our right to protect our family with a firearm......as well as eliminating any law and order by banning our law enforcement protections.