Up for the challenge: a challenge led to Adolph Kiefer's first racing lanes--and still drives him today.(Perspectives)

To me, a challenge is enduring. It's something that doesn't go away. Even after the race was over and I had won, I always wondered if I could have done better--and next time, I tried harder. That's what drives me. The challenge. I think it's what's 'always made me try to do my best, and it's also what has motivated me to stay in business, working for as many years as I have. I turned 85 this summer and I still love a good challenge.

In fact, a good challenge is what ultimately made me develop my racing lanes. I was once on a train ride and had a chance run-in with my old Olympic coach, Robert Kiphuth. I was on my way back from Boston, where I was a guest speaker to members of the Amateur Athletic Union, and he was on his way to New Haven, Conn., where he coached at Yale.

The year was 1945 and though Bob and I had only a short conversation that day, he said something to me that would influence the direction of my life.

"Adolph, you're an idea guy," he said. "You're ,always noticing little things--problems with anything. Your mind is 'always analyzing and working out solutions. Swimming needs your help. I'd like to see you come up with an idea to take the swimmer's wake out of our competition pool."

Six months later, I showed him an idea for the first wave-quelling racing lane.

Those first racing lanes were simply floats spaced on ropes, but they did a better job than what the ponds had been using. Still, I knew I could do better. One night, a couple of years later, I was having dinner with some friends at a restaurant in Baltimore and something about the candle in the middle of the table caught my eye. I studied the round hurricane light, noticing the woven plastic basket-like covering. Then I removed the plastic from the candle shaping it into a tube and I pictured the ends capped with discs of foam. I figured the plastic mesh could baffle the wake from a swimmer, and when strung end to end, they might work. I wanted to yell, "Eureka!" But they would have thrown me out the place.

As soon as I could, I went to DuPont's plant in Buffalo, N.Y., where a new British-made machine extruded a rigid crisscrossed, woven plastic product. From there, I personally hand-assembled stoppers and plastic foam floats to the ends of the 10- to 12-inch lengths, and the first wave dampening racing lane, the Kiefer "Non-Turb" was born!