In the Randy Chase tradition :-):
Only get 2 hours sleep before heading out of Montgomery, AL at 12:30 am
Thursday towards Peru. Make it to Louisville and can't keep my eyes open,
imagine that. Pull over on side of road and sleep sitting up in the car for
an hour or two (it was all kind of fuzzy), then back on the road. Got to
Indianapolis and heard the infamous rumble, rumble, rumble under braking.
Yep, despite inspecting the front pads and deeming them ok for another couple
of events, there were some hidden rivits that I didn't anticipate. Make the
site at 11:30am. Quick call to Carbotech and Larry Narcus sends me another
set of his killer brake pads next-day air to the site; special thanks to
Roger "the Big O" Johnson for his never-ending good-guy-until-the-end
assistance. I was surprised not to find a BMW dealership in Kokomo :-) so I
had one of the prolific local Ford/Chevy auto parts places get a set of BMW
rotors delivered from Indianapolis the next day too. Threatening storms went
north, though we got some rain at the site that dried quickly; ok, I helped
it out some with a couple dozen wet runs. This site's concrete grips good
even in the wet! Since I was going to Tire Rack on Friday to get some new
Kumho Ecsta 712 street tires I pounded all I could out of the old street
tires like I was on a mission from corded-carcass hell. The rotors were
already toast so I proceeded to grind them into smitherenes as well. Richard
and Barbara Beecher fly into Indy and come on over. We then proceeded to
abuse a fairly new set of Hoosiers into infamy along with the rotors just for
the fun of it. To give you an idea as to how many runs we made in the test
session, the new set of Hoosiers (1999 version) we ran for the entire Pro
event with 3 drivers are hardly worn. So if you haven't registered for the
private test event before the Peru 4th of July Tour the number of entrants is
limited to 25. If running as many runs as you can stand from Noon until 7PM
sounds more palatable than working on Thurday before the event then you may
just want to email Roger Johnson for more info: rjohnson@friendlynet.com
Best Western hotel in Peru is nicely built, but the management has no idea
what service is. $79/night doesn't even net you a coffee pot in your room,
no local internet access even for AOL, the breakfast sucks but it won't
matter since they won't serve it until 7:30 am anyways, I don't think I got
the SCCA rate but the desk clerk had no idea what it was; resistance was
futile :-). They do at least have the full cable TV schedule including
Speedvision but I was instantly in the land of Z-Z-Z-Z's every night after
those long days. Dinner at the Grant Street Cafe in Peru is recommended
unless you're on a tight budget; they stop seating at 9pm, we made it at
8:55. Everyone in our party of seven seemed to enjoy it, though we were
disappointed not to get the Big O's highly recommended waitress that tells
the foulest jokes this side of the Mississippi. Apparently during dinner a
tumultuous hail/thunderstorm blasted through the area, though the Z3
roach-coach seemed to escape unscathed at the event site. It did set the
tone for the upcoming weekend though as cold, wet weather engulfed the area.
We get word that Howard is left high and dry at the Denver airport because of
the United strike and is renting a car for the 18 hour drive through. I
count my blessings.
M Sipe
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