Driving Well Never Gets Old

By Bill McLauchlan

Let’s face it, we can all feel a trifle anxious at times when we’re driving. Some more than others.

Freshly-licensed young drivers aside, as we age, those tense moments tend to happen more often. It might be someone tailgating you, impatient to overtake. Or dense traffic conditions, unfamiliar roads, being boxed-in by a flock of 18-wheelers, trouble making out highway signs, reduced night vision – or any one of a bunch of other things that can make an older driver feel a bit nervous and uncomfortable at the wheel.

Obviously, as our physical and mental abilities slow down, so too does our ability to drive a car, particularly in built-up urban areas.

But there are plenty of examples out there to give reason for optimism if you’ve been wondering how much longer you’ll be able to maintain your motoring independence.

A case in point happened last weekend in Pomona, California, where John Force recorded his 139th career victory and took the Funny Car title in his Castrol GTX-sponsored Ford Mustang. OK, what’s the big deal you might ask? Just this: Force is 64 years old and set a new national top speed record in the process. Still not impressed? How about making his qualifying pass at 521.5 km/h (324.12 mph) and another bracket pass in 3.596 seconds at 520.6 km/h (323.58 mph). This for the 1,000 foot track distance that replaces the old ¼-mile strip length.

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Think about that for a moment. Exploding from a standing start to 521 km/h in about the length of three football fields. Incredible, when you think of the lightning fast reaction times called for to get his car off the line and keep it straight – all while coping with gut-churning g-loads. For a 20-something in his physical prime that’s a heck of an accomplishment. For a guy nudging the door to senior citizen status it’s absolutely mind-boggling.

Morgan Shepherd.com

Force’s success came on the heels of another bit of heartening news for geriatric drivers. NASCAR veteran Morgan Shepherd (left) has announced he’ll try to become, at 72, the oldest drive to race in the Daytona 500 when he tries to qualify for the February 23 race – stock car racing’s Super Bowl, if you like.

He turned 72 last October and, earlier in the year, competed in a Sprint Cup race in New Hampshire where he ran 92 laps before retiring – and in the process entered the record books as the oldest driver to compete at NASCAR’s top level of competition. Showing his durability, Shepherd also ran the full 34-race Sprint Cup schedule in 2011.

If that news isn’t encouraging enough, consider Paul Newman’s feat. Yes that Paul Newman. In his later years, when not otherwise engaged in film making, he made a pretty fair fist of his second career as a car racer. How about winning four Sports Car Club of America national class championships (1976, ’79, ’85 and ’86), winning the GT class and taking 2nd. overall in the 1979 24 Hours of Le Mans and – at age 70 – becoming the oldest driver to be part of a winning team in a major international race, winning his class at the 1995 24 Hours of Daytona.

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Not satisfied with that, in his last professional race – the 2007 SCCA GT-1 event at Watkins Glen – he qualified on pole when he was a mere 82 years old. On a hot, humid day his driver’s “cool suit” malfunctioned and he finished a very soggy fourth in the race. When asked after the race how he felt, Newman wryly responded, “I wish I was 81 again.” Newman succumbed to cancer the following September.

But such vintage performances are not uncommon. Two others I can think of involve a couple of amateur road racers racers still going strong into their eighth decade. Eighty-year-old Al Ores of Burnaby in British Columbia began racing 45 years ago and is still at it. He has won many races and several championships along the way and even has a track record to his credit.

Another octogenarian is U.S. mid-west Porsche driver George C. Balbach (the C. is important because he races against his grown son, George F.) who turned 82 last summer and is still at it. Always at or near the front of the pack, as recently as 2011 George C. stood on the third step of the podium at a major Porsche meet at the demanding Laguna Seca circuit in California.

These guys may be extraordinary but if they’re anything to go by – and assuming eyes and reflexes are still sharp and there are no major medical issues to hinder things – roughly 30 million drivers over age 65 in the U.S. and Canada can anticipate many more enjoyable driving years before having to hang up the keys. By then, self-driving autonomous cars should be making their presence felt so maybe the whole concept of knowing when to hand over your keys will become redundant.