Well, I was all confused on what folks were telling me about the new
configuration at Sears. The first time through under yellow, it became
pretty obvious. In my car, I just come down the carousel as usual, but
I keep the wheel cranked over a little longer, and don't get back on the
loud pedal as much so I can get over to the left of what used to be the
short straight to 7. The "temporary" 7 used to be part of the dragster
return route, or an emergency vehicle cutover. They nicely widened and
smoothed it out. It lets you back onto the old surface looking right at
the berm on the inside of 8. It worked well enough. There was room for
2 cars side by side if they knew what they were doing. It is now the
slowest turn on the course, but I don't think anybody had to use 1st.
Most cars deducted about 10 seconds from their typical times. The track
is now about 2.2 miles + change, making it very close to Laguna Seca in
length, since Laguna was lengthened.
On Saturday, the group 6 race for FVees and the slower F. Juniors (me)
got HAILED out. Lest anybody think we're wimps for not racing anyway,
consider this: Group 5 actually got caught out on track when the sky
opened up. That was the Can-Am and fastest formula car group. Well
known vintage racer and perennial 1st place contender Tom Claridge was
last seen doing pirouettes down the dragstrip. He must have gone around
10 or 15 times. The scary part was that his rotation speed INCREASED as
he bled off forward speed. It was like somebody pulling the string on a
top. He was lucky enough not to hit anything. One of the Can-Am cars
suffered heavy damage in front, driver ok AFAIK. If you've been out in
the marbles, just imagine if all those marbles were pea-sized balls of
ice! I was standing around in my suit waiting to go to grid, looking at
a menacing sky when all of a sudden, KAFLOOM! I scrambled to cover the
car up. Those poor guys on the track didn't stand a chance. Some took
shelter under the bridges. The rest just sat there till it was safe to
crawl back to the paddock. They must have used just about every flag in
the inventory on that mess. Our race would have been the last one of
the day, so the race stewards wisely adjourned for the day. Everybody
covered things up and went to a nice trackside dinner. Sunday was as
described, one of those picture postcard days. Feeling cheated by the
weather, I stuck around for the scratch race on Sunday. I loaded all my
gear onto the truck and hooked up the trailer and ramps before the race.
After the race, I just drove right onto the trailer. Fun, fun, fun.
Did anybody on this list do the HMSA at Laguna event?
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