Morgan Lucas Racing
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Fri, Aug. 1st 2008
Time is running out. Brainerd, Maple Grove, Indy. Then, the Countdown to 1 begins. If the Countdown to 10 were to end right now, Morgan would miss the title tournament by 9 points and J.R. would be 103 points short. So, unless the boys begin to pick up some round wins pretty soon, well, don’t make me write it.
It’s not going to take a lot of complicated mathematics to analyze how Team Lucas fared on the Western Swing. There were only two round wins recorded between both drivers—each rung up by Morgan—in Denver and Seattle. Sonoma was a total bust. That’s truly wretched. Two round wins in three races for two of the sport’s most popular young stars is about as disheartening as things can be. Wasn’t it J.R. who nearly swept the Swing in his rookie season when he was driving for Dexter Tuttle? A little of that magic would have come in handy over the past three weeks, huh?
Now, I’m going to come completely out of left field with this observation. The key to Morgan and J.R. making the Countdown to 1 rests with….us! See if you can work with me here.
When I was in high school, Somerville High in Somerville, MA back in the 1960’s, I played on the varsity basketball team and we were dreadful. Actually, hopeless would be a more accurate description. Our coach, Tom Palumbo, was a great coach and our inability to win was no reflection on his ability to coach. The players—me included—all sucked.
In my senior season, we were in danger of going through the entire schedule without a win and with an 0-17 record heading into our final game against Arlington High School, Coach Palumbo came up with an innovative strategy for getting us that one, single, concluding victory that would allow us to take something positive out of our decrepit season. He told us he had been reading a book by a sports psychologist (that kind of science was just beginning to gain attention), and this psychologist proposed that in order to reach certain goals in any competitive sport, the players must “visualize” their success and encourage the people around them to “see in their mind” the goal being reached.
He hypothesized that having the people around them speak positively and behave as if the goal was an absolute lock would allow the power of the subconscious to latch onto the reality of attaining the goal and it would somehow create a remarkable source of internal energy which would bring success.
Are you still with me?
We, as fans of Morgan and J.R., need to visualize them getting into the Countdown to 1 by imagining them winning a bunch of rounds in the next three races. We need to stop wringing our hands and despairing that they might not make it, and instead, start declaring out loud that they will make a miraculous run between now and Labor Day and charge into the playoffs with a full gust of momentum. We have to believe we’ll receive the results we want and not—even for a second—ponder anything less than what we have our sights set on.
C’mon people, we can do our part. Let Morgan and J.R. drive the cars, let the guys who work on the cars do what they do best, and we can tap into that “ internal energy” that has the power to bring things to pass. It doesn’t cost any of us a cent and just think. If we can have a hand in getting Morgan and J.R. into the Countdown to 1, we can use the same strategy to make things happen the way we want them to in any other situation we face in life.
Hey, this visualization stuff may have some real upsides.
Oh, in that farewell game of my varsity basketball season, the final score: Somerville High School 65, Arlington High School 60.
Now, let’s get ready for Brainerd.