What's In a Name?

Cars - at least among car geeks like me - get named. For good or for ill, if your car hangs around long enough, it'll get a nickname. My old Civic was affectionately dubbed "The Minivan(tm)," due to the EP3's uncanny resemblance to Honda's Odyssey minivan. Since I got the MazdaSpeed3, I've been trying to come up with a suitable name for hit. At this weekend's autocross, I got hit by the 2x4 of inspiration.

After my last run, I headed over to the timing and scoring trailer to take over computer duties. The guy doing the announcing chores, one of our Corvette pilots named JW, said:

JW: You should get a Nike swoosh for the side of your car.

JDB: Why's that?

JW: Because it looks like a big running shoe.

That wasn't a slam - he said I looked good on course. And it immediately made me think of this:

Beneath it lay uncovered a huge starship, one hundred and fifty meters long, shaped like a sleek running shoe, perfectly white and mind-bogglingly beautiful.

Emphasis mine. It's not "perfectly white," but the rest fits.

Ladies and gentlemen . . .


. . . the Heart of Gold.