Sport Parking

An Unexpected Pleasure

I’m a so-so driver. I don’t love driving; I don’t hate it. Cars get me where I want to go, and that’s about it. I’m used to my car (a 20212 Honda Hybrid), although it’s by no means a “fun car,” which means a car with exciting acceleration. Not mine.

As some loyal readers may remember, I get so anxious at the idea of choosing and then driving a new car, I’ll probably keep my Honda (85,000 miles) until one of us expires.

At the end of many of my trips, and probably yours, there’s a parking occasion. In the village where I live, the parking spaces are mostly angled to the curb, and you drive head in. I do okay on those, if I pay them special mind. Lately, in a fussy “abundance of caution” (how long ago the pandemic seems—the phrase seems historic!), my instinct is to leave an absurd amount of space in front of me, so the back of my car, a sedan, juts out into the street farther than the minivans it’s parked between. Then, humiliatingly, I have to climb back in and move the car forward.

Sometimes, parallel parking is required, and on these occasions, against all logic, the bigger the space, the worse I do.

I remember one occasion, about ten years ago, when there was a parking space big enough for two. Yet I couldn’t seem to get the car close to the curb. Finally, after some maneuvering, I got the car parked. As I opened the car door and got out, a young guy who had been watching me sneered, “Three tries ain’t bad!”

If the space is tight, however, I do much better. If the space is really small, and I genuinely don’t know if my car can fit into it, I become inspired. I enter the zone of sport-parking. I try much harder, my angles are much sharper, and the process is much quicker if the parking is a challenge.

Is there some moral here, about difficulty bringing out the best in us? In any event, I’m not in a tight spot when I face a tight spot! I just summon my “carma.”

My first move is to enter the space such that I’m almost ninety degrees to the curb. As long as the back of the car is in the space, I can usually get the front in, if I’m patient. I’ve had to abandon a small space like this only a couple of times.

Sometimes I need to give a little nudge to the fenders in front or in back of me, but, hey, that’s why they call them “bumpers”! How satisfied I am when I finally shoehorn my car into the spot! This, by the way, with no camera. My eyes and the mirrors on, and in, the car suffice.

People with Teslas just let the car park itself, thereby depriving themselves of a singular joy.

I recently squeezed my car into a very small spot in SoHo before meeting then driving two friends uptown. I expected them to be impressed by my feat, but neither of them drives and neither of them noticed, much to my annoyance. A sportster wants recognition!

Recently, I parked so well I had to photograph my accomplishment, which you can see above. There were about five inches in front of me and nine inches in back, in my latest example of sport parking. This is even more impressive when you consider that I was parking against the less-familiar left-hand curb. Do I not deserve a trophy?

(Yet a mere two hours later, with an “abundance of space,” I could not get closer than 18” to a right-hand curb. I was glad no one was around to comment on my shame.)

Making everyday events an entertaining game is a sport unto itself.

Peculiar new sports, such as Pickleball, are invented all the time. I now suggest Sport Parking!

At Sport Parking competitions, points would be awarded for speed and placement. This is a sport that would be open to all, with all in the same league. Men, women, transgender people, the young and the old would compete against each other and themselves for the most elegant moves and results. City dwellers would be at a particular advantage from their years of practice. All would have to drive the same model car.

Maybe it would be a 2012 Honda Hybrid, in honor of the founder of the sport.