In a message dated 5/11/99 9:57:46 AM Central Daylight Time, DSRGR writes:
<< Subj: Mothers Day Autocross
Date: 5/11/99 9:29:15 AM Central Daylight Time
From: Jouet4ever
To: eirish@us.hsanet.net, MIrish1431
To: AJDE@compuserve.com, Swese100, Jitters99, Beadin
To: TLStoffa, WTILV, jrsygrl@powernet.net
To: lindakiss27@earthlink.net, Cherkeechf, CrownEagle
Today was a " double-dip" day for me. My mom is here visiting and
wants to drive in the autocross. She has 3 main goals in her life....to fly a
plane, have a story published and drive a race car. She has already
accomplished the first 2 goals. Now she was about to realize her final goal!
She has spent the last year and a half fighting and recovering from cancer.
In 1998, she was diagnosed with a " highly aggressive glandular cancer" which
is not only treatable, but one of the very few cancers that is curable! She
went through months of chemotherapy (lost all her hair and was either sick to
her stomach or high from the drugs) then 5 weeks of radiation treatments. She
is now 100% AOK cured! However, the road to recovery is long and tedious as
she finds herself very weak and is working on building up her strength and
growing back her hair. In the last 2 years she has driven only twice in their
own car!
Race Day: the course starts with a quick right hand turn into a straight
away 2 quick left hand turns, a gate slightly offset and then a 3 cone
slalom ending in another left hand turn where you go straight across the top
of the parking lot to make a 90 degree left turn, short burst and then
another left followed by a right leading to another long straight to a single
cone that you must make a u turn around. Then dash straight to the finish.
Gene has brought 2 cars to the race. The " Sharkomatic" which all 3 of us
are going to share plus the road-race car that he drives on the roadraces in
CA and AZ (its actually not set up for autocrossing, wrong kind of tires and
set up for wide sweeping turns at much higher speeds) but mom wanted the full
experience of a shift-stick, full racing harness, and, of course, the roar of
the motor.
Before each autocross you are supposed to walk the course, look for how you
are going to make your turns, where to apex, where to put on the speed, and
generally memorize the course. Gene and I walked the course, but it was too
long for mom to walk. The event Master let Gene drive her around it in the
car, which doesn't give the full effect of walking. You cannot memorize the
course while riding in the passenger seat, no matter how slow one goes.
Mom practiced driving the road race car in the pit area, driving around,
shifting, getting in and out over the roll cage!
During the morning session, Gene took his runs first, with mom in the car so
she could see the course and generally feel the action of the car, getting
very consistent times in the 48 second range, ending with a 46. Then mom
took her first 5 runs in the " Sharkomatic." her first time was a 69. Gene
rode with her to guide her. Her next 2 runs were off course, as she had
trouble all day finding the L shaped left turn at the top of the run. She
kept turning early. A couple times she didn't make a tight enough u turn and
plowed several of the cones down. All her runs were in the 60 second range. I
took my 5 runs starting at 51 seconds and worked slowly down to 46 seconds on
the last run. Then mom got 5 more runs in the "road race car". Again, her
times were in the 60-70s range. She had lots of trouble with the steering.
The road race car is very hard to steer at slower speeds and just not set up
for a curvy tight course. But she was all harnessed in getting the full
effect of a real race car. The announcer kept telling moms "story" over the
loud speaker, so she grew quite a cheering crowd, with lots of video cameras
on her. She was the highlight of the day!
After the lunch break we had 5 more runs each. Mom opted to only drive the
"Sharkomatic" in the afternoon as she was wearing down, getting tired. But
still not ready to call it quits! Gene ran his runs, best run coming in the
44 second range. Mom still rode with him to learn the course. Mom took her 5
runs, again coming in at the 60-70 range. My runs started at 48 range, did
one 46, then last run was a 47.
Monday....mom is sore in her legs from getting in and out the road race car
window. Sore shoulders from the harness, but still beaming and exclaiming
over her day! She enjoyed the day, realized her dream, was awed by the
clubmembers that helped her by pointing the way for her on the course, told
her to finish her run, gave her "thumbs-up", and cheered her, even if she had
gone off course. She said she could see why they are our friends! She has
nicknamed herself "cone-killer," and is seriously thinking about another
race! >>
|