From: Steve Wyrick <sjwyrick@earthlink.net>

I'm currently 43 yrs old, divorced, with an 8-year-old son (who I co-parent with my ex-wife, whom I've remained friends with). I work for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley, CA) as a "Computing Systems Engineer" which is a fancy name for a database programmer/administrator. Doug Finley is a former co-worker and introduced me to this list about a year ago.

I grew up in Aberdeen WA, which is a small logging town on the Washington State coast, 120 mi SW of Seattle. I first got interested in racing in the early '60s. However as a kid in an isolated small town, my experience was limited to watching the few races shown on TV; racing slot cars at the local track (while it lasted); and building and racing gravity-powered gocarts with friends (and participating in the Soap Box Derby when I got older). (Friends and I also built karts which were powered by lawnmower engines; they would do about 20 mph but had no brakes...fortunately no major injuries occurred!) Race-wise I was always more interested in the road courses than the ovals and growing up followed mainly Can-Am, F-1, and the European enduros, but also tolerated the NASCAR and Indy car ovals and drag races most of my friends preferred.

As an adult I've continued the TV-watching habit and still only rarely attend races, though now that I'm close to 2 major raceways (Sears Pt. & Laguna Seca) I'm trying to see more in person. My son is at least as interested in racing as I was at his age, and I've been educating him in F-1 & CART lore and taking him to some local races. (He wants to go to the CART race at Laguna Seca this year; I told him "we'll see.")

My other main hobbies are reading (SF, mysteries, a little of everything), scottish country dancing, and making music; instruments I play at least moderately well include guitar, mandolin, banjo, and violin/fiddle. I play in a rock/blues band composed of other LBNL employees; we're not bad for amateurs! I also spend a lot of time on the computer, and playing SNES and N64 videogames with my son. (Our current fave is F-1 Pole Position 64, which is a pretty good sim of the '96 F-1 season). -Steve