I had a great weekend racing at Seattle International Raceway in SOVERN's
fall finale. The TR3 ran perfectly, I drove fairly well, though I had some
concentration problems at the end of the last race. I was too far back from
the first six pack, and too far ahead of the second pack, until a Lotus
Elite started running me down. Bugger passed me in the last corner, last
lap.
I usually run in with the Vintage group, but my registration was late so
they bumped me into the historics, where the cars a typically much faster.
My lap times would have put me in the top three in vintage, but the best I
could manage was eighth in historic (out of 41 cars on the grid).
The bad news was my car was randomly selected for detailed rules inspection.
Sovern has been very loose about originality, engine tweaks, etc. until just
recently (except for the Porsche guys, who were continually flogging each
other in the pits over originality issues). So now they're going a little
far the other way. Basically I'm going to have to completely rework the TR3
if I want to race it next year. They even want me to put an original
generator back in, and a lucas distributor in place of the mallory. Of
course all the fiberglass I have on the car is verboten, so I'm going to
have to find a bunch of tin (or rework the junk I've got). I'm not sure it's
worthwhile, especially since I have Peyote to play with, but it seems a bit
too sad to take literally the only TR3 running up here off the track (for
that matter, oftentimes the only Triumph).
I certainly understand the reasons for the rules, but we're all just doing
this for fun. I don't give a hoot what someone else does to their car as
long as I can get on the track and race with someone. I know most of you
guys race in organizations that have always been strict, but I've never
really understood how that all influences the amount of fun anyone has doing
this sport.
I'll have to wait until my ox heals from this goring to figure out how I
really feel. I know there's no such thing as a set of rules without a
political agenda. Maybe I just need to go back to SCCA racing to experience
complete frustration for a while. Then this will seem minor and completely
reasonable again.
Ah, well, great weekend anyway.
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