We packed the luggage, last minute beverages. Shit wait, “who has baby powder Johnny asks”? Pop the hood he yells as he jumps from the car. What the hell is going on? There he stood powering the squeaky fan belts on the Avalanche. With a plume of white dust and smelling like a babies freshly powdered bottom we were off and running at about 7:00 a.m. It was the funniest god damn thing I’ve seen in a long time. Denny’s in Angola was the first pit stop for the crew as it was breakfast time and everyone was hungry. We finished breakfast and were off and running! We took two vehicles this year with a total of 6 guys we split up 3 and 3. The five and a half hour haul was pretty much uneventful. It seemed we stopped more this year to go to the bathroom on the way. I’m unsure if it was because we’re all getting older or it was the Starbucks coffee. I’ll place the blame on the coffee. We usually see our share of incidents, freaks and mishaps along the thruway but this year was uneventful.
It started out pretty easy very early on Thursday morning. The Orange Crusher Race team assembled at the shop about 6:30 am. Jeff got out of his truck with his arms coated with lotion from wrist to elbow with anti itch medicine. He was loaded with Poison Ivy. I’m sure that was going to be quite nice the whole trip.
We arrived at the track right about noon. The pits were a bit more crowded this year over last. Being early Thursday there was a pretty good car count already. We pre-registered making it a snap. We got our pit passes and signed in our vehicles. Oh by the way, Goodguys gets 30 bucks for an additional vehicle to park in the pits for the weekend. 10 bucks a day. There was some guy throwing a fit at the booth because of it.
Yelling how he wasn’t paying…how ridiculous it was…blah blah blah. Two hours later I saw the same nim rod in the pits! Guess what? He paid! If you come to these events not expecting to shell out cash you’ve got another thing coming. (Tech in) is a real treat at these events. You either get a good ole boy who loves your car and the looks of the race team. He gives ya the hairy eyeball, signs your sheet and you’re on your way. Or you get Barney Fyfe with an extra sharp #2 pencil and a clipboard who stares at a paint chip on your roll bar. This year we got a good guy. He went down the checklist and told me to stop him when he found something wrong. The only thing he could find was the SFI safety rating tag on my gloves was missing. I told him it blew off on my last run. Tech In Complete.
The weather forecast was on our side for the weekend. Thursday afternoon we set up the trailer, prepped the car and set up the race camp for the weekend. Hungry and tired we shuffled off to the Comfort Inn. Comfort has a nice ring to it doesn’t it? Let me give you the definition for Comfort from Dictionary.com. to soothe, console, or reassure; bring cheer to. Wow, sounds pretty good doesn’t it? After driving all day, working up a sweat in the hot sun who wouldn’t want to be comforted? Check in time! To save some money, we got one of the rooms with a roll away bed. Sounded good at the time, why not? The front desk clerk said they would bring it down later. The rooms were marginal at best. Kind of dirty, blown light bulbs over the sink etc. but who cares we were at the Comfort Inn.
Remember the 80 grit towels from last year? The Comfort Inn bought them at the Hampton Inns overstock sale. Worse yet! After everyone showered and toweled off the blood we made our way to Danny Boys for a delicious meal. Tired and ready for comfort, we made our way back to the hotel. Oh look the roll bed made it to our room! A squared tube frame with coil springs stretched across it horizontally and a mattress of 3” thick. Now that’s comfort! Just perfect for out little Crew Chief Julian! My bed was ultra soft and shaped like an upside down leaf spring. Lying on my stomach, I could s see the backs of my calves without bending my legs! WTF?
Restless and tired we made our we down to get the Continental Breakfast. Walking into the room was like walking into a ceramics kiln. Holy shit, they had six waffle makers going and all the windows were closed! It had to be at least 90 degrees in there. The best sight was watching the people make waffles without using the cooking spray. Raking and chipping out the burnt crumpets of waffle into their plates….mmmm yummy. Ok let’s see, hmmm… would you like a bite sized muffin?
We had a three days of great racing. From time trials on Thursday the car was running great and my reaction times were excellent. The car was running 9.00 flat to 9.06. The weather was great. Temps were in the low 80's and the air made good power.
We ran all weekend and made it through 3 rounds of eliminations. It was down to the last two cars for Nostalgia Comp. Me and the 2009 Nostalgia Comp track champion. I did not know this until after the run. I did a great burnout and staged. He was running a rail so I could only see his front tire out of the corner of my right eye. He was on a 8.50 dial and I was running a 9.00 dial.
I was leaving earlier so I didn't want to run the risk of a break out. My lucky streak was with me all weekend with no red lights. We were running a pro tree and a I caught a 310 light. I was charging hard to toward the finish line and saw him at the mid point of my car. By the time we hit the finish line I could not tell who won. I was really excited to get the time slip. I grabbed the slip and drove back to the trailer without looking. I was pulling in and I could see the team coming back to the trailer. They were all smiling but they would of been jumping for joy if I had won. I took a look at the time slip and I lost by a margin of .323. He had beat me on my reaction time at the tree. I couldn't of run the car or raced any better. It was pure reation time. Considering I don't have alot of seat time it was a really close good race.
We ended the weekend tired, a bit disappointed about not winning but happy we were so close to winning and most of all not breaking anything.
This is how we have our fun....the Werenchheads
