* FYI, the photo posted on the previous page is of David Poole's 2 yr old Grandson… living on in David's legacy… what a cutie!

What am I doing as a media person in motorsports? Heck I didn't even go to journalism school or get a broadcasting degree. I wanted to be a doctor, with my Biology & Psychology degrees, but then got lazy and didn't want to spend another 4-10 years in school & residency. Heck no!

So I graduated college, went to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, looked up some friends and used them as references so I could find work in racing.

It worked.

Now years later I'm still in racing, just somehow landed on the media & entertainment side of things instead of team and marketing management where I started.

When I nabbed this SpeedFreaks 'media' job, I often wondered, since I was such a journo newbie, of who in the world I would try to emulate? I wanted to have an edge some of the time, but be newsworthy some of the time, entertaining all of the time and just plain tell the story like it is.

At the time I was a tunnel vision open wheel fan who didn't want to believe that anything else really could be good racing, so the only influences I had in that world were Robin Miller and, uh, yeah… Robin Miller. I loved Robin's attitude – and he was the ONLY one in IndyCar/CART who had it and was able to stand up to the big boys. But Robin sometimes just threw things on the wall to see if they would stick. I went ahead and did the same at first but got yelled at for it, so I was forced to stop and not try that tactic again.

Then I began looking at other media studs from all walks of life in racing. There was Lewis Brewster who wasn't afraid to tell it like it was, and he did so with numerous facts. Lewis even made NHRA shake in their boots many times. Not bad at all. Then there was Varsha, Matchett & Hobbs calling the F1 races who were not only knowledgeable as heck, but seemed to have a blast doing what they loved. Again, not bad at all.

Finally, I met David Poole. David could slap NASCAR around and not worry about the consequences. Why? Because he had the relationships with NASCAR's insiders. BUT, he developed those relationships through years of hard work and truth telling. He built those relationships by never inflating statistics, never spewing drivel to get attention and venture to see if a story had legs, never hesitating and never, NEVER, doing anything but telling the actual story as he saw it. In fact, just this morning, David published what now has become his last story in motorsports. I think this about says it all.

To answer your title question or last question, David… if, in this bizarre world, that person is you, then you did your job better than any of us could even hope to…

RIP good man and thanks for the influence!

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CrashG@SpeedFreaks.TV