In the Field: E Sadler (Michigan)
In the Field: Elliott Sadler
Setting up house; virtual reality racing: fans vs. drivers
By Elliott Sadler, Special to NASCAR.COM
August 15, 2007
10:33 AM EDT
With everything you can say about owning your own home -- and in my case, a brand new home -- the best thing I've enjoyed about it so far is I'm staying there more.
I'm actually coming out on the road a little later. What I'm finding myself doing is coming to the racetracks on Friday morning, instead of Thursday nights -- and that's because I'm just getting that one little extra evening in my house.
And I love it. It's been a dream come true in every way, and a lot of fun so far.
Yeah, we saw [Greg] Biffle's car at Watkins Glen had Nintendo Wii sponsorship on it; and I've got my Xbox at home. And no -- I'm not going to go so far as to say I'm thinking about the day when I'll be able to sit at home in my living room and run a race.
But wouldn't that be cool? Five years from now, somebody -- and I'm going to give up my patent idea right now -- but if I was a smart enough engineer, and could develop games, I would somehow figure it out to where a race fan could sit at home and race against us, in the real race on Sunday.
They're working on it I'm sure -- some kind of simulcast or something they could come up with to where the race fan at home could sit and drive and race against us, on TV.
There's some kind of technology out there somewhere -- I'm not talking about sitting there and just seeing what we're seeing -- I'm talking racing his own car, racing against us and having to qualify into the race on Friday.
We'd see what people really thought of that top-35 deal, then. They'd have to practice and then race against us and see how those guys do. It would be some kind of virtual reality thing.
There's somebody out there in this world that can come up with the technology and the codes to make that happen. I'll bet you, one day they will. We'll be laughing five years from now -- 10 years from now saying, 'Yup, we told you that was gonna happen.'
Just imagine how much fun that would be for the fans at home -- they'd get to race against their favorite driver. If you're a Jeff Gordon fan you can go wreck Tony Stewart every week -- on your own virtual reality game, of course -- but it takes place at the same exact places that we race at, each and every Sunday.
There's something, or someone out there that can make that happen.
But until that does, I'll keep working on my new place. You know what, it's only been a few weeks that I've been in there, and it's not home yet -- it's still just a house.
It's not home yet because I'm still tuning on everything. I've been in this sport for nine years and I've always wanted to build me a dream house -- I wanted to build me a house so I'd have something to show for all the hard work and traveling and stuff that I've been through for the last nine years.
I've really been able to do that with my own house, where I was able to design it and go through it working on every detail. It's been a blessing in disguise and a lot of fun to get it done and to get into it.
Maybe the greatest thing has been how peaceful and quiet it is to be in there. I lived in an apartment for four years in Charlotte and in an apartment complex there's always cars riding by late at night and people spinning tires and your neighbors are always up all the time -- or not up, because I have such weird hours from traveling all the time.
But when you've got your own house, there's so much peace and quiet. And that's been the biggest surprise. It can just get as quiet as it can be, it seems like, especially early in the morning -- so that's been pretty cool.
The one thing that's been a surprise, or a shock, to me is my landscaping. I'm not a flower guy, a bush guy or a shrub guy or a grass guy, at all. I used to have to cut my parents' yard every week, when I was a kid, so I pretty much got tired of it.
I pretty much wanted to throw something on it to kill it all so I wouldn't have to cut it. But now when you've got your own house you want all that to look good -- so I've been going through a mess with the landscaping stuff, trying to make it look good and to make the house look nice.
So that's kind of the biggest thing that I've been going through right now -- and I'm kinda upset at my landscaping people, because they're not doing a good job -- and I've been trying to go out there and help them a little bit, pulling some extra weeds and stuff like that.
The good thing is, it's a buyer's market, and I'm working on that right now, trying to switch up -- because I want my stuff to look nice because I've put a lot of effort and heart-and-soul into it and I want it to come out looking good.
And now that I've been in there a bit, thank God there's nothing major we need to do -- but my pool furniture is not enough. I've got to get some more comfortable stuff for out there.
My mom and dad have been spending a lot of time in Charlotte with me lately and I need some better, more comfortable stuff for them when they want to hang out by the pool.
Me, I just went to the nearest store and went, 'That looks good -- load it up.' And now I get it there and I'm like, 'Aaah, no.' So I've got to upgrade a little bit on that, because I didn't know how much I was gonna use it, and I'm using it more than I thought I would -- so that's a good thing.
And as far as the rest of the furniture I figured out I'd need, to kind of the flesh the place out all the way, it's still coming in.
Have you ever noticed that every time you try to order something that you like, it's on back order? Everything I like that you see in a magazine is on back order. And I ordered it six months ago, because I knew when I was moving in -- and everything's still on back order.
But I'll tell you the one good thing that I do. Once I make up my mind, the switch goes off and I don't keep seeing things and saying, 'Well, maybe that would look better.'
I switch it off and figure, that's what I liked first, and usually your first impression is your best one. I've just got to be patient and wait for them to get there -- but I just don't like trying to understand why everything is back ordered.
I mean, you're giving them that much time; they ought to be able to deliver. It's frustrating.