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As I filmed the race cars, I thought about how much we love to watch and make patterns, how we think in patterns. New thought develops through variations in known patterns (like in music), and this feels good.

For me, the spectators at the race were as interesting as the cars, their heads turning in unison to follow the racing, their charge of reaction when a car spun out. They were part of the patterns themselves: the flawed, lovely, awful patterns.

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Conn grew up going to stock car races at Western Speedway, a small oval near Metchosin, B.C. His dad was in a friend’s pit crew, he was great with cars. They went almost every weekend in summer, arriving early so his dad could go help prepare in the infield, and Conn could sit in the same spot at the top of the grandstands directly above the finish line.

The races were great. But it was also the shifting sounds, colours, and movements. And the occasional smash and a woman's scream, everyone standing and rising smoke and sometimes even running men on fire, putting each other out with fire extinguishers, speeding tow trucks and crews cleaning oil off the track. Then another race, and another. It always started in sun and ended under the lights. The announcer blared continuously from the sharp-sounding speaker high on a pole, spinning stories out of whatever was happening during or between races. And the sound of the cars: a deep, male roar.

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Conn also watched TV. What stood out later, when he'd grown up, was the memory of one race. Richard Petty was his boyhood hero, the most successful stock car racer in history, by far. Dave Pearson and Cale Yarborough had the misfortune of racing during the Petty years. They were both brilliant drivers who would have dominated any other era, and in this race they were trading the lead back and forth over 500 laps, sometimes nudging each other at top speed and skimming the track walls, veering high and low. It was a rare display of racing skill.

Petty had had a problem with his car early on, he'd gradually climbed his way back to third place but there wouldn't be time to catch up. He was a half mile back in the final lap when Pearson and Yarborough rounded the last bend, still wildly moving back and forth up and down the width of the track while trying desperately to either pass or block each other. Suddenly, in the main straightaway, they contacted each other too hard and lost control. They were a few hundred feet from the finish line.

As they spun off in different directions and left the track, Richard Petty rounded the last corner and drove calmly through their billowing smoke, to win.

This race made a big impression on Conn. There seemed to be some universal secret that Richard Petty had figured out. He always had an easy-going smile. He lived in that special place where things seem to fall into place in just the right way. For most people this happened on rare, great days. But for him it seemed to be all the time.

Conn mentioned this race to his dad recently. His dad also remembered it (it was famous, you could buy it on video). But he disagreed with Conn’s conclusion. He said the reason that Pearson and Yarborough had crashed was because they knew that Richard Petty was behind them. It wasn't luck, Petty pressured them into making a mistake.

Pearson and Yarborough had a fist fight after the race, as so often happened back then.

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Many years later, car racing seemed indefensible to Conn in the face of climate change, which was one thing he brought with him to Western Speedway when he returned to make a film. But he enjoyed the racing too.

Conn loved and hated cars. This was normal, he can loved their shapes and sounds and smells, and he still wanted them gone. That was just part of how the mind worked, in contrasting ideas, the creation of movement, and the pleasure of pain and joy.

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Engines of Despair is part of U BEND.

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Photobooklet  image series + text, .pdf, 8.4 Mb