Steve Cox | August 22, 2017
Column
My Friend Trey
I first met Trey Canard at the World Mini Grand Prix in 2007. I knew he was the hot, new prospect for the Factory Connection Honda team, and he immediately struck me as a genuine young man. Within the next couple of years, Trey became one of very few racers in the pits that I genuinely consider a friend. A lot of people tend to use that word pretty loosely, considering anybody with whom they’re friendly to be their “friend” but that’s not how I mean it.
In my line of work covering racing, it can be really difficult sometimes to be actual friends with somebody whom you’re supposed to be objective about. And I’ve always been kind of paranoid about it, because if a true friend of mine were to be busted for performance-enhancing drugs, for example, my job is such that I would have to cover it fairly. And I’ve had this conversation with the guys I consider friends.
Trey Canard is my friend. And that means something to me. And with Trey recently announcing his retirement from professional racing, I have less to worry about on race weekends both in terms of how I cover the action as well as the health of my friend.
Over the years since we became friends, I’ve done what I can to help him with advice, and he’s done the same for me. There’s no subject we won’t broach. And because of this, Trey and I were able to strengthen our bonds of friendship.
People say, “Don’t talk religion or politics with your friends if you want them to remain so.” I think if you can’t talk about these things with your friends, they aren’t your friends. They might be friendly, but they’re acquaintances at best.
Trey is a devout Christian, and I believe he truly tries to live his life that way. To him, his faith isn’t just words. I’ve been an atheist/agnostic my whole life. By the time I was four years old, I wanted to be a paleontologist, and I had read every dinosaur book I could get my hands on. And because of that, I had a pretty solid understanding of food chains, biological evolution, etc., even at a young age. Although neither of my parents were “religious” so to speak, they both believed in God, and when I was seven, my parents took me to Sunday school for the first time because they (probably correctly) thought I could use some structure. They were teaching Noah’s Ark that day. I got kicked out for asking too many questions.
I couldn’t understand what I had done wrong, and I think this set me up to become a stereotypical “angry atheist” by the time I was in my mid-teens—especially as I experienced more discrimination from “friends” in school for my lack of religious faith. I even read the Bible in high school to see what I was missing. Then I read it again to gather ammunition against people who wanted to use it against me. I was an “angry atheist.”
The anger wore down over time, and 10 years ago, my father, Dennis, was diagnosed with a rare, deadly cancer due to his exposure to Agent Orange while he served in the U.S. Marine Corps in Vietnam, and I started to envy people of faith. Facing the death of a loved one (which makes your own mortality more of a pressing issue as well) is probably much harder for an atheist than for someone who believes they’ll see their loved one again someday.
Trey lost his father, Roy, when he was 12 in a tragic tractor accident. Roy was moving rocks down into a stream from Trey’s practice track when his tractor rolled over on him. He understands the loss, and we’ve helped each other along these lines the best we could. Trey has helped me through this stuff more than probably anyone else in my life.
Over the years, Trey and I have had long conversations about his faith, as well as my lack thereof. He has helped me understand so much more than what I would’ve been able to figure out on my own, and I believe I’ve helped him understand the objections of non-believers as well. Trey’s faith asks him to proselytize and bring people to the Lord, so I’d like to believe his knowledge of the objections of non-believers will help him do that. In my life, most people of faith I’ve encountered believe atheists are evil or bad people, so there’s not much dialog to be had there.
Through our conversations, Trey never made me feel judged or pressured. I never felt anything from him but love and a desire to understand. And this is despite the fact that some of the things I asked about and explained tended to cut right to the very core of his faith. It didn’t bother him. That’s the thing about true faith; it’s resilient. Trey is resilient.
I’ve worried a lot about Trey over the years. I’ve worried about his love life (worries which disappeared the first time I met his lovely wife, Hannah), about his health, and even worried that he may be sort of “racing a ghost” by putting too much pressure on himself to perform in order to make his father proud. But I never worried about Trey as a person. At all. He’s a good person. Probably largely because he tries really hard to be. All the time.
Most of us are good people. That’s what I believe. I believe we’re overwhelmingly good people. I think most people are kind. But a lot of us don’t have the patience, or the inner security, to be able to confront things about each other, and about ourselves, without anger or judgment.
That’s what we all need to work on.
Look around at the news. Look at all the hatred and vitriol from people who believe the “other side” is “bad” or “evil.” They aren’t. They’re overwhelmingly good people on all “sides.” Prejudice against anybody—anybody—is wrong. And again, I’m talking about all “sides.”
If we want to make this world of ours a better place, we need to learn to take the time and discuss things with the very people we disagree with, rationally, without judgment, without anger, without resentment and without assuming the other person is “bad” because they see things differently than we do. Ignorance can only be cured through education, education can only be achieved through communication, and communication can only be had when all sides of the conversation are open to hearing the others.
In some other dimension, on some other version of our planet, Trey Canard and I wouldn’t be “friends” and might actually find enemies in one another—especially if that’s what we were both looking for.
But I love Trey Canard. And love is the answer. Enjoy retirement, Trey. CN