On Your Mark, Get Set, Go-kart!
“Once you get bitten by the bug, it’s over,” THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS’ Daniel Goddard (Cane) laughs when describing his go-kart addiction. “I’m going out to the track and racing every week. The go-karts I’m driving go about 90 m.p.h., but when your butt’s an inch-and-a-half off the ground and there’s no suspension — so the car’s completely stiff — you feel you’re going 140. It’s fantastic!”
However, Goddard insists the rush he gets from racing is not about adrenaline. “It’s about the pursuit of human excellence and excelling at something where the minutest mistake can cause disaster,” he shares. “It’s like meditation for me, because you must focus on every spilt-second that passes by; you can’t think about anything else. I need that.”
Though racing is a competitive sport, Goddard sees the track as a forum to test his own limits. “It is competitive, but the ironic thing is you don’t try to beat the other people,” he explains. “You’re trying to ride the perfect line at the fastest speed, so you’re competing against yourself. Once you start competing against other people, you lose that focus and you start making mistakes.
“It’s a strong learning tool to teach you the only person in this world who can take away or ruin what you want is yourself,” he continues. “There’s no one else you can blame. It teaches responsibility and to be careful with your actions and impeccable with your choices.”
Not that every race — or racer — runs perfectly. “I’ve crashed a couple times and I’ve got some friends out there who can get pushy and shove-y,” Goddard shrugs. “One of the guys who’s been driving longer is faster than I am, so he recently pushed me off the track. I went off into the dirt in a cloudy mess, but I laughed. It’s funny. It’s the adventurous thing I have in me.”
Luckily for Goddard, his wife understands his “thing.” “Rachel is glad I race because she knows how much joy it brings me,” Goddard insists. “She’s said she just wants to see me happy. And I’m careful.”
Wonder how she’ll feel about his next proposed adventure: HALO (High Altitude Low Opening) skydiving! “Regularly, skydiving is done from 1,200 feet, but this is 3,200 feet up and you have on an oxygen tank and mask,” he says. “You get about 180 seconds of free-fall! They do it in Tennessee, night or day. I’d love to do that.”
In the meantime, he’s hooked on go-kart speed — and he’s not the only daytimer. Y&R costar Bryton McClure (Devon) has the fever as well. Plus, click here to read about THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL speed demons Justin Torkildsen (ex-Rick) and Winsor Harmon (Thorne).
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