The weather was perfect, and only got perfecter for this year's vintage race
at Michigan's Grattan Raceway.
Along with a number of Spridgeteers in attendance, cyber-names from the list
came to life as real live persons and drifted through Thicko Village over
the weekend. PeterC, Ron Soave, Roger Cotting, my main supporter and crew
chief Rick Fisk, and the parapatetic Mike Gigante from "down under" made
their appearance to cheer on a decent field of Sprites and Midgets. That
master of guerilla racewear, Commandante Flounderella and the oft-mentioned
Lovely Veronica presided over the Saturday night Thickofest, with music by
the ever-popular Thicktones, despite WST's problem-prone sorting of a last
minute car that never really got on its legs. Bob Kansa and the bread
truck crew towed a trailer all the way from Akron, but forgot to load a car
on it. Before leaving for any race weekend, it's a good practice to have a
sort of check-off list and be sure nothing's been forgotten. ("Let's see,
tooth brush, extra jockey shorts, Crescent wrench, cell phone, race
car....race car! You said YOU were loading the race car! I was hooking up
the trailer and buying the granola bars!").
Other Spridgets on the track included Jim Donato, Gary Kropf, Rick Cook,
Kris Larsen, Chris Lapham (whose throw-away connecting rods and rocker arms
went into the Works Midget last winter), Ben Prewitt, and Mal Fay, who
unfortunately lost his crankcase oil and siezed up a motor. There were a
few more of those funny little cars, but I didn't know who the drivers were.
As for the Works Midget, the sorting begun earlier in the month at the
Meadowbrook Historics seems pretty well done. The car ran better than the
driver drove....except for running out of gas 200 yards before the checker
in the qualifying race (some sort of political rubbish about a "fuel
shortage"). Nice thing about racing a street-legal car, Rick and I threw on
the muffler, poured in a gallon of go, and drove into town, where we filled
up the cell and the jug with 93 octane Amoco, saving the expense of
trackside racing fuel at $6-something a gallon.
It had been a year since I had been to Grattan (burned up the motor last
year at this very event), but I had the feeling that each opportunity to
practice my line helped me drive a little smarter, understand what the car
would and wouldn't do, and then get up the gulliones to try it. The motor
seemed very strong for essentially a blue-printed and balanced stock 1275
with a rally cam and a header. I had a ball. Got home around 8 PM Sunday
and rented a copy of "Driven" to watch the enhanced video version of the
madness. (Not much of a "film" but great fun as a "movie"). Real racing
has drama, but few weekends can be better spent than play-acting in the
theater called vintage racing!
--JohnD
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