Eyes wide shut

>> Writers Pasha Malla and Ryan Knighton talk about their expectations and fears heading into MIRA’s stock car race for the blind

by JULIET WATERS

This year the MIRA foundation holds the 21st Défi-Vision, billed as “the slowest car race in the world.” B.C. writer Ryan Knighton, legally blind since the age of 18, will drive on one team with Newfoundland-born Pasha Malla, who will navigate.

Knighton’s Cockeyed is a memoir of going blind in a blue-collar family, and begins with him running over a co-worker with a forklift. Malla’s recently released book of short stories, The Withdrawal Method, is full of quirky beginnings and tragic endings. So I wanted to make sure they’d be okay.

Mirror: How did this team come about?

Pasha Malla: I went to the race a couple of years ago… Have you seen it?

M: I saw a YouTube clip from 2007.

PM: It’s probably one of the most fun times I’ve ever had at a sporting event. It’s hilarious, but there’s also something really nice about it. I’ve been wanting to do it ever since. So—um, it’s not really racial profiling—I took stock of the blind people I knew, and Ryan is a friend of a friend…. I e-mailed him and he was onboard right away.

M: So you’ve done a practice session. Is he a good driver?

PM: Yeah, actually. It took us a while to figure out a strategy. At first I thought we’d do the steering wheel like a clock, one o’clock, two o’clock. And he was “Yeah, yeah, cool.” And then he got in the car and said, “Uh, I haven’t seen a clock in 15 years.”

It took a while to figure out that the speed of my voice would indicate how drastically he had to turn…it was funny because when we did our practice laps, there was a tractor on the racetrack. I guess he assumed, like I did, that the track was going to be empty.

I didn’t mention it to him because we weren’t really near it. But at one point, when we were about five laps in, I said, “Okay we’re going to hit the tractor.” And he was like “TRACTOR?!!” And he slammed on the brakes. So that was kind of fun.

To see just how fun, I called Knighton.

M: So I talked to Pasha a little while ago. He says you’re a good driver.

Ryan Knighton: Yeah, but there was no traffic when we did it.

M: I know. I watched the YouTube clip, and there’s traffic. Bad traffic, with Quebec drivers. Blind Quebec drivers.

RK: Basically, from what I’ve been told, it’s L.A. on a speedway.

M: No. It’s a little faster than L.A. because traffic isn’t as backed up.

RK: Ohhhh God [sounding genuinely afraid]. You know I haven’t run in 10 years, let alone driven. So the idea of actually being in control, at a speed higher than walking, felt really unfamiliar, and really uncomfortable. It felt very unnatural, (pause), if not wrong [in dry tone that totally cracks me up.]

M: (laughter)

RK: In the most profound cosmic sense of wrong. I don’t even like riding in cars anymore. I don’t like the feeling of moving that fast. It feels very dangerous. Part of the problem is when you can’t see; you actually can’t tell how fast you’re going because you don’t have the visual cue of things going by.

And, secondly, because you’re not getting any input, my reflex was that I would push on the gas and not lift it off because I didn’t have any sense of what the effect of that was. So, basically, I told him he has to do stream of consciousness. It’s not good enough to say, “Okay, hold straight,” and not tell me anything. Because I feel completely lost in silence.

M: Maybe it’ll be easier with other cars, because your navigator has more visual information. You’ll be getting a constant stream of information from his anxious commands.

What amazed me about the race was that people actually weren’t crashing into each other that much. So maybe it’s like the difference between walking with a cane in open space—where there’s nothing to hit, so you have no idea where you’re going—and using a cane when you have lots of stuff to hit, which is what guides you.

RK: Yeah that’s totally true [he says, sounding a little more relaxed]. It’s better to have things to orient yourself towards than wide-open space.

Défi-Vision takes place
at the Granby Autodrome.
(exit 68 off the 10,
or ste-hyacinthe exit
off the 137, south on the 20)
Friday, June 13, 7:30 p.m.

malla and knighton will read
at korova (3908 st-laurent) tonight,
thursday, june 12, 9 p.m.

Cockeyed by ryan knighton,
PEnguin, HC, 496 PP, $25.00
The Withdrawal Method by
Pasha Malla, House of Anansi
Press, HC, 256 PP, $29.95