3-7-25

If you’ve been listening to this show for more than a day you already know that I

am unabashedly patriotic….I believe in standing for the flag, rallying to the cause,

supporting the Constitution, and speaking my mind…..all of which are not

unknown in other places, but they are absolute rights in America…..they are.

Think about it. What other country in the world not only allows freedom, but

actually enshrines it as the basis for who we are as a nation, as a people….and I

believe that the left can’t stand America as it really is….the progressive left is

constantly and overtly decrying anything that shares the values, traditions, and

freedoms of America as an absolute…..we are a nation of rough and ready, a

nation of faith (and largely Christian faith at that), a nation that smirks at tyrants,

and faces down bullies…..but the left has done all that it can over the last decade,

and especially the last four years, to actually tear away the fabric of America and

leave the bones…..the left will kneel at the anthem, burn the flag, degrade

military readiness, steal our tax dollars, downgrade families, and mock our

faith…..but I believe we are seeing the soul of America on the rise again….there is,

in my opinion a revival of Christianity, a restoration of values, a resurgence of

patriotism…..you can feel it….its real……So today I’m pushing the outer limits and

suggesting that nobody should ever underestimate the American people…..the

American spirit is a thing….a real thing…..it is almost tangible and I’m going to talk

about it today, and to do that I’m using a modern day movie classic…..”Ford

versus Ferrari”……Now, I’m a car guy, but you don’t have to love cars to love this

movie……it wasn’t about cars….it was about American ingenuity, and American

Spirit, and Grit, and the idea that you can call us whatever you want but don’t

ever call us down……

The storyline in the movie was set in the early 60’s and it was all true…..In 1963

Ford Motor Company was about to change the car world by introducing the

Mustang…..But Ford Vice President Lee Iacocca felt like there was something

missing….something flashy and fast that could win races and garner a worldwide

following…..so Iacocca convinced Ford President Henry Ford II that they should

buy out Italian automaker Ferrari…..Ferrari had been dominating the Le Mans

racing circuit with hand built streamlined classics…..Henry Ford liked the idea and

sent Iacocca to Italy…..where Enzo Ferrari sat sipping tea in the far end of his

coachworks….Iacocca made the pitch and Ferrari let him sit and sweat for hours,

all the while Ferrari was using Ford to gain leverage with Fiat to buy him out for

more money…..it was a dirty trick, a bait and switch……but as if that were not

enough Ferrari decided to insult America’s premier automaker directly…..He told

them in a condescending tone, “Go back to Michigan, Go back to your big ugly

factory, making its ugly little cars, tell your pigheaded boss that all his smug

executives are worthless sons of whores. And tell him he’s not Henry Ford.”….in

one fell swoop that arrogant Italian…..who’s country we liberated from Fascism

just 20 years before that…..insulted American manufacturing capability, American

style, and American legacies…..and he really insulted America in the process…..oh,

he shouldn’t oughta done that…..When Ford heard he decided that it wasn’t the

first time that the US went to war in Europe and he told Iacocca “We’re going to

bury Ferrari at LeMans”….Iacocca got the green light to build the worlds fastest,

most enduring racecar, from scratch…..but to do that he had to have a team

So Iacocca went out and hired none other than Carroll Shelby…. A legendary car

builder and racer who at 22 years old had been a pilot of a B-29 Superfortress

flying combat missions in WWII…..and Shelby hired Ken Miles…..a man who could

drive like his hair was on fire and feel the road and smell the next gear…..Shelby

was asked to come to the debut of the new Ford Mustang and he gave a short

speech…..wearing his signature cowboy hat and talking in his Texas drawl Shelby

took the stage and told the world how it was going to be…and this is what he said:

“If my daddy was here today he’d tell me to sit on down and leave the yackin’ to

the college boys. So, like my cars, I’ll make this fast. When I was 10 years old Pop

said to me, “Son, it’s a truly lucky man who knows what he wants to do in this

world ‘cause that man will never work a day in his life. But there a few , a precious

few,…and hell, I don’t know if they’re lucky or not…but they’re are a few people

who find something that they have to do. Something obsesses them. Something

that if they can’t do it, its going to drive them clean out of their mind. I’m that guy.

And I know one other man feels exactly the same. His name? His name is Mr.

Henry Ford. And together, we’re going to build the fastest automobile in the

world. And were gonna make history too…at Le Mans. My named is Carroll Shelby.

I build race cars.”……and brother it was on then…..Shelby and Miles and the team

they put together built a legendary vehicle called the GT40….it was sleek, but

muscular…..it was low and mean and looked like it could fly…..it didn’t use a high

winding European engine….it carried a bulky American built Ford V-8 engine….it

was just a beast of a car…..but it didn’t win right away…..but as Henry Ford

focused on the checkered flag Carroll Shelby focused on building and sustaining a

true legend on four wheels and he told Henry Ford that they may not have won

right out the gate…..but they scared the pants off of Enzo Ferrari when the GT40

hit 218mph on the straightaway…..

So Ford and Ferrari continued to duke it out……with Ford inching closer but still

not able to take the flag……at one point the American team was struggling to keep

their brakes from overheating with all the power they could put to the

wheels…..it’s called brake fade, and it was burning their brakes out and causing

massive complications…..and then Shelby and Miles read the race rules and came

up with an idea that only a group of Maverick Americans could do…..they did a pit

stop and shocked the world by changing out the entire brake assembly…..Ferrari

was apoplectic but they were in……As they approached the 1966 24-hour Le Mans

race Shelby had built three GT40’s….it was a nasty race but in Carroll Shelby’s

words, “We’re lighter, we’re faster, and if that don’t work we’re nastier.”…..the

three Ford GT40’s pushed the Ferrari team to the limits until the last Ferrari in the

race blew its engine trying to keep up……the Ford Team finished with all three

GT40’s taking the top three trophies…..and Ford went on to do it again for the

next three consecutive years…….

That movie has America down to a Tee…..As a people we are not always the most

refined…..we have a maverick streak a mile long…..our people can get rowdy, and

boisterous, and speak out of turn…..but we’re also fiercely loyal and overly

determined…..its as if losing is antithetical to being American…..we take “yes” as

permission to go the extra mile, and we often take “no” as a challenge to be

overcome……if they don’t have what we need we will make it from scratch…..if

they don’t know where it is we will find it…..if they say it can’t be done then by

God we will do it just to prove that its doable……if a friend says they need

something the culture of America means that we will stop what we are doing and

give them the shirt off of our back, and if you mess with our friends it’s the same

as if you messed with us…..I believe that by and large Americans love deeper,

work harder, win more and lose less, than pretty much any country in the

world….. we may often be brash and sometimes off-color but we’re good, I mean

good as in good at heart…..There is nothing about America that is perfect but

pretty much everything about it is good……

Carroll Shelby once said, “If you’re not winning, you are losing.”…..fair

enough…..Ford versus Ferrari…….epic flick about an epic race in an epic car built

by an epic group of men…..it’s a story about the American spirit……and in my

opinion….just sitting here in my vantage point with thousands of you affirming it

everyday…..I believe that the American spirit, and faith, and tradition…..I believe

it is all on the rise….

We are so back

And that’s a wrap for the Rightside Way….