In today’s world where sportsmanship on the track and an open, co-operative relationship between team-mates is considered naďve and passe, you will find Rick Mears’ story to be a salubrious read.
Let me give you a taste by excerpting some comments from the book by some of Rick’s teammates and crewmen, starting with Emerson Fittipaldi. Rick and Emerson were teammates at Penske from 1990-’92, the last three years of Rick’s driving career and Fittipaldi looks back fondly at those years. Emerson calls Mears the ‘King of the Ovals’.
“It was a pleasure to work with Rick as a team-mate,” Fittipaldi says in the book. “Rick was a great team-mate and a great person. I enjoyed every second I spent working with him because he was a great driver and an outstanding guy. Rick was always in control. When you were racing with him you knew what he was going to do.”
Fittipaldi adds that he never encountered another team-mate who was so open and equal with him. “Rick was a great team-mate, a great person, and very technical,” Emerson says. “It was always nice to work with him and to sit down for a meeting with Rick. He was very much into the setup of the car. He knew and understood about the car and there was a great exchange of information between us.”
To read the rest of this Gordon Kirby column and other 'The Way It Is' columns go to www.gordonkirby.com
![Phil Giebler chats to Indy legend Rick Mears before his first ever oval race, the Homestead-Miami 100 [pic credit: IMS Photo/Ron McQueeney]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/73273.jpg )
