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2002 Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race at Long Beach |
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6/24/02
 The 2002 Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race held in Long Beach was the first time I had worked this program. For many years, Danny McKeever who is Chief instructor/Owner of Fast Lane Racing School who is hired by Toyota to train the driver's, was kind enough to ask me to come on board.
I have worked for Danny for years and he has always said how much fun training this group was. Well, I must admit, he was right. It really was satisfying to take someone who in some cases really didn't know how to drive a manual transmission all the way to a beginning race car driver.
The group of drivers were all great and loved to have a good time. Which in my book, is always on the top of my list. Some of the drivers included: Patrick Stewart ("Star Trek's Captain Picard") , Goran Visnijic ("Dr. Luka Kovac in NBC's "ER"), Bryan Cranston ("Hal on Fox's "Malcolm in the Middle") Bill Goldberg (Actor, Former WCW Champion Wrestler), Dule Hill (" Charlie Young in NBC's West Wing"), Christopher Masterson ("Francis, in FOX's "Malcolm in the Middle") Christopher Titus (FOX's "Titus") and Dara Torres (Olympic Gold Medal Champion).
 After the race on Saturday evening during the awards dinner celebration put on by Toyota, it was amazing how many drivers were hooked on the experience. They were all asking....how do I do this more? How do you turn professional? I just sat there and smiled. I kept saying, "are you sure you want to open that can of worms?" Like a 6-yr old kid waiting for an ice cream cone, they just smiled very big and shook their heads wildly...YES! I knew they had the bug.
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