First race of the year for me and Peyote. It was both great fun and kind of
lousy. I was afraid I might have forgotten how to drive until I got in the
car, but Peyote felt like a comfortable old shoe. Took it easy in practice,
getting the feel again, turned a 1:39:something in qualifying, which stuck
me on the pole. Denny Hatch with the red Pooper didn't get to qualify, so he
was starting from the back. Since Cameron Healy (silver pooper) and I didn't
want to miss out on playing with Denny we asked to wait on the grid and went
to the back too. Had a lot of fun running through the traffic at the same
time that I was dicing with those two fiends but it got harder and harder to
pass--the guys at the front were charging hard. I was up to the last two
cars when Peyote suddenly overheated and I pulled off. Turned out the
Harmonic Balancer decided to seek harmony elsewhere.
I borrowed a replacement from Tony Garmey and did the first race on Sunday
starting from the back by myself. Charged up to the front and had a tough
battle getting past the Lotuses and Elvas in the front, but finally did,
which left only Cameron and Denny. But they were too far out to catch, and
were turning pretty much the same lap times as I was, so I got third.
I decided to do the Lollipop race (a handicap format). Bad idea. In theory
we were to got to a spont on the track and stop, then be waved off within a
minute. As it turned out they didn't get us off for about five minutes and I
overheated again and blew out some coolant. The temperature didn't drop once
we started moving, so I had to pull off.
In the final race I was gridded third. Coming into turn two I did a banzai
move and didn't brake at all, whizzing by both Denny and Cameron. Got
through the turn in once piece (what a car!) and pulled away smartly, but
after one lap the temps were climbing, so I coasted into the pits. I figure
the #4 cylinder is probably toast. Damned lollipop! I knew I shouldn't have
done that.
Beautiful weather, good friends, great racing, and a lightly broken car that
raced it's guts out. I guess it was a pretty darned good weekend.
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