"Welcome to the Kill Zone, pal."
Now, it must be assumed that race car legend Lewis Hamilton, who drives for the prancing horse, has stared death in the eye many times. Smashing into walls at 160 mph, flipping through the air, being smothered by groupies wishing to drown in his doe-like eyes but apparently those don’t brushes with mortality, or morality as it were, do not even register. For, yet again, the very cute 39-year-old went into detail about his friend, surf great Kelly Slater, and the clammy grip of Davey Jones. You’ll recall previous re-tellings here, here and here.
The latest, though, came as Hamilton was mowing through a plate of hot wings wherein he shared:
Biggest wipeout I had I was with Kelly Slater, on Pipeline. It was like 20ft waves (at Pipeline) and Kelly was like “there’s no way you’re coming out there. You’re crazy.” I turn around and see this set of four waves coming and that for me was like: “it’s over, it’s all over.” As I threw my board, I dove down and grabbed the reef and I could hear this wave crash behind me. My board got ripped and snapped in half. I came back up, obviously gasping for air and the next one was coming so back down, grabbed the reef again as another wave comes over. So I did that three times. I got up, I’d nearly run out of air. I’d nearly drowned, but managed to swim back from there.
Left out from the earlier versions was that Slater had dared him to paddle out. Interesting, I suppose, that this is such a core memory. If I had a dollar for every “almost drowned” story from my Oregon days I’d have probably six dollars.
In any case, how do you feel, generally, about chicken wings. A fan who seeks out various “Wing Wednesday” promotions or someone who scoffs at the waste? Also, if a fan, what is your preferred sauce? I’ll say, for me, it’s really hard to beat straight up original buffalo.
Debate time.