Sweetness

by Jeff Pearlman

  Even with the enjoyment he derived from Studebaker’s and even with the nonstop flow of women entering and leaving his office, Payton was unable to uncover anything to match the adrenaline rush that came from slipping on his No. 34 jersey and running across Soldier Field. The buzz and jolt and euphoria had been addictive, as had the sense of comradery he shared with teammates. Now he was a man in need of a fix.

  During one of his final seasons Payton had been introduced to Ove Olsson, owner of a race car shop, Olsson Engineering, in Lake Forest. Born and raised in Stockholm, Sweden, Olsson immediately admired Payton not for his celebrity status (“I had no idea who he was,” he said), but for the silver Porsche 930 that he used as a primary vehicle. “I worked on his car early on, and we bonded,” Olsson said. “We shared a passion for fast vehicles.” As a kinship developed, Olsson became increasingly aware of Payton’s dangerous driving habits. He would watch Payton clear 100 mph on his Kawasaki GPZ 750 and cringe. He would see him swerve left and right in the Porsche and gasp. He heard that Payton had been pulled over for driving 125 mph in a 35 mph speed zone (celebrity being celebrity, police let him off with a warning), and shook his head. Once, the driver of an adjacent vehicle became so incensed by Payton’s recklessness that he rolled down a window and threw a large chain at the hood of the superstar’s BMW. The sizeable indentation served as a warning sign to other cars: WATCH OUT. “He wasn’t necessarily a bad driver,” Olsson said. “He was just incredibly wild.” One day, upon a chance meeting with Connie, Olsson pulled her aside and said, “I think it’d be a lot safer for Walter to drive on a track rather than the road.”

  Retired and in search of a spark, Payton took Olsson’s words to heart. On April 16, he found himself behind the wheel of a Celica GT-S Liftback at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, a pro-celebrity event featuring such luminaries as Susan Ruttan and Brian Wimmer. The two-mile track wormed through the downtown streets of Long Beach, California, and Payton deemed the experience a barometer. Were he to do well and have fun, he’d take a stab at driving competitively in a semiprofessional circuit called the Sports Car Club of America’s Pro Sports 2000 series. “For some reason Walter missed the test day before the race, and I was livid,” said Olsson. “He was always too busy. There was always a phone to his ear, always a meeting to attend. Where was the commitment? But then he raced really well, and I think we both thought, ‘Maybe this can work.’ ” Payton placed ninth, leapt from his car, and squealed with delight. He had slammed into a wall—and loved it. “I’m going to drive four or five, maybe six races in Formula 2000!” he said. “This was amazing!”

  True to his word, Payton made the decision to compete regularly on the Sports Car tour. The races involved open cockpit vehicles featuring full bodywork. They were light (eleven hundred pounds on average; by comparison, NASCAR cars weigh three thousand pounds), with sophisticated suspensions, sway bars, and 2,000 cc, four-cylinder Ford engines. Because the cars were made from aluminum, it was a relatively safe form of racing. “If you hit something hard enough, aluminum crushes in gradually and absorbs energy,” said Steve Knapp, a former driver who assisted Payton. “It was a soft car.”

  Those who observed Payton in his racing infancy recall a marginal talent who sabotaged his own improvement with the need to drive full throttle. Just as Walter Payton the running back knew no brake pedal, Walter Payton the driver knew no brake pedal, either. “He drove exactly like he played,” said Knapp. “He cut very hard, he was really jerky, and he didn’t know when to pull back.”

  “He wanted to run before he walked,” said Tony Kester, his driving coach. “Walter’s best attribute as a driver was his hand-eye coordination, which was off the charts. But a big problem was his strength. Walter was like Paul Bunyan, and Paul Bunyan would have had a lot of difficulty driving. Walter was so strong that he would push the brake pedal with too much force and lock the brakes. So we had to adjust the pedal to make it harder.” If NASCAR and Formula One are auto racing’s Major Leagues, the Sports 2000 series was maybe Class A. Most of the participants were part-time racers who worked nine-to-five jobs. Few fans attended, and those who did were either irrationally devoted to motor sports or uninspired by the day’s selections at the local movie theatre. Experienced drivers viewed the series dismissively, as an entry-level endeavor and little more. For Payton, however, it served as a gateway to a higher caliber of competition as well as an adrenaline substitute for football.

  His official debut took place on May 13, 1989, in the not-so-bustling Dallas suburb of Addison, Texas. For a man used to first-class accommodations and the most modern of equipment, this would seem to be an enormous comedown. The 1.57-mile track was built on the runways, perimeter roads, and streets of the dilapidated Addison Airport. There was minimal parking, zero concessions, and blistering heat that made the inside of a car feel like a microwave oven.

  Payton and his crew arrived at the track approximately four hours before the one P.M. start. The enormous van that carried his car and equipment bore the insignia, PAYTON PLACE. Armed with a white Lola with No. 34 painted along the side, Payton nervously entered his vehicle and rolled toward the starting line. His heart was pounding, his breathing quickened. He last felt these sorts of jitters thirteen years earlier, when he lined up for his first NFL game.

  Though he was but a rookie, Payton—ever the competitor—expected to win. Through the seventh of thirty-seven laps, he was running eleventh in a field of twenty-four, holding his own against tour veterans like Irv Hoerr and Darin Brassfield. Finally, on the eighth lap, inexperience kicked in. Payton’s car skidded off the track and slammed into a tire wall, bringing oohs and ahhs from the scattered fans and audible cursing from the driver. “I was really running hot,” Payton said afterward. “I was coming into turn six and suddenly there was oil on my visor. It must have been thrown up from the car in front of me. I reached up and tried to wipe it off my visor and shouldn’t have done that. It smeared all over and I couldn’t see anything. The next thing I knew I was off the track.”

  Because Payton was a first timer, his crew and the other racers took sympathy on his plight. Driving wasn’t easy—especially for a rookie used to physically dominating in another arena. Yet as the season progressed and Payton traveled from venue to venue, the excuses became a regular part of his routine. His car wasn’t good enough. His crew kept screwing up. The track was too slick. The steering wheel jammed. He crashed on multiple occasions, but the incidents were never—never—his fault. “His stubbornness was difficult,” said Olsson, who traveled with Payton to seven races that first year. “He wasn’t the best at taking responsibility for his own shortcomings.” Truth was, Payton didn’t train hard enough. There were businesses to run, appearances to make, women to see, his kids to visit. Racing came sixth or seventh on the priority list, which prevented him from rising from bad to mediocre.

  Payton spent less than two years flailing around on the Sports 2000 circuit when, in 1990, an opportunity presented itself. Paul Newman, who, like Payton, had dabbled in the sport, was the co-owner of a team, Newman Sharp Racing, that participated in the highly competitive Trans-Am Series. Though Newman was obviously best known as an Academy Award winner, he was passionate about the track and, through eighteen years, had developed into a high-level driver.

  As part of his team’s sponsorship agreement with Oldsmobile, Newman was required to have a set number of celebrity participants. His big name had been Tom Cruise, but the actor dropped out to film three new projects. “Which made us all very happy, because Cruise was not merely a jerk, he was a jerk who couldn’t drive for shit,” said Barry Chappel, who handled Newman Sharp’s sponsorship deals. “A bunch of guys who worked the different tracks had T-shirts made that said SCCA: SEE CRUISE CRASH AGAIN.”

  As opposed to the arrogant and inept Cruise, who once demolished five Nissan 300 cars in a single season, Payton was a refreshing breath of fresh air. Chappel traveled to Studebaker’s to sell him on jumping from Sports 2000 to Trans-Am, and
—against the advice of Olsson and Kester, who rightly insisted he was not ready—six days later Payton was in Atlanta, preparing to test for the team at the Road Atlanta track. He stayed in the Admiral Benbow Inn, a dump with moldy ceiling tiles and torn carpets that Newman, ever the bargain hunter, raved about.

  Chappel and Newman flew via private plane to Atlanta to see him drive. It was only while they were thirty thousand feet above ground that the actor asked about the auditionee.

  “Who is this guy we’re gonna watch?” Newman said.

  “Walter Payton,” replied Chappel.

  “Am I supposed to know that name?” Newman said.

  Chappel was dumbfounded. “Paul, let me ask you a question,” he said. “Where have you been for the last ten years?” He proceeded to pull out Payton’s bio sheet, chock full o’ NFL records.

  “Holy shit!” Newman said. “He sounds perfect.”

  Wrote Sports Illustrated of Payton’s foray into the Trans-Am circuit: “Anybody who thought Franco Harris ran out of bounds a lot should see Walter Payton drive a race car.” He made his Trans-Am debut at the Road America track in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, in 1991, and quickly showed himself to be unprepared for the distance (usually one hundred miles), duration (more than an hour of straight driving), speed (200 mph), and power (750 horsepower). The cars were primarily Chevrolets, Dodges, and Fords, and they packed a punch.

  He kicked off the 1992 season by placing twenty-first at Long Beach and twenty-seventh two weeks later at Detroit. “Walter’s biggest problem was that he thought of himself as a professional driver, and he wasn’t,” said Bob Sharp, who co-owned the team with Newman. “In football, he was the complete package. In racing, he wasn’t a pro. But he failed to realize that. He probably had ninety percent of what’s needed to pull it off, but he needed a little more humility and a little more patience.”

  “He was better than Cruise, but he wasn’t good,” said Chappel. “His biggest problem was he couldn’t keep the cars together. He crashed one, then he crashed another, then he crashed another. But Paul came to love him, because of the enthusiasm and energy he brought.”

  The first time Payton drove at famed Lime Rock Park in Lakeville, Connecticut, Newman rode shotgun to offer some pointers. Intimidated by the actor’s presence, Payton accidentally spun the car. Twice. For the remainder of the trip Newman rode with his feet wedged against the dashboard, eyes “as big as silver dollars,” Payton recalled with a laugh.

  What Payton most loved about the racing world was the comradery among drivers. Back in Illinois, his life often felt bereft of meaning and purpose. He was lonely, sad, isolated. The track, however, offered substance. It was just like the Bears’ locker room, what with Payton flicking ears and tying shoelaces together and embracing rivals in rib-crushing bear hugs (his track favorite was grabbing unsuspecting drivers by the wrists while walking by and having them helplessly drag along). Were the other drivers close, personal friends? No. But they were colleagues, and they served a very genuine purpose. “We were at a race in Sonoma, California, which was my home track,” said Peter Musser, a veteran driver. “We were in a drivers meeting and he’s got himself peeled up against a back wall. The head of the series is chewing us all out about reckless driving, just letting us have it. [Driver] Scott Sharp turns to Walter in the back and says, ‘Walter, why don’t you sit up here with the rest of us.’ And in that high-pitched voice, Walter says, ‘Nah, man, the brothers hang in the back.’ The room just broke up laughing.”

  On the road Payton had nothing to hide and no preestablished image to live up to. He wasn’t Sweetness, the larger-than-life Chicago icon. He was Walter, the mediocre driver and laid-back guy. Most of his peers didn’t even know he was married.

  “He ran with great-looking women,” said Bobby Archer, a fellow racer. “That, I remember.”

  “Gorgeous women accompanied him,” said Greg Pickett, another driver. “He was a magnet.”

  Payton never wore a wedding ring, and the woman by his side at most (but not all) events was Lita Gonzalez, the Continental flight attendant. Thanks to her job, Gonzalez had free access to the nation. On her off days she’d fly from her home in New Jersey and meet Payton at points ranging from Nevada to Dallas to Wisconsin. “She was there regularly,” said Jim Derhaag, a competitor. “We all knew Lita and embraced her into our community.”

  On occasion, Payton also brought his children along. They enjoyed the excitement of the racetrack. The sounds of the engines. The speed. The euphoria. The colors. On August 20, 1993, Walter had eight-year-old Brittney accompany him to Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, to watch a qualifying round at Road America. When Walter went off to drive he left his daughter in the company of the track officials. “We were on a golf cart,” she said. “Me and a bunch of people I didn’t know.”

  Strapped into his blue Ford Mustang Cobra (No. 34 painted across the hood), Payton lined up with the other drivers, taking off with the wave of a flag. It was an otherwise normal qualifying run—Payton hanging back, waiting to make some sort of move, preparing to transition from a straightaway to a curve. Running directly in front of Payton was Dick Danielson, a Hartford, Wisconsin, native with twenty-three years of racing to his credit. As his Camaro steadied for the turn, Danielson shifted into fourth gear and lost all power.

  “Walter is preparing to pass him, but it’s like following a car on the freeway and the car in front of you stops,” said Tom Gloy, owner of the Tom Gloy Racing Team. “Walter was pretty much helpless.” Payton’s Ford somehow eluded Danielson, but its front right tire nicked Danielson’s left rear tire.

  At 130 mph, tiny collisions mean big trouble. Payton’s car swerved off to the side, hit the guardrail, somersaulted, flew thirty feet into the air, traveled a hundred feet, bounced four times, and finally, bounded off the guardrail and over a fence. “The fence!” said Jack Baldwin, a driver. “I’d never seen anyone clear that thing before.” The final impact cut open the rear of the vehicle and sliced through a fuel cell. The car was engulfed by fire. Payton, knocked unconscious for a brief spell, regained his senses and leapt from the damage. “When I finally stopped I was looking upside down and there were flames,” he said afterward. “All I could think of at that point was that I had to get out of there.”

  Riding in the golf cart, Brittney heard the call over the radio from Donald Sak, a driver who had witnessed the crash. “Get someone out here!” he screamed. “We have a terrible situation!” She was rushed to a tent situated alongside an ambulance. Her father was lying on the table, his eyes bloodshot from gasoline, bandages covering the burns on his neck. Jerry Clinton, a fellow driver, described Payton as resembling, “a big frog with his eyes bugged out.” Brittney took one look and began to cry, which snapped Payton from his silence. “It’s OK, Britt,” he said. “It’s OK. Daddy’s fine. Daddy’s fine.”

  “Oh, I was terrified,” she said. “I thought my dad was Superman. I never saw him hurt, never saw him sick. I don’t even remember him having a cold. Now here I was, without my mother or brother, and my father was on a stretcher. I can still remember the scent. The fuel or . . . whatever. The scent.”

  Walter and Brittney were taken to the nearby Valley View Medical Center, where he was treated and released that night. Back at the American Club Hotel, Payton walked around as if in a trance. He had survived some of the hardest hits known to the NFL—but nothing like this.

  “That was pretty much the end of his racing career,” Brittney said. “I don’t think any of us were disappointed to see him give it up.”

  CHAPTER 23

  A BOTTOMLESS VOID

  TO THE WORLD, WALTER PAYTON INSISTED HE WAS DONE AS A FOOTBALL player. He was a busy man. Auto racing. Motivational speaking. Trying to buy a team. He had moved on. He had stopped paying attention. He had no interest in a comeback. Not even a slight interest.

  “Well,” said Bud Holmes, Payton’s longtime agent. “That’s what people thought. Only it wasn’t entirely true.”

  On the after
noon of September 24, 1989, a lightly regarded Miami Dolphins fullback named Tom Brown started the third game of his NFL career, against the New York Jets. Best known as Craig “Iron Head” Heyward’s lead blocker at the University of Pittsburgh, Brown was a six-foot-one, 223-pound bulldozer who featured no quickness, no speed, no maneuverability. He was in the league for one reason—to slam into people and open holes. Yet for someone so powerful, Brown was irritatingly brittle. Since being selected by Miami in the seventh round of the 1987 Draft, he had endured the majority of his days on the physically-unable-to-perform list, battling an endless string of knee injuries. “I’ve spent more time with our trainers than their wives have the last two years,” he said shortly before the 1989 opener. “It’s been very frustrating.”

  Finally, though, Brown seemed to discover health. He had played well enough to wrestle the starting job away from veteran Ron Davenport, and was confidently knocking back Jets linebackers until an unbearable pain shot through Brown’s right knee, and he fell to the ground at Joe Robbie Stadium. Once again, he tore a ligament. Once again, he was headed for the injury list.

  The malady kicked off an unparalleled string of miserable luck for Miami running backs. Shortly after Brown went down, halfback Troy Stradford was lost for the season with cartilage and ligament damage to his right knee. Halfback Lorenzo Hampton followed by also tearing cartilage in his right knee, and fullback Marc Logan wound up on crutches with ligament damage in his left knee. Even halfback Sammie Smith, the rookie standout from Florida State, suffered an Achilles tendon bruise that left him hobbling.