Wheels: Bob Carlson, rest in peace

ATLANTA — He perfectly executed the entrance, wrestled with but hit the apex, carving like a Swiss knife, and made his last exit onto eternity’s straightaway.

Bob Carlson was the heart, soul, and humanity of Porsche North America.

Knew his Porsches, knew his racing, loved them both, and racers and journalists ‘round the world knew and loved Bob.

He was a man who offered up challenges, but always cared. I remember a time in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, where he let me drive a Porsche Twin-Turbo at more than 175 miles per hour. This, I could see, was an event filled with some trepidation for Bob. The playa that is the Black Rock had been rained upon, then beaten by the sun, and then cracked into loose pieces like a jigsaw puzzle.

Bob could have been a cowboy that day, standing tall, even though not packing a gunslinger’s lead heat. Instead, he had something hotter — those high-flying Porsches. I could sense Bob’s trepidation, since this had, as the very ground beneath him altered, become a riskier business than envisioned and he was more worried for us than we were for ourselves.

But he was no cowboy. It was the floppy brimmed hat that gave him away. He looked like the actor William Macy (check it out) on an African Safari, not a man who gave his life and soul to Porsches for civilians and souped-up Porsches for the wonderful group of racers he gathered around him.

So he let the great Hurley Haywood (he was the braver) sit beside me as I sizzled to my best (Bob went faster), down that jigsaw puzzle of a desert where eternity seemed to loom in the distance.

It always does.

He let me onto the frozen lakes of the Yukon to test Cayennes on ice, onto the road course at Homestead Miami raceway where I drove all Porsches like climbing a musical scale, the wonderful, rising, dipping, and tortuous track in Birmingham, Ala., and even fabled Daytona, where, for some strange reason, this man in the floppy hat gave me a more formal hat — baseball of course — proclaiming me a concourse judge for his beloved Rennsport Reunion, this a Carlson production, the third and his last, where new and vintage Porsches were gathered along with current and vintage drivers from around the world.

But that was Bob: promoting his product, and yet always caring; sitting in a dark corner at a table long after a day of testing was over trying to explain to a stupid journalist the latest vario-cam in a Porsche; scolding that journalist when a mistake in reporting was made; or taking that journalist, in troubled times, under his wing.

Yes, that was Bob, the same guy who was greeted each morning as he briefed us on testing cars with a joyful, "Good Morning, Mr. Carlson.’"

But oh such a caring man. Just like his beautifully heroic wife Debbie, who on the website caringbridge.org, kept us abreast of Bob’s struggle with cancer — at first a hopeful battle, but several weeks ago, a lost battle.

And the word battle reminds me of another thing I loved about this man: He knew his Civil War battles (and wrote me nice notes when I recommended books on the subject to him or sent him autographed copies of books on the war by an author who is a friend of mine). But this was also a guy who still built model cars, loved model airplanes, and cared about those around him — even including those with, as we all have, our personal demons.

The great Irish writer and poet Brendan Behan once proclaimed, "All cripples got their own way of walkin’,’’ not any attack on the infirm but, instead, a comment on the human condition. Bob seemed to have taken his humanity from this approach to life, for he endured and supported me.

Some may think that Bob inherited this humanity from the wonderful Debbie, or that she imparted it to him. Wrong. What I am certain what happened was a beautiful and brilliant collision of like forces — a Super Nova of heartfelt love and caring.

And so — as Bob did not like me to mince words — such as "passed on’’ or "went to the other side,’’ I will state simply that Bob died. For, in fact, that is what we all do. You die because you were born, some famous wag once put it.

He was buried in Atlanta in a private, and certainly emotionally vibrant, ceremony.

And then they held what the Irish would call "a time’’ for our boyo Bob — Carlson is not an Irish name, but the "time’’ is an approach that has been adopted by many other cultures to celebrate the life of the departed.

And so here were great race car drivers from around the world: Hurley Haywood, David Murry, Kees Nierop, David Donahue, Pierre Savoy and oh so many others. To watch people who had spit into the winds and speed of death and never choked, choke up over the loss of a friend was a rendering of the human heart.

But heart is what Bob was all about.

Heart for his company and its product, deep heart for Debbie and an expansive heart for those of us who knew him both professionally, and as human beings.

Bob left us the way Debbie knew he would want to be dressed: Porsche shirt and jacket, a Reyn Spooner Hawaiian shirt with World War II airplanes seeming to flit and fight about its silken being, a San Jose Sharks hockey jersey. And he entered the final straight wearing handmade, Italian racing shoes.

At center ice in the hockey arena that night were several wonderful Porsches, including Bob’s own. On its hood rested Bob’s floppy hat. Not something you’d wear into eternity, I thought.

And so I looked up the Carlson Family crest, which can be found in English, German, Norwegian and Swedish versions, to see why he might have left that beloved piece of limp haberdashery behind.

It was immediately clear to me what he was wearing instead of that floppy hat.

In every Carlson Family crest, there’s a guy wearing a helmet – and eternity may be a rough ride. So I’m bringing a helmet with me when I join Bob on the straight that is eternity.