“Basically, Derrick described Will as a lost puppy who didn’t really know anyone in Indy,” says Liz. “I should try and be extra-supportive, he said, and we would both need to protect Will from whatever pressure he might be getting back in Australia. Well, as you can imagine, that made me sympathize with Will’s situation even more, and I tried to be there for him as often as seemed reasonable. I was still finding my feet as a Champ Car PR person, but I did at least know already how to help someone in need. So we started spending more time together, although I wouldn’t say I really knew Will yet. Then, when the whole team went out one night on the Milwaukee race weekend, I was sitting beside him at dinner and he turned out to be hilarious company – really dry humor, and definitely demonstrating a side of himself I hadn’t seen before. And then a third side of him emerged after dinner, when he mooned at some stranger while they were checking themselves out in a mirror. So, that’s when I realized he possibly wasn’t shy all the time.”
Indeed. And Elizabeth’s Milwaukee surprises weren’t over yet.
“Right after the qualifying session, Will had to go straight to the media center for an interview and I’m trying to rush him from the Team Australia pit box back into the paddock. Unfortunately, along the way there’s a fan with a big friendly dog. I rush on past and think Will’s right behind me and is aware of the urgency of the situation but then I look back and see him in his fire suit, lying on the ground, messing about with this dog. At the time I was like, ‘Errr . . . are you @#$%ing serious?!’ but afterward the incident made me giggle and I got to thinking, ‘Yeah, Will’s definitely an interesting offbeat character.’
“Anyway, we just started hanging out more as friends, and obviously discovering likes and dislikes, and also a lot of common ground. And then one evening in Indy, soon after the Portland race, I called him for something PR-wise – maybe quotes for a press release for the next race . . . I don’t remember. But when I called, he was in Rock Bottom Brewery with Simon Pagenaud, who at that time was on Derrick’s Formula Atlantic team, and Derek Higgins, who was Walker Racing’s Atlantic team manager and driver coach. When Will told me where he was, I dropped a broad hint that I loved going there and that I wasn’t doing anything this evening – very subtle, huh? Honestly, I wasn’t looking to start dating him and I knew Derrick’s rules . . . although, he’d also told me since then to befriend the guy, so that was a bit of a gray area. But anyway, Will eventually took the hint and invited me down.
“That night I did want to hang out because I’d discovered Will was a funny, quirky guy – but at the same time I didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize my job. Nor did I want to be regarded as one of those girls who just goes after the drivers. There were and are quite enough of those already, and I wasn’t ever like that. So there were obvious mental barriers to us dating. Interestingly, though, I discovered later that Will had already asked one of our mutual friends, Val, if I was seeing anyone.
“Uncool Moment No. 2 occurred that evening at Rock Bottom Brewery, because he said to Pagenaud, ‘Simon, you’ve got to go do something, right? I guess Liz will have to give me a ride home.’ And Uncool Moment No. 3 arrived pretty soon after when he tried to kiss me when I dropped him off. I was like ‘Noooooo . . .’”
After Will helped Elizabeth babysit a few times – “Yes, I still had to do an evening job because Derrick’s pay was crap!” – and the pair hung out together more and more, the gray area between what was and wasn’t allowed by Walker Racing policy became immaterial. Will and Liz were dating. And in another regard, life was also looking up for the Cannon family as a whole: Bo’s recuperation from his open-heart surgery was going well, despite being slowed as a result of complications caused by the hospital leaving an 18-inch guide wire inside him. [“Don’t get me started,” says Elizabeth.]
And then it came time for Will to meet the parents. Imagine Willy P’s odd sense of humor, wit drier than one of Gandhi’s slippers and natural shyness encountering a father and mother who were worried that their beautiful daughter was dating one of those flaky, untrustworthy racing driver types . . . The combination could have turned into a clichéd mess of faux pas and a Romeo-and-Juliet tale of forbidden love. In fact, it was neither. It happened in stages, and first to encounter the phenomenon that is Will Power was Kathy Cannon.
“For some reason, just before the Toronto race, Will needed a suit and he didn’t have one,” says Elizabeth, “and even if he had, it would have been unusable. When I first saw his little apartment in Indy, he didn’t even have hangers. All his clothes were just folded on a shelf. He had a couch, an old box TV and I think that was about it. Honestly, his apartment was soooo depressing. I had to really push him into making it more like a home. Anyway, I digress.
“Now he needed a suit and because he’s color-deficient, he didn’t know what went with what. So my mom and I met Will at the mall, and he turned up wearing long shorts that were kinda camouflage but with pink skulls-’n’-crossbones crudely stitched on them. They were as ugly as that sounds, and he’d accessorized with blue sneakers. Nothing matched.
“So we’re in the store, Mom finds a nice suit on sale, and while he’s in the changing room trying it on, she turns to me and says, ‘Oh, that poor boy!’ Clearly she already saw the same endearing qualities and felt the same sympathy that I had felt back in March. And I guess something must have clicked between them, because to this day, Mom’s still the one who shops for Will and picks out his clothes; she’s the only person he trusts.”
A few nights later, it would be time for Will to meet Bo. But first there was a scrappy race at Edmonton, Canada, where Messrs Power and Tagliani were expected to perform at their peak mere days after flying all the way down to Australia for a one-day promotion of the Surfers Paradise race. Neither was at their best after a fifteen-hour journey each way, as Elizabeth recalls.
“Oh, my goodness, I’m convinced that stupid trip was why Will made a mistake in practice and had a huge shunt, and Alex made a mistake in the race and hit Sébastien Bourdais,” she says. “Those guys were just fatigued, not as sharp as they should have been. Both Will and Alex are professionals who need everything just right and they’d been compromised. It wasn’t fair on them at all.
“I think that was the weekend when I started sneaking to Will’s room – not to do anything, no hanky-panky – but just to be a friend and talk to him because he was so stressed. I knew he was on thin ice with the team’s backers, and Will certainly could feel it too. He hadn’t yet had a big result and anyone who didn’t understand how difficult Champ Car was couldn’t really appreciate what Will had achieved so far. I suppose he hadn’t done much in terms of results, but people who understood racing, especially those inside the team, could see he really was making progress.”
Meeting Elizabeth’s dad for the first time at her parents’ house for dinner was a different kind of stress, but again, it went well and soon Will was going over weekly, happy to be in a family environment, starting to meet family friends, and even his girlfriend’s girl friends. Mind you, the more people he met, the greater the risk that others, including Derrick Walker, would find out about the Power–Cannon bond.
“Well, I think certain people within the team had their suspicions,” says Elizabeth, “but only Derek Higgins and Simon actually knew, and they were both good and kept it a secret. Then I went to the drivers’ party after the race in Surfers, which was a bit exclusive, and someone – who better remain nameless because we’re now friendly! – got jealous and told most of the team. So I knew matters would come to a head in Mexico City, the next race, which happened to coincide with my birthday. Obviously, I’m nervous about Derrick finding out and firing me, and so I’m sitting in a transporter by myself, crying, and Will comes in and sits there with his arm around me, trying to cheer me up.
“Well someone sees us, assumes we’re having some kind of lovers’ tiff or whatever, and goes to Derrick and says, ‘I don’t think our driver’s in the right frame of mind, becau
se he and his girlfriend, Liz, are having issues.’ And by horrible coincidence, Will is slow in that practice session – I can’t remember why – and so Derrick bends down into the cockpit after the session and says to Will, ‘Are you and your girlfriend fighting?!’
“Derrick then confronts me and says, ‘I can’t believe you lied to me, but whatever, this is not the place to fight with your boyfriend when he’s got to go out and do his job.’ I tried to assure him that I had never lied to him and that Will and I weren’t fighting, and that I could explain but now probably wasn’t the time. But I was respectful and we kinda had this uncomfortable truce for the remainder of the weekend.
“In the meantime, Will was on fire – like he had been in Surfers – and was really quick for the rest of the weekend. He clinched the Rookie of the Year award and scored his first podium. At the end of the race, Derrick turned to me and said, ‘Okay, Blondie, I guess you weren’t the reason Will was slow on Friday,’ but I could tell he was still mad at me. Nevertheless, I now have a photo of Will and me on the podium together, and even though we’re really pleased about the result of the race, we both look kinda awkward together because we know there’s a long argument still to come back at the race shop . . .”
Not helping Derrick’s mood by the time he got around to talking to Blondie was the fact that he’d been for a meeting with his business partner where Gore had revealed that, yes, he’d already known about the driver–PR lady liaison! Yet, unexpectedly, Derrick delayed bringing the subject up for a couple of months. Nor was Elizabeth fired/let go. Penny-pinching teams traditionally ditch all but their core staff at the start of the off-season, only rehiring a couple of weeks before the next race season starts, but Liz was not one of the many PR-person casualties that winter.
Finally, though, it was time for her annual review not long after the New Year of 2007. In Liz’s favor going into Derrick’s office was the fact that his No Dating rule had always been slightly unreasonable – or should that be “naïve”? Love has a fine habit of conquering all. And then there was the fact that back in May of 2006 Derrick had specifically asked her to befriend Mr Power, make him feel at home and become his ally in the face of constant pressure from Australia as well as his own colossal self-imposed pressure. It seemed fair for Elizabeth to point out that her dating Will had coincided with an upturn in his performances and their consistency of delivery . . .
“If you make Derrick Walker mad, you’ll see a vein bulge in the center of his forehead,” says Liz, “and boy, I got to see that vein for two straight hours that afternoon! But I stood up for myself, and reminded him that Will had been going through a lot and so had I with my dad’s health, so if you throw two people together almost constantly, and they find they’re attracted to each other but are also really helping each other, it’s inevitable what will happen.
“I also pointed out that I had remained professional at all times, had worked really hard to get us good PR and media opportunities, and had brought Will out of his shell to the extent that journalists actually went to him for interviews. And, finally, I’d also made sure that I never favored Will within the team. I think Alex and Simon got more media coverage than they might otherwise have gotten because I was so desperate to not just push the Will Power angle.
“Anyway, by the end of the conversation I felt Derrick and I would be fine going forward, so long as Will and I remained as discreet about our relationship as we had been so far. I think I’d convinced him that I would continue being very professional. But then I chose that moment to mention the lack of professionalism shown by the person who’d first ratted me out down in Surfers! I wasn’t out for revenge but I certainly thought it was time to open Derrick’s eyes to various situations within the team. He looked a bit stunned as he realized me and Will dating was the least and most innocent of Walker Racing’s personnel problems. As I left his office, Derrick hit the intercom button and called in the culprits . . .”
Chapter 10
Winning
Just as Team Australia was getting up to speed with the Lola by the end of 2006, it was time for all Champ Car teams to switch to their new spec racer, the Panoz DP01. Series owners Gerry Forsythe and Kevin Kalkhoven had considered options from four different racecar builders and eventually elected to take their business to Panoz. Designers Simon Marshall and Nick Alcock had come up with a truly handsome machine that retained the CART/Champ Car “look”, with a sleek, low engine cover shrouding an unchanged turbocharged Cosworth 2.65-liter V8. In fact, almost a decade after it was first revealed in the summer of 2006, there are many fans who are still saddened by the fact that DP01s became museum pieces after little more than one season.
The Panoz also gave the Series a welcome do-over in terms of competition. Newman/Haas Racing (NHR) had dominated the previous three years with Sébastien Bourdais, so starting from ground zero with a new car would initially put everyone on a level playing field . . . maybe long enough to keep NHR’s superiority at bay for one season, at least. But in motorsport there’s an opposing school of thought, too – that a time of substantial change to cars or regulations is when top teams show why they’re top teams. Derrick Walker fell on this more realistic side of the fence.
“I felt we had the ability to be second best,” he recalls, “which was no mean feat. Forsythe was obviously good but going through an on/off period, and RuSPORT could be very good too. They had a vastly bigger budget than us, so to beat both of those teams on a weekend was quite a feather in our cap. But the mighty Newman/Haas had a leg up on us, not just from their financial resources but also their depth of top-quality personnel. I’d say Walker Racing [Team Australia] was very strong at the track over a race weekend, because we were lean and efficient and because we had sharp and bright guys working for us who really knew what they were doing. But between races, it was a different matter: we just couldn’t afford to do all the things Newman/Haas did. That isn’t meant to sound bitter or defeatist at all: that’s just the way it was. They were always the team to aim for.”
And they had a damn fine lead driver, too. Whatever anyone said about Bourdais – a sore loser and even an ungracious winner on occasion – his talent was of a quality that matched his car and team: first class. Fast, consistent, aggressive and intelligent, Seabass didn’t make many mistakes because he wasn’t often under pressure. Yet that was the thinnest part of the champ’s armor, according to Walker, and that’s why he believed his own prodigy had title potential in 2007.
“Will really had that commitment where if we could get the car’s handling in the ballpark, his speed could carry it the rest of the way, as he proved at Surfers the previous year. He really took that race to Bourdais and made him crack, and I’d say that was a turning point in how we looked at ourselves, competitiveness-wise. Will now had a complete season under his belt, so his confidence had built up. He was still putting everything into the job, but he was also a little bit more relaxed within the team environment and . . . comfortable in his own skin, I’d say.”
Power concurs, and cites job security as one of the prime factors that allowed him to just focus on his track work: “It was year two and just for that I was grateful. You look at how many rookies don’t even get a chance to come back, especially in Champ Car at that time but even in IndyCar now, because it’s hard for some of the teams to find funding without the driver contributing. So I felt pretty lucky – very lucky, actually – about my start in Champ Car, because I didn’t have to bring sponsorship; I’ll always be grateful that Derrick Walker, Craig Gore and John Fish created that opportunity for me. Unless I really screwed up, I didn’t have to worry about where I’d be racing in 2007. So yeah, maybe that made me calmer.
“But I remember also being impatient to get the season started because I was really sure I could start winning. On the technical side, I knew what I wanted from a Champ Car, I was way more confident about giving feedback, and we were starting over with a new car. Champ Car’s new rules made the Panoz a lot more spec than t
he old Lola, which had to help us because it meant bigger teams couldn’t just spend what they wanted and blow us away. So yeah, I was pretty happy with our chances.”
If Power had one misgiving, it was that his race engineer from 2006, Brandon Fry, had quit Team Australia to join Forsythe Racing and engineer Paul Tracy. Power was surprised and disappointed, and rang Fry to beg him to reverse his decision. It didn’t work.
“Honestly, I enjoyed my time at Walker,” says Fry, “and it was great working with a very talented rookie like Will, because from mid-season on, I could really feel our momentum building. So I can see why people thought it was a strange time to leave – Will was the future, Paul was great but at the tail-end of his career. But I wasn’t thinking so much about the drivers. I moved because I was concerned about Team Australia’s sponsorship going into the future, whereas I thought the development of a whole new car would be a situation where a really well funded team like Forsythe could make a difference.”
Rob Edwards recalls that he and Walker were, to put it politely, “very frustrated” by Fry’s decision, since it hadn’t come until January of 2007, by which time all the “recognized” race engineers were off the market. Now, though, Walker is prepared to look more benignly on Fry’s departure.
The Sheer Force of Will Power Page 12
