I sent this a while ago, it didn't seem to make it... Must have been too big!
Hard to believe the last race of the season is behind me.
The VSCDA did another stellar job with this event. Weather this year was
fantastic. Participants were rewarded with 3 half hour sessions on Friday,
while Saturday we got a qualifying session and a 10 lap sprint race. Sunday
was the small bore enduro and a 12 lap feature.
I started the Sprint race on Saturday in fourth behind a Lotus Super 7, a
very fast Midget and an Alfa coupe that has some pretty impressive lineage.
On the start, the Lotus played a sneaky trick by slowing the pack down as
he went for first gear. I was in second and got caught below my power
curve. By the time I had the motor on cam, the three cars in front of me
had several car lengths. Then Alfa spun in turn one, and I was pretty happy
to have been back. It took a two laps of being huge in the mirror of the
Midget to figure out where I was going to get him, and the next time around
I took my shot and got even with him. We went side by side around the
corner and he feverishly waived me by. He had enough of me. As I worked at
catching the Lotus, one of the Thickos rolled his Sprite back in the esses,
so a full course yellow and the pace car came out. As they got the Sprite
handled, I noticed my fuel pressure gauge was reading zero... It kept
running for 1/2 a lap after we went green again, then I had a great view of
the race from the side of the track.
The irony of this is we went out for Mexican the night before, so running
out of gas shouldn't have happened!
Sunday we had the small bore enduro and the 12 lap feature race. My plan on
enduros is to concentrate on the line and smoothness, never turn more than
6k rpm's, and have fun. When running by myself, slow down to point a few
slower cars by and have fun passing them, that kind of thing. Funny, it
usually turns out I turn a very fast lap doing this, and this time was no
different. I turned my personal best at M-O, a 1:50. I think it was chasing
Wayne Obry in his superfast Spitfire.
Continued in next email...
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