When we started this program nearly nine years ago we made a decision to be about lifestyle and culture as well as motorsports. I truly believe members of The Freak Nation are intelligent enough to have an opinion – whatever it is – on the history that will be made Tuesday when President-elect Barack Obama is inaugurated and what that means to them, their lifestyle and their culture. Sunday night I was proud to share in that conversation with them, just as if we were sitting in the grandstands together.

I’m even more proud to learn that several of the Freaks out there were interested in my opinion on that history. Let me say it’s evolving. Motorsports is one thing. But a larger issue at this moment is the economic crisis shadowing our lifestyles, cultures and our sport, motor racing.

In the past 28 years, and I purposely include the Clinton years, we’ve redefined America. The so-called Reagan Revolution downsized the American dream in my opinion. We’ve killed too many things that made America great. Our schools are flawed and barely work. Our health care systems are flawed and barely work. And our economy has changed so much the flaws are gaping and, after the Bush years, the economy has all but come to a halt. We’ve poured trillions into a hole – a hole that’s inside and outside our borders – and many of those trillions are unaccounted for. In our reality, it means motor racing will never again be the same. Maybe that’s a good thing but we won’t know until the state of the economy comes into greater focus.

I heard a lyric in a Garth Brooks song late Sunday night that says we shall be free when we no longer see the color of skin. That may be an American dream still to be realized.

A friend from high school who lived in Chicago was the first to tell me about Barack Obama. Maybe five or six years ago she told me that he’d be the first Black President. I wish she was here to see Tuesday. She died two years ago. Man I miss our conversations…

But as I look forward to Tuesday, through Martin Luther King’s Birthday celebration Monday, I think back to that August 1963 March on Washington where he made his iconic “I Have A Dream Speech.” One day we may ultimately see the irony in the Dream passage of his keynote address and the beginnings of the speech given to more than a million gathered for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. I say irony because Tuesday, nearly 50 years post King, Obama’s inauguration speech could once again be about jobs and economic freedom.

It’s estimated upwards of two million people will gather to witness the history making event; a black man taking over the reins of government in the U.S. and assuming the mantle: The Leader of the Free World. Their focus will be on the Capitol. The million plus gathered nearly 50 years ago were focused on the Lincoln Memorial. Still, through nearly 50 years, their minds may be on the same thing: jobs and economic freedom. These are excerpts taken from a transcript of the King address BEFORE the I Have a Dream finale.

“And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition."

“In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

“But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we have come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.”

Once again Americans are going to their nation’s capital in the form of President-Elect Barack Obama – to cash a check, a check written to all its citizens. And the two million watching the events next Tuesday must REFUSE to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.

Is Barack Obama the one who can cover the nation’s check written to all its citizens, a guarantee that all have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? So many Americans have come to believe in their economy’s sudden and painful reality: “insufficient funds.”

For the first time in American history, we can believe that anyone can be anything. But, also for the first time in American history, many if not most have realized that not everyone can AFFORD to be anything. We’ve reached a place where economic realities are so distant for so many Americans that they are even more unreachable than they were in August of 1963.

The headlines are real. Multiplied billions of tax dollars have disappeared from circulation in the past 30 years. Banks have been looted. Jobs have been looted. Benefits fought for have been looted. Retirement funds have been looted. For many a future has been stolen, not held hostage, but stolen. Those billions that have disappeared don’t turn over in communities anymore where they were employing millions of people, some are members of The Freak Nation.

More from the King speech:

“We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy.

“It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment.”

Nearly fifty years later one sentence from the King Address could be rewritten to “Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of ECONOMIC segregation to the sunlit path of ECONOMIC justice.” Truly we’re at a place where we need jobs and economic freedom for all Americans.

The issues that face President-Elect Obama after Tuesday are economic. If he turns around the American economy it won’t matter that he’s the First Black President, just as it won’t matter if he fails. As King told the millions who gathered in 1963: “…even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.”

It’s beautiful Dream realized that a black man can be elected President. But we won’t know for two years whether the Obama Revolution was a result of the Bush failures, the Republican hypocrisies, the Democratic promises or the McCain devolution.

What’s most important now is that Barack Obama is THE man at THE moment in American history. The nation’s issues are based in a crucible of economic lies, failures and, in some regard, outright theft. Let’s hope we can help him put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

After the Reagan Revolution, the Clinton Calamities and Bush Bungling, the image of America has changed forever. All of us – from Barack Obama on – must take the bold step of putting in enough equity to support all the checks the nation – and its government – have written to its citizens for the past 230 plus years.

America needs leadership in its democracy now more than ever. Let’s hope that leader is Barack Obama. Let’s hope we all have the courage to be led.

Peace.