From a 1979 People article about the auto-racing exploits of Est scream machine Werner Erhard, who has always been a piece of work:

“For hours mechanics have been fine-tuning the squat red-and-silver race car, while assistants check their clipboards and keep the Watkins Glen (N.Y.) bivouac free of litter and strangers. One fan wanders through in a T-shirt with the baffling slogan: ‘Before I was different, now I’m the same.’ Presently the driver emerges from an enormous van, astronaut-like in his creamy flame-proof suit, and heads for the Formula Super Vee racer (named for its Volkswagen engine). At the wave of a flag he will roar around a 3.3-mile Grand Prix course at speeds up to 130 mph. 

There are 29 other qualifiers in this Gold Cup event, but only driver Werner Erhard claims he is here for the sake of mankind. Erhard, the founder of est (Erhard seminars training), says that when he slides into his 164-horsepower Argo JM4, he is raising consciousness, not merely dust. 

‘Real people—you and me—feel like they don’t make any difference in this lousy world,’ says the 43-year-old Erhard. He is tall and loose-limbed with icy blue eyes; he insists on eye contact during a conversation. If his listener looks away, even momentarily, Erhard stops talking. He wants everyone to understand why he is driving fast cars these days in addition to heading the $20 million business that est has become, plus a 1977 spin-off, his program ‘to end world hunger by 1997.’ ‘I wanted to organize a high-performance team,’ Erhard continues, ‘that could master a complex skill in a very short time with winning results and show that everyone involved makes a big difference, from grease monkeys to spectators.’ In order to prove this estian point, Erhard says he considered such adventures as skydiving and karate, but rejected them as not collective enough. ‘Auto racing was perfect!’ he exclaims. ‘I hadn’t driven a car in six years and didn’t know the first thing about racing. Whatever we’d achieve, we’d achieve together.’”

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“I found it a remarkable technology”: