Miss-Delectable
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- Apr 18, 2004
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http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/sports/15048349.htm
Our story begins in Boys Town. There were two boys there, Jason Curry and Greg Gunderson, and they liked each other so much that each day they tried to beat the other with the ultimate practical joke. These involved typical practical joke props — bugs, shoelaces, wet underwear — and then one night Greg decided to go for the knockout.
In the middle of the night, Greg sneaked up to Jason’s bed. He was not worried about noise. Jason and Greg were both deaf. This was a camp for gifted deaf children. Greg was worried about vibration. But he walked so softly that Jason did not feel a thing. And then, in a bold move, Greg dumped a bowl of warm water on Jason’s face. It was not the most original stunt ever pulled, but it was decisive. Jason jolted awake, and he was angry, and he did not even look at Greg for days. That, both would agree, meant victory.
In time, of course, Jason and Greg lost track of each other. Jason went to a public school in Sedalia, Mo. He often felt out of place, but he felt determined. He became one of the first deaf students to graduate from Central Missouri State. He became an insurance agent. He wanted to own a business, preferably something in real estate. Greg meanwhile went to a deaf high school in South Dakota, and he traveled across America to attend Gallaudet University, the world’s only university for the deaf. Greg also wanted to own a business, preferably something involving cars. They grew up.
Greg and Jason — like most boys — had some vague notion of changing the world. And like most boys, neither one had any real idea how to do that.
Greg Gunderson comes from a family of racers. His father, his uncle, his cousins, they all race cars — sprint cars, stock cars, midgets, go-karts, you name it. The racing legend in the family, though, is Grandpa, Dewey Dirkson. Every region of America has a Dewey Dirkson, the guy everybody knows. Most of Dewey’s life he owned race cars, he fixed them, he sold parts, he helped out those drivers who needed help. Anyone who wanted to drive a car fast in the Dakotas knew Dewey Dirkson. Most of them would come to the garage with their souped-up jalopies. They would start ’em up, look at him inquisitively, and just from the sound Ol’ Dewey would know how to make those rides go faster.
Maybe it was that — Dewey’s acute sense of race car hearing — that made him leery about Greg. Maybe it was just protectiveness. Whatever, Dewey told his grandson with as much love as he could muster with his limited sign language: “Greg, you cannot be a race-car driver because you were born deaf.” Dewey knew how much that hurt, and it broke his heart, but he knew racin’ is a tough game, and he figured the boy would understand when he got older.
Greg got older. He never did understand, though. And even Dewey couldn’t slow down the boy. Greg raced snowmobiles, he raced ATVs, he raced motorcycles, he raced every bucket of bolts he could find. He raced anything with wheels or skis. Of all the racing Dirksons and Gundersons burning rubber all over South Dakota, it turned out that Greg was the one who loved it the most, the driver who pushed hardest for the edge. Dewey finally saw it. Then he thought, “What the heck?” He put Greg in a sprint car. He served as crew chief. They raced together more than 400 times all over the Midwest, and Greg won more than 40 of those. It was the time of their lives.
“My grandfather only missed two of my races,” Greg wrote. “Those were when he had his heart attack and he was in the hospital. He is my hero. He is my best friend.”
In time, Greg got married and had two daughters, and he found there wasn’t as much time for racing. Then there was no time at all. Dewey had seen it happen to drivers before. Greg had his business, he took care of his daughters, and at night he would sit down in front of his computer and read every racing message board he could find.
One day, just after his 38th birthday, with racing days looking small in the rearview mirror, Greg saw a message that interested him. He clicked on the words that said: “Driver Wanted.”
People who knew Jason Curry always figured he would do something big, something life-changing. That’s the kind of guy he was. But what? Jason didn’t know. He tried natural body building for a while. He liked that. He thought he would be involved in some big deals, big money, and that felt exciting enough. But none of it moved his soul.
He was drifting a little, maybe, when he had breakfast with his father in a restaurant on that morning. You know the drifting feeling? Jason was in his mid-30s, but he still felt like that boy at Boys Town, the one who wanted to change the world. Jason and his father, David, were dancing their usual conversation tango; they tried to communicate through some blend of sign language, lip reading and frustration. So much went unspoken. Finally David signed, “Let’s go home,” and Jason agreed.
When they got home, David pulled out a magic marker, and on the white board in the kitchen he drew a box. It looked like a laptop computer. David wrote a question: “Why can’t you have two devices like this where a hearing person and a non-hearing person message each other?” Jason stared at the drawing. It was so simple. It was too simple. Someone must have come up with this before. But, Jason knew immediately it was new, brand new, that if someone had invented this, he would have heard about it. He had been deaf since he was born. He had been waiting for this forever.
And just as immediately Jason knew that everything would change. Sure, it was only a crude sketch by his father, whose technological talents prevented him from even knowing how to use e-mail. But Jason knew: That was his life on the board.
The drawing has been his life ever since. He applied for grants. He contacted engineers. And he invented something he called the Ubi Duo; a device that looks an awful lot like his father’s drawing. It’s a keyboard with a flip-top screen. “You cannot imagine the freedom this little device will provide for deaf people,” Jason typed on his Ubi Duo as he sat across the table, and that message appeared in real time on my Ubi Duo.
“How far apart could we be?” I typed. At the time, the Ubi Duo devices were touching each other; it looked like the setup of the old “Battleship” board game.
“Up to 4,000 feet,” Jason typed, and he smiled. “The length of 40 football fields.”
Jason and engineers spent three years testing the device, working and reworking the design, and interviewing deaf people for ideas. When the prototype was done, Jason needed some people to test it. He contacted Mike McConnell, perhaps the nation’s best known deaf blogger. Mike said he knew the perfect guy.
He wrote: “Do you know about Greg Gunderson, who is trying to become the first deaf NASCAR driver?”
When Greg clicked on the “Driver Wanted” message, he was taken to a Web site for an upcoming reality TV show. The show would be called “Racin’ for a Livin,’ ” and it would feature 15 rookie drivers and five veterans. There would be numerous off-track tests, 10 races, each week another driver would be eliminated — you know how the reality show thing works — but the most important thing, the thing that jolted Greg, is that the winner would get the chance to qualify for seven Busch series races.
He looked at that for a long time. Then he entered. Why not? He filled out a questionnaire. He was told that more than 3,400 other dreamers entered, too (and since then, according to the show’s creator Jerry VanDenHul, more than 10,000 more have applied). But one night at midnight, he checked his e-mail and found that he was one of 50 rookies chosen for the final vote. He wanted to scream, but he could not. He wanted to tell his wife, but she was asleep. So he sat there, his heart thumping through his chest, and he did not sleep all night. He thought for a long time about how his life was going to change.
Here’s the thing: Greg is not on the show. Only the top 15 vote getters in an Internet poll will actually get on the show, which is scheduled to shoot this autumn and appear on a yet-undisclosed network in February. VanDenHul, a driver himself, wants the top 50 drivers to prove their worth by getting press coverage and by drawing votes. He says the Web site www.racinforalivin.com has had more than 150 million hits since voting began.
“I want to see just how bad you want it,” VanDenHul said. “Nothing is for free.”
Greg began by e-mailing everyone he knew in the deaf community. He gave interviews to anyone he could find. He told reporters that he would break barriers, he would open doors for more than 25 million Americans who have hearing loss. Most of all, he promised that he would drive fast. He has talked with VanDenHul about technology that will help him overcome his one major obstacle — communicating with the pit crew. VanDenHul suggests they could use a series of flashing lights on the car or perhaps words coming across a visor.
“It’s really not going to be a problem,” VanDenHul said.
As far as the driving goes, Greg has always felt sure.
“In some way, I have an advantage over hearing drivers,” Greg wrote. “I have very sensitive feeling, and so I’ve saved many engines because I can feel the vibrations. I can tell when there’s too much stress on the engine. Also, because of my heightened sense of feeling, I usually can find the quickest way around the track quicker than someone who can hear. At most of my races, you usually found the other drivers following my line.”
With barely two weeks of voting left, Greg is ranked 21st. You can vote for Greg at the Web site. He is behind several beloved regional male drivers who look like they walked off the “Days of Thunder” movie set and at least a couple of young women drivers who look like models. You know how reality TV shows work.
Still, Greg believes he will get enough votes to get on the show. He believes in destiny.
When Jason came across Greg’s name, he did not recognize it. But when he went to the Web site, he saw a photograph, one he had a hundred times before. It was Greg on a snowmobile. Jason remembered everything. This was his old camp roommate. He was trying for something big. And he needed help.
So, Jason got in touch, and they cried as they remembered. Jason’s Independence-based company sComm bought Greg his fire suit and helmet (with the words “Ubi Duo” prominent on both) and he offered Greg his invention to use on the show. This way, Greg could communicate with fans and media members and the other drivers on the show. This way, Jason’s invention could be seen by America.
See, Jason believes in destiny, too.
“The other day, I had a long chat with my brother-in-law on the Ubi Duo,” Jason wrote. “It was the first in-depth conversation we’d ever had. When I went over to their house, I used to be off to the side, alone. It was hard.
“Now, this device … it will change people’s lives. I know it. It will help deaf people do jobs. It will bring family members together. And it will help my old friend Greg become the first deaf NASCAR driver. I know it.”
Greg knows it, too. The story has to end happily. A few weeks ago, Greg came across a room key and he realized: It was to their room at Boys Town. Greg never knew why he kept that key — he was supposed to give it back at the end of the camp — but he did keep it. And every time he thought of throwing it away, something stopped him. Now he knew. He gave the key to Jason.
“What is the key to?” I type into the Ubi Duo.
“The future,” Greg typed.
A few days ago, Greg drove from South Dakota to Kansas City. He was so excited about promoting his dream and seeing Jason again that he was pulled over for speeding. The policeman let him off with a warning. The policeman did not know sign language.
When Greg arrived in town, he and Jason talked about the excitement of their lives and how they were going to change the world. They were middle-aged men, but somehow they didn’t feel that way. Old friends can do that for each other.
That night, they went to sleep. And Jason sneaked into Greg’s room. He was not worried about noise. He made it to Greg’s bed without waking him, and then, in a bold move, Jason dumped a bucket of warm water on Greg’s face. Greg jolted awake, and he was mad for an instant. Then he smiled. It turned out their game was far from over.
Our story begins in Boys Town. There were two boys there, Jason Curry and Greg Gunderson, and they liked each other so much that each day they tried to beat the other with the ultimate practical joke. These involved typical practical joke props — bugs, shoelaces, wet underwear — and then one night Greg decided to go for the knockout.
In the middle of the night, Greg sneaked up to Jason’s bed. He was not worried about noise. Jason and Greg were both deaf. This was a camp for gifted deaf children. Greg was worried about vibration. But he walked so softly that Jason did not feel a thing. And then, in a bold move, Greg dumped a bowl of warm water on Jason’s face. It was not the most original stunt ever pulled, but it was decisive. Jason jolted awake, and he was angry, and he did not even look at Greg for days. That, both would agree, meant victory.
In time, of course, Jason and Greg lost track of each other. Jason went to a public school in Sedalia, Mo. He often felt out of place, but he felt determined. He became one of the first deaf students to graduate from Central Missouri State. He became an insurance agent. He wanted to own a business, preferably something in real estate. Greg meanwhile went to a deaf high school in South Dakota, and he traveled across America to attend Gallaudet University, the world’s only university for the deaf. Greg also wanted to own a business, preferably something involving cars. They grew up.
Greg and Jason — like most boys — had some vague notion of changing the world. And like most boys, neither one had any real idea how to do that.
Greg Gunderson comes from a family of racers. His father, his uncle, his cousins, they all race cars — sprint cars, stock cars, midgets, go-karts, you name it. The racing legend in the family, though, is Grandpa, Dewey Dirkson. Every region of America has a Dewey Dirkson, the guy everybody knows. Most of Dewey’s life he owned race cars, he fixed them, he sold parts, he helped out those drivers who needed help. Anyone who wanted to drive a car fast in the Dakotas knew Dewey Dirkson. Most of them would come to the garage with their souped-up jalopies. They would start ’em up, look at him inquisitively, and just from the sound Ol’ Dewey would know how to make those rides go faster.
Maybe it was that — Dewey’s acute sense of race car hearing — that made him leery about Greg. Maybe it was just protectiveness. Whatever, Dewey told his grandson with as much love as he could muster with his limited sign language: “Greg, you cannot be a race-car driver because you were born deaf.” Dewey knew how much that hurt, and it broke his heart, but he knew racin’ is a tough game, and he figured the boy would understand when he got older.
Greg got older. He never did understand, though. And even Dewey couldn’t slow down the boy. Greg raced snowmobiles, he raced ATVs, he raced motorcycles, he raced every bucket of bolts he could find. He raced anything with wheels or skis. Of all the racing Dirksons and Gundersons burning rubber all over South Dakota, it turned out that Greg was the one who loved it the most, the driver who pushed hardest for the edge. Dewey finally saw it. Then he thought, “What the heck?” He put Greg in a sprint car. He served as crew chief. They raced together more than 400 times all over the Midwest, and Greg won more than 40 of those. It was the time of their lives.
“My grandfather only missed two of my races,” Greg wrote. “Those were when he had his heart attack and he was in the hospital. He is my hero. He is my best friend.”
In time, Greg got married and had two daughters, and he found there wasn’t as much time for racing. Then there was no time at all. Dewey had seen it happen to drivers before. Greg had his business, he took care of his daughters, and at night he would sit down in front of his computer and read every racing message board he could find.
One day, just after his 38th birthday, with racing days looking small in the rearview mirror, Greg saw a message that interested him. He clicked on the words that said: “Driver Wanted.”
People who knew Jason Curry always figured he would do something big, something life-changing. That’s the kind of guy he was. But what? Jason didn’t know. He tried natural body building for a while. He liked that. He thought he would be involved in some big deals, big money, and that felt exciting enough. But none of it moved his soul.
He was drifting a little, maybe, when he had breakfast with his father in a restaurant on that morning. You know the drifting feeling? Jason was in his mid-30s, but he still felt like that boy at Boys Town, the one who wanted to change the world. Jason and his father, David, were dancing their usual conversation tango; they tried to communicate through some blend of sign language, lip reading and frustration. So much went unspoken. Finally David signed, “Let’s go home,” and Jason agreed.
When they got home, David pulled out a magic marker, and on the white board in the kitchen he drew a box. It looked like a laptop computer. David wrote a question: “Why can’t you have two devices like this where a hearing person and a non-hearing person message each other?” Jason stared at the drawing. It was so simple. It was too simple. Someone must have come up with this before. But, Jason knew immediately it was new, brand new, that if someone had invented this, he would have heard about it. He had been deaf since he was born. He had been waiting for this forever.
And just as immediately Jason knew that everything would change. Sure, it was only a crude sketch by his father, whose technological talents prevented him from even knowing how to use e-mail. But Jason knew: That was his life on the board.
The drawing has been his life ever since. He applied for grants. He contacted engineers. And he invented something he called the Ubi Duo; a device that looks an awful lot like his father’s drawing. It’s a keyboard with a flip-top screen. “You cannot imagine the freedom this little device will provide for deaf people,” Jason typed on his Ubi Duo as he sat across the table, and that message appeared in real time on my Ubi Duo.
“How far apart could we be?” I typed. At the time, the Ubi Duo devices were touching each other; it looked like the setup of the old “Battleship” board game.
“Up to 4,000 feet,” Jason typed, and he smiled. “The length of 40 football fields.”
Jason and engineers spent three years testing the device, working and reworking the design, and interviewing deaf people for ideas. When the prototype was done, Jason needed some people to test it. He contacted Mike McConnell, perhaps the nation’s best known deaf blogger. Mike said he knew the perfect guy.
He wrote: “Do you know about Greg Gunderson, who is trying to become the first deaf NASCAR driver?”
When Greg clicked on the “Driver Wanted” message, he was taken to a Web site for an upcoming reality TV show. The show would be called “Racin’ for a Livin,’ ” and it would feature 15 rookie drivers and five veterans. There would be numerous off-track tests, 10 races, each week another driver would be eliminated — you know how the reality show thing works — but the most important thing, the thing that jolted Greg, is that the winner would get the chance to qualify for seven Busch series races.
He looked at that for a long time. Then he entered. Why not? He filled out a questionnaire. He was told that more than 3,400 other dreamers entered, too (and since then, according to the show’s creator Jerry VanDenHul, more than 10,000 more have applied). But one night at midnight, he checked his e-mail and found that he was one of 50 rookies chosen for the final vote. He wanted to scream, but he could not. He wanted to tell his wife, but she was asleep. So he sat there, his heart thumping through his chest, and he did not sleep all night. He thought for a long time about how his life was going to change.
Here’s the thing: Greg is not on the show. Only the top 15 vote getters in an Internet poll will actually get on the show, which is scheduled to shoot this autumn and appear on a yet-undisclosed network in February. VanDenHul, a driver himself, wants the top 50 drivers to prove their worth by getting press coverage and by drawing votes. He says the Web site www.racinforalivin.com has had more than 150 million hits since voting began.
“I want to see just how bad you want it,” VanDenHul said. “Nothing is for free.”
Greg began by e-mailing everyone he knew in the deaf community. He gave interviews to anyone he could find. He told reporters that he would break barriers, he would open doors for more than 25 million Americans who have hearing loss. Most of all, he promised that he would drive fast. He has talked with VanDenHul about technology that will help him overcome his one major obstacle — communicating with the pit crew. VanDenHul suggests they could use a series of flashing lights on the car or perhaps words coming across a visor.
“It’s really not going to be a problem,” VanDenHul said.
As far as the driving goes, Greg has always felt sure.
“In some way, I have an advantage over hearing drivers,” Greg wrote. “I have very sensitive feeling, and so I’ve saved many engines because I can feel the vibrations. I can tell when there’s too much stress on the engine. Also, because of my heightened sense of feeling, I usually can find the quickest way around the track quicker than someone who can hear. At most of my races, you usually found the other drivers following my line.”
With barely two weeks of voting left, Greg is ranked 21st. You can vote for Greg at the Web site. He is behind several beloved regional male drivers who look like they walked off the “Days of Thunder” movie set and at least a couple of young women drivers who look like models. You know how reality TV shows work.
Still, Greg believes he will get enough votes to get on the show. He believes in destiny.
When Jason came across Greg’s name, he did not recognize it. But when he went to the Web site, he saw a photograph, one he had a hundred times before. It was Greg on a snowmobile. Jason remembered everything. This was his old camp roommate. He was trying for something big. And he needed help.
So, Jason got in touch, and they cried as they remembered. Jason’s Independence-based company sComm bought Greg his fire suit and helmet (with the words “Ubi Duo” prominent on both) and he offered Greg his invention to use on the show. This way, Greg could communicate with fans and media members and the other drivers on the show. This way, Jason’s invention could be seen by America.
See, Jason believes in destiny, too.
“The other day, I had a long chat with my brother-in-law on the Ubi Duo,” Jason wrote. “It was the first in-depth conversation we’d ever had. When I went over to their house, I used to be off to the side, alone. It was hard.
“Now, this device … it will change people’s lives. I know it. It will help deaf people do jobs. It will bring family members together. And it will help my old friend Greg become the first deaf NASCAR driver. I know it.”
Greg knows it, too. The story has to end happily. A few weeks ago, Greg came across a room key and he realized: It was to their room at Boys Town. Greg never knew why he kept that key — he was supposed to give it back at the end of the camp — but he did keep it. And every time he thought of throwing it away, something stopped him. Now he knew. He gave the key to Jason.
“What is the key to?” I type into the Ubi Duo.
“The future,” Greg typed.
A few days ago, Greg drove from South Dakota to Kansas City. He was so excited about promoting his dream and seeing Jason again that he was pulled over for speeding. The policeman let him off with a warning. The policeman did not know sign language.
When Greg arrived in town, he and Jason talked about the excitement of their lives and how they were going to change the world. They were middle-aged men, but somehow they didn’t feel that way. Old friends can do that for each other.
That night, they went to sleep. And Jason sneaked into Greg’s room. He was not worried about noise. He made it to Greg’s bed without waking him, and then, in a bold move, Jason dumped a bucket of warm water on Greg’s face. Greg jolted awake, and he was mad for an instant. Then he smiled. It turned out their game was far from over.