Sometimes when you dream big, the universe rewards you.
That’s the lesson Penske Corporation President Bud Denker taught me and tens of thousands of racing fans on Sunday at The Freedom 250 Grand Prix in the heart of Washington, D.C.
Truly, it was a remarkable event I’ll never forget. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen racecars zoom down Pennsylvania Avenue in our nation’s capital at 170 mph. Thankfully, my wife Jeanette and I were there to witness it all firsthand.
But it wasn’t the top speeds that raised my eyebrows the most during Sunday’s spectacle. It was how the worldclass drivers during the race were able to slow down that struck me most. Let me explain…
As I wrote a few weeks earlier, my friend Bud had an incredible dream. He wanted to create one of the most unique auto races in history. To celebrate America’s 250th birthday, he wanted to host an auto race in the middle of D.C.
And he pulled it off.
Bud achieved a goal that would have been daunting to most others. But instead of backing down, there he was on Sunday, smiling in ways you could only imagine, beaming because he was able to celebrate the country with thousands of his closest race fan friends.
When I asked Bud what it took for drivers to win the Grand Prix, he told me it wouldn’t be a cakewalk. The course was rigorous, complicated, unrelenting.
But there was a way to do it that the best drivers understand.
The biggest lesson I learned at the race in D.C. on Sunday was not about how the drivers achieved their fastest speeds down a straightaway. Instead, it was about how they navigated the moments when they had to slow down.
Sunday’s track featured seven hard turns and 147 laps—that’s wild. The course was one of the most difficult tracks in IndyCar history. But the key to victory was not about the pedal on the right.
It was about the pedal on the left. The drivers had to figure out how aggressively they could brake around a corner while also keeping themselves moving at the highest possible speed. That would be the difference between winning and losing.
The lesson struck me, partly because it’s such a great business metaphor for us to remember. It’s not just about how fast we can go when we’re running at full speed, it’s about how intentionally we can be when we need to slow down.
There are always moments when we need to pause, slow, or bring things down a notch. But a break in the action doesn’t mean losing hold of the rope entirely.
During The Freedom 250 Grand Prix, racers were barreling down a straightaway around 160 to 170 mph but then they had to immediately slow down to around 50 mph to make a hard left. But it was the ability to hit 50—and not, say, 45 or 48 mph—that gave them the best chance at victory.
That’s what put 27 year old Kyle Kirkwood in the winner’s circle.
Exhausted after the event, he knew it.
“You can’t even put it in words. This is incredible,” Kirkwood said after the race. “Man, that was a hard race. 147 laps. I’m out of breath right now.”
On Sunday, both Kirkwood and my friend Bud knew what it was like to see their big dreams come to life.
That’s sure to inspire them to have many more.
As a Hall of Fame keynote speaker, longtime Associate Editor for Sports Illustrated, and 13-time New York Times Best-Selling author, Don Yaeger is one of America’s most provocative thought leaders. From walking into Afghanistan with the Mujahadeen to living with football legend Walter Payton, Don has spent three decades embedded with the world’s greatest "Greats." Now a sought-after executive coach and host of the Corporate Competitor Podcast, he translates the lessons of sports and business legends into actionable strategies for building a culture of greatness.
