BONDING AT 300 KM/H
Father and son share love for F1 racing during dream trip to 2018 Canadian Grand Prix
As we greeted the new Millennium, I greeted my first and only son. Holding him aloft in the delivery room, I beamed with pride and awe at the prospect of our future together, linked by biology and bonded by common interests. Oh, the places we would go! In those unsure hands I held a blank canvas, one that I would paint a masterpiece upon, the brush strokes lovingly informed by my own experiences, failings and successes, dreams and aspirations.
Then reality set in. By the time of Callum’s sixth birthday, I harboured disturbing thoughts — kept only to myself, of course — that we’d brought home the wrong baby on that bright spring day in April of 2000.
True, he bore a resemblance to us — thankfully more to his mother — but it was his personality that gave me pause. We just didn’t seem to have a lot in common.
As the years went by, that unease only grew. He had no interest in watching college football with me on a Saturday afternoon. Any sports, for that matter.
‘Boooooring’ he’d drone when I’d beg him to watch the back nine of the Masters on a Sunday afternoon, something my Scottish father and I shared.
When told of this in attempts to coax Callum to sit down and watch with me, the patented eye roll was the answer.
Jimmy Page power chords? Nope. Soaring Miles Davis solos? Pass. Biting Hunter S. Thompson observations? Nada.
The real clincher in this everwidening chasm between us was his absolute lack of interest in cars. Sure he played with them a little as a wee child, but no posters of Ferraris or Lambos ever graced his bedroom walls.
The fact that his dad was an auto journalist meant an ever-changing parade of new test vehicles in the driveway — from Porsches to Bimmers and even the odd Prancing Horse and Bentley. He’d barely bat an eye, feigning interest only when neighbourhood kids would steam the windows of exotics parked in front of our house.
Car racing? Forget about it. Instead, he exhibited a passion for technology. Specifically, computer and console gaming.
Before I knew it, he’d graduated from Roller-coaster Tycoon to the Call of Duty, Halo, and Grand Theft Auto franchises.
True, I did take some comfort in the latter’s driving aspect, though that was outweighed by his character’s disturbing interaction with CGI sex workers. Earnestly, and unbeknownst to my son, I’d log in and play the games on my own with grand plans to master the confounding Xbox controller and go into battle alongside him in the online multi-player universe. Alas, this too proved uncommon ground for us, my embarrassingly quick slaughter at the hands of 10-year olds from Boise and Oslo derailing his own campaign advancements.
On Callum’s 15th birthday, once the candles were blown out and he’d retreated to his wired boycave, I poured myself a wee dram and finally came to terms with the fact that my son and I, despite my best efforts, had no shared interests. I promised myself I would find something, anything, that could bond us together.
We did have a love for one another, and as I drained the single malt, that realization filled me with a warm feeling. Some dads don’t even have that, I said to myself.
Then, just over a month later, it happened.
It was Sunday morning, and as is my ritual during the Formula One season, I was watching the pre-race show, in this case from the narrow and historic streets of Monte Carlo. I don’t even really remember Callum coming into the room, but at one point, I looked over and saw him lying on the couch — without a piece of technology in his hand.
“You feeling all right,” I said, not looking away from the flat screen. “Fine.”
“Internet down?” “Nope.”
Puzzled, I returned to listening to Martin Brundle rant on about something or other. Callum lasted about an hour or so, finally rising after a few laps into the race.
“Interesting,” he said. And then he disappeared.
At dinner that night, I was tempted to ask him what he thought about the race, but I feared the dreaded eye-roll. I said nothing, save for “pass the potatoes.”
Then, two Sundays later, 15 minutes or so into the live feed of the Canadian Grand Prix, he appeared again and sat down. This time he stayed for the checkered flag, taken by Lewis Hamilton. I never said a word, nor really looked his way, treating him as a hunter does a timid deer.
“Why do they call them Silver Arrows?” he asked at one point.
Knowing that any historical reference to the ‘1930s’ opened the door to an eye-roll — or a half-dozen — I said simply: “It’s a nickname for Mercedes cars.”
Dinner that night began like any other Sunday night dinner at the dining room table. Then he spoke.
“Dad, they’re called Silver Arrows because of the shining aluminum bodied Mercedes-Benz race cars of the ’30s.”
I almost sliced my hand instead of the roast.
He continued: “The supercharged engine of the W125 in 1937 had nearly 650 horsepower, which is amazing when you think about it, huh?”
My wife and younger daughter were oblivious to the seismic shift that had just occurred in our household. I don’t really recall much after that, or for that matter, the weeks leading up to the next race.
“Hey dad, don’t forget to PVR the race and qualifying this weekend,” he said mid-week ahead of the Austrian Grand Prix.
And so it began. From that race onward we watched ever minute of every qualifying session and race for the remainder of the 2015 season, and have rarely missed any since.
I’d finally found common ground with my son. Even during the offseason, he and I would talk about driver changes, engine updates, new rules, and what’s up with Bernie Ecclestone’s hair?
It was all going so well, until Singapore last September. We’d just settled into the first qualifying session when he uttered words that still haunt me.
“Hey, next year I’ll be away at university when this race is on. Maybe we can Skype it together.”
He was right, of course. I’d never even thought about it. His lofty post-secondary education ambitions were going to drive a vast distance between the one thing father and son shared.
“You OK, dad?” he asked after I didn’t respond.
“Fine,” I lied through misty eyes. “I hope Ferrari can pull it together this weekend.”
“Not a chance,” he shot back. “Hamilton is unstoppable.”
Time, as any father knows, is not.
Callum’s prophecy of packing up and heading to university came true, and at summer’s end he’ll be taking up residence some 3,000 kilometres from the TV room where he and I have shared so many memories.
And so I approach the Singapore Grand Prix of Sept. 13 with a sense of loss. It just won’t be the same without him.
I’d been ruminating on this impending time as the 2018 season began in Australia back in March, when a thought came to me: Wouldn’t it be great to cap my son’s high school graduation with a father-and-son trip to a Formula One race weekend?
That bucket list trip came true last weekend at the 2018 Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal — as guests of the Renault Sport F1 team, no less.
We arrived Wednesday night and watched every practice session, qualifying and the race on Sunday from trackside. We stood in the team garage with team radio headsets on as drivers Nico Hulkenberg and Carlos Sainz zipped in and out amid the beautiful ballet of the 20odd mechanics and engineers.
We had a behind-the-scene garage tour that allowed us to peek into the very private world of an F1 team.
We had meals with the team’s motorsport directors, gaining insights into race car technology, strategy and business plans that had Callum’s head spinning.
We rubbed shoulders with the well-heeled Paddock Club patrons, and we walked the pits alongside the Sky TV commentators we had welcomed into our living room for the past few years.
In other words, it was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience for this F1-mad father and son. And one that both of us will think about every time we watch an F1 race, apart or together, for the rest of our lives.
We missed the podium presentation, as we had to catch a shuttle from the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve for our flight home to Vancouver.
Midway during that flight, I glanced over at Callum and wondered what he’d take away from the trip. Did he realize how fortunate he was to have had those experiences? On those cold, wintry nights of study, will he find motivation by drawing on thoughts of the dedication, preparation and astonishing attention to detail he witnessed in the Renault garage?
Then my thoughts turned to a repeating narrative I’d experienced throughout our time in Montreal, and so aptly coincidental to the theme of our trip: the profound relationship between F1 and fathers and sons.
Prior to Sunday’s race, world champion Jacques Villeneuve did a tribute lap in the very Ferrari that his father Gilles piloted to victory in the inaugural Canadian Grand Prix four decades ago.
Walking through the Paddock, we spotted Williams driver Lance Stroll and his dad having a very close conversation before the race.
When Sainz backed into a wall during practice, we watched his mechanics work feverishly to fix the car, learning only later that the fellow we were standing beside, watching attentively, was Carlos Sainz Sr.
And we stood in the Renault garage during the race and saw Hulkenberg’s father nervously pacing, consulting lap times on his smartphone and clapping his hands when Nico pulled off a pass. I tried to imagine what it must be like for Nico’s dad, shipping magnate Klaus Dieter, to watch his son taking part in such a dangerous sport. How helpless he must feel at times as Nico navigates the perilous world of F1, yet how proud he must be when Nico places as high as he did in Montreal, his 7th essentially a first place among the middle-tier teams.
Looking out the Dreamliner window over the vast flatlands of Saskatchewan, it struck me how a race car driver’s craft is akin to when a kid leaves home. The pit crew’s job is to prepare the racer and keep him on track through the course of a race, not unlike the family, friends, teachers and coaches who guide our children towards independence. And even when the racer is all alone in the car, there’s an ever-present voice in his ear providing positive feedback, advice and information to make help him get the job done. Sort of like the real world equivalent of text messages and phone calls.
There will be crashes and defeats, but there will also be victories and glory.
By the time we landed at YVR, my sadness for my son’s coming departure had turned to excitement at seeing him, and supporting him, when he pulls out of the pits all alone and takes on the race that is life.
Now I’ve just got to figure out how to use Skype.
(A nod to two sons and fathers whom, without their incredible support and assistance, my fatherand-son F1 weekend wouldn’t have been possible: National Post Driving senior writer David Booth and Nissan/Infiniti Canada’s Didier Marsaud.
I pitched this admittedly selfindulgent story idea to Booth and he embraced it from the start. Booth lost his own father just a few weeks ago, so I know Sunday will be a tough day for him. I hope he can find some solace in knowing what a profound impact his efforts have had on my relationship with my son.
After the pitch, Booth contacted Marsaud with the story idea, asking if Infiniti would provide support and access to the Renault Formula One team.
They did that and so much more, giving Callum and me unbelievable access to the team garage, members and drivers over the course of four days.
Marsaud wasn’t around for Sunday ’s race; he flew back to Toronto early Saturday morning to watch his young son Ilia play baseball. Like a great dad would.