Why a
paddock
I wasn’t looking for a name. I was trying to explain what I do with my time, and I kept coming back to the same word.
The wordWhat a paddock is — and why it fits lot operations
It’s the part of a racetrack most people never see. Behind pit lane, where the transporters park and the teams work.
Nobody in a paddock is showing off. Everybody has something apart, and everybody is happy to tell you why. You learn more standing around one for an afternoon than you do reading for a year.
The garagePersonal garage maintenance in Lebanon, Tennessee
People think a garage is where you work on the car. Mine is mostly where I put things away.
Nothing on the floor if I can help it. Everything on a hook or a shelf. I sweep more than I need to, and I like doing it.
Towels get washed and folded before they’re used again, because a dirty towel is how you put a scratch in something you love.
Some evenings I’ll go out there after work and not touch the car at all. Wipe down a shelf, sort out a drawer, see what’s running low. It’s the quietest part of my day.
The weekend is longer and it starts early. Wash it, go see everybody, come home and wash it again. Then whatever the car is asking for.
Lot operations at duPont REGISTRY Lebanon, Tennessee
The bay door goes up and there’s a transporter already waiting. Some mornings it’s one car. Some mornings you can’t walk through the place.
Everything that comes off a truck gets looked over properly before it goes anywhere. Checked, cleaned, photographed, written up, put somewhere safe. Everything leaving gets verified first — there’s real fraud in this business, and somebody trusted us with a car they love. The mornings have their own page.
What exotic car ownership actually means
A car is one of the few things you buy with your whole personality. Nobody agonizes over a refrigerator. You pick one and you’ve told everybody what you think is beautiful, what you’ll put up with, and what you’d rather not admit you can afford.
Then you live with it. It picks up a smell. It develops a rattle you stop hearing. You learn where it’s slow and you forgive it.
None of that is in a listing.
The flipFrom technology leadership to exotic car lot operations
I led technology for a long time. The whole way through I was buying cars, selling cars and reading about cars, without ever working around them.
Last October I stopped doing that. Now they’re the same thing.