Finished getting my newly built cylinder head working properly with
the rest of the race car on Sunday prior to the event at 4:30 pm,
still had a few hours to spare...
Left Wed AM, arrived Thursday afternoon. The Pro paddock was pretty
much completely full at that point. After moving around a bit I
finally found a spot by Randy Williams beautifully prepared cars - a
TR-3 and a lovely Jag E-type.
Friday practice was uneventful for me, but I was able to play with
Henry Frye, Mark Wheatley, and George Wright. I was gratified to see
that my new head (which had been milled and had a good valve job but
no porting) performed well - I could keep up with Henry and Mark on
the straights.
Saturday was forecast to be fairly hot, but a low cloud cover kept
things cool right up until the K-cup race. Qualifying was in cool
dense air and the car loved it. Got down to the low 1:51's and
qualified 5th. Unfortunately, Henry blew up partway through
qualifying. I got two flying laps before they black flagged the
session and another couple once they got us going again.
For the big race, we had quite a pre-race ceremony. There were high
school cheerleaders in their outfits which were stationed by the
cars, some of them with British and Grassroots Motorsports
flags. There were driver interviews, including yours
truly. Afterwards, I was told that I sounded very professional over
the PA. Then they gridded us up in the proper spots - Randy Williams
was originally put at the back of the pack due to no qualify time
(clutch problem?), but they placed him back in 7th or 8th which was
about where he'd been running. Good of them to do that. Kas gave
the "Gentlemen (I cringed) and Susan (I smiled), Start Your Engines!"
to get us going properly. I ended up on the inside of the 3rd row as
we came to the green. Tony Garmey in the TR250-K set a starting
speed that was perfect for me, I anticipated the green nicely and was
gaining ground. Inside was blocked by Mark Wheatley, so I moved up
the middle, then worked my way to the outside for turn 1. Got a
great run through turn 1 and was in 3rd place by turn 2. Of course,
no place to go but down from there... Had a great time trying to
hold off Mark Wheatley and George Wright, but they both eventually
got by me. Randy passed me like I wasn't even moving on his way to
the front. I had been very pleased to be faster than him all weekend
- turned out he must have been taking it easy until the race. I
ended up in 8th place, with an ear to ear grin.
Randy Williams won the Kastner Cup for an inspired drive in a really
pretty, well prepared TR-3. Much deserved.
to be continued...
Tony Drews
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