Boyz in the Robin Hood

Family Jewels

Ed Donath Commentary

January 21, 2001

Boyz in the

Hood

None of us is happy when we hear that someone whom we have come to know and care about has suffered a personal loss. A career position being terminated after 33 years with the same company certainly qualifies as one of the major negatively impacting realities of life.

Long before there were websites, live timing/scoring and the ability for fans like me to travel to - and later become media-credentialed for - CART events, there was the Indianapolis paper's Month of May Package. This "next-day mail" newspaper delivery service was a non-Indianan's only link to the mystical daily rituals and tribulations of the personalities in our beloved speed sport. It was also the steel-toed work boot that enabled Robin Miller to wedge his foot in the doors of households and offices far from newsstands in his hometown.

Fast-forward to Champ Car fan-dom in the Twenty-first Century, however, and Robin Miller is now someone whom you can hardly avoid running into on a regular basis.

Open Champ Car and Miller's in there. Go to the website that recently replaced On Track - for which Robin had previously written - there's Robin. Visit CART's own Quokka-fied website and he's there too. Robin Miller is even "there" for TV's RPM2Nite. And, as always, if you visit the paddock area during any Champ Car race weekend you will also, at some point, run into the ubiquitous Mr. Miller.

When Robin was still employed by the Indy newspaper I occasionally wondered what fractional percentage of his expenses they reimbursed to him. Was it sufficient for Miller to be introduced on ESPN and at CART press conferences as the Indianapolis paper's Reporter/Columnist in order for him to qualify for a full paycheck, benefits and expense account at that newspaper?

Of course, rhetorical questions like this one are none of anyone's business. Perhaps I think about such matters more than other people do as a result of spending years endeavoring to get my own freelance writings published.

Lest you believe that I have an axe to grind with Robin Miller or that there is a bunch of sour grapes in the fruit bowl on my dining room table please accept my sincere statement that Miller is - always has been - a hard-working inspiration to me. Furthermore, I continue to read his columns and find them no less interesting and entertaining than they were "back in the old days".

BUT…for every new "Featured Writer" gig that Robin is able to easily back his butt into, there is immediately less butt room available for other aspiring reporters and commentators. This has become especially true of late with the recent demise of several open-wheel racing magazines.

I can't speak for the others but I'm certain that I wrote at least as much commentary last year as Robin Miller or any of the other established boyz in the hood. Modestly - and hopefully objectively - it is my belief that a few more of us other writers' pieces might have found their way into money-paying spots at premier magazines or websites had a tad bit more of that butt room been available.

Subsequently, readers would have been better informed - by virtue of their exposure to additional new information and to alternative "spins" of the issues - and perhaps better entertained, as well.

I've been happy enough, nonetheless, when Robin and his cohorts leave enough room for my skinny butt on a bench or folding chair at post-race press conferences. Similarly, a friend of mine loves baseball and is probably qualified to manage a professional team… but seems rewarded enough to be working with Little Leaguers while he continues doing whatever is necessary to hold down his full-time job. Even the ice cream money for the little victory parties that Wally throws comes out of his own pocket.

It will be interesting to see what kinds of activities Robin Miller gets involved with now that he has been forced into an early retirement. I have a feeling that we'll still hear from him "occasionally".

Share your thoughts with Ed via e-mail: speedwriter@hotmail.com

Other great Donath Commentaries

"Invisible, man"

"Human Race"

Bullhorn Stories

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