[I really really tried to keep this one short, since general feedback from the peanut gallery = ‘brevity is the sole of wit’. I guess I need an editor since I failed miserably again. Look at it this way – DTOMRacing gives you a lot of words for your entertainment dollar].

Shark week footage in progress. Dog update – Indy went in for surgery on Monday to fix his ear and get another biopsy on his leg. We are waiting for test results they take 10-14 days. He is wearing his mummy headdress while his ear heals nicely, but he is angry since it is very un-cool.

I didn’t want to race at Road Atlanta on Friday. I didn’t have the time to go over the car the way I like (read “need to” – I don’t really like it), and didn’t have the money to pay someone to do it for me. We went out for team trivia on Wed. to celebrate my wife’s few remaining days of summer vacation. That meant we got home late and that combined with work meant I was tired whaa whaa whaa whaaa whaa. Sometimes this hobby feels a lot like a job, but we wear the chains we forge in life.

My co-driver Dave White wasn’t coming down so I was faced with driving 2 hours in the hottest part of the day. The most dangerous thing I think we face driving on track is dehydration. Racing a car requires tremendous concentration, and nothing goes out the window quicker when you’re hot and your body is lacking what it needs to work properly than your higher cognitive processes. That sounds fancy but what does it mean? For me it means instead of thinking “brake here, watch for the shift light, check mirrors, etc” (or at least their instinctive counterparts) I’m thinking “man I’m hot, this sucks, what is that over there in the trees” or in other words your mind wanders and you’re not paying attention. So it makes driving and concentrating that much harder. It also means you have to strike a balance between drinking enough Gatorade to stay hydrated but not so much that you have to pee the minute you’re in the car. Believe it or not “Big Time” endurance drivers (or Al) pee in their seats a lot. I’m not sure how much money would have to be on the line for me to consider this…..

My race preparations consisted of putting the dash back together from my ill-fated attempt to diagnosis an electrical problem I was having (I stood as much chance of figuring this out as a monkey does of doing calculus, but at least I tried). That and packing the truck took the little free time I had left to devote to preparations. As I was getting ready to put the car on the trailer, I turned the key and nothing happened. Battery was dead. Now normally this is as much trouble as a cloudy day. Not sure if you’ve ever noticed but when you’re tired and grumpy the littlest things rub you wrong and everything seems to take twice as long. It was now 9pm on Thursday night and the last thing I wanted to do is screw with a non-starting car. My low maintenance plan was to roll it down the driveway and drop the clutch (known as ‘bump starting’ and one of the many awesome features of a manual transmission car). For some reason that didn’t work and now I was faced with a non running car that was at a 45 degree angle blocking our road outside in the dark. Run and find my jumper cables, bring the other car down to jump it since the truck was hooked to the trailer, etc. Get it running. Sounds loud and ‘racey’ too loud / too racey. Like I have an exhaust leak. M#@## F#@$%.

Wake up bright and early; convince Craig to move his 911 off the lift and into its proper home in his museum of non-running 1980’s cars. Amazingly the car still won’t start on the trailer. Jump again and send the battery off to Brendan to put on the charger. Shockingly the exhaust leak is a simple fix. Brake pads and tires aren’t up to Dave White spec, but more than adequate for Jim Robinson. Battery goes back in, and we’re off to the races. I thank God for small miracles.

Now each one of these posts are filled to the brim with my b!tching and moaning but to put it in perspective – I have little ankle biting bad days. Our buddy Ted was able to come up and help out on Friday. Usually Ted has to work, but it seems that earlier in the week Federal Agents raided his company’s headquarters and shut them down. The 5000 or so employees got an email around lunch time telling them – good luck finding a job. That is a legit bad day.

We got up to Road Atlanta secured our pitstop and got ready to go. One of the many things to fall by the wayside in terms of race prep was charging (or even finding) the batteries for the radio. We’d do this race in radio silence as a result. We’re in first place overall which meant I’d be in pole position for the start. Green flag flies and I get a good jump, the high horsepower cars get passed and I’m in fourth or fifth with a Vette right in front and a 944 in back. As we go into turn 5 the Vette checks up hard. I get on the brakes but the 944 behind me is too little too late and he hits me from behind. I feel the hit and then I’m 180 and facing traffic coming up the hill and waiting to feel the crunch of the wall. Miraculously I come to a stop about 8 inches from concrete. I watch as everyone drives past and then pull out on track. Car feels fine and I do a lap but Race Control black flags me so I have to pull into the pits. The rear bumper was loose so Ted and Brendan rip it off and out I go.

I’m surprisingly calm and ‘un-angry’. I decide to use this ‘alone time’ to focus on consistency and making lemonade. I’m clicking off decent 90% laps and turn the wick up as needed to make up time. A little after ½ way and I’m catching up to cars. I pull in for our mandatory 5 gallon fuel stop and that goes off without a hitch. Few more laps and I’ve passed class traffic and can see two guys I assume are in the top-5. They’re racing and therefore going slow. I catch up quick and make a good move going into turn 1 to get past both Jim Leive’s Spec E30 and another Spec Miata. Going into turn 3 – I’m suddenly sideways again and then crunch as the wheel is yanked from my hands. I sit for a second trying to figure out what the F just happened. I see the miata and Jim driving off and figure that the miata must have just punted me from behind and then hit me somehow again. I pull back on track and smoke is filling the cabin. I stop at the bottom of the hill not knowing the extent of the damage. Turns out sheet metal was crumpled on the rear wheel and the tire was getting cheese grated against it enough that the little Spec E30 that could – couldn’t finish the race. At the time we figured I had come from last place to a 2nd in class, only to get wrecked out with about 10 min. left to go.

Moral of the story – NEVER get a race car painted.

Street view of where it went pear shaped.

Clay showing how its done in a car. Not sure how you can get ‘inside’ on this line?

Aerial view. Green = good / Red = bad. I’ve seen some people try to pass here none have ended particularly well…

So now what. I get questions from non-racers about this so I’ll lay out what happens. Basically I’m SOL. No insurance on track, if you get broke you fix it, your dime, regardless of whose fault, why it happened, etc. The first guy that punted me came up and apologized he felt bad, of course me not being there allowed him to win so he probably didn’t feel ‘too bad’. But at least he made the gesture, we were in pretty heavy traffic and sh!t happens. I’m cool with a little rubbing since if you’re an amateur egg juggler from time to time you’ll have omelets. The Spec Miata guy I filed a contact form on with NASA. What does that mean? Roughly the equivalent of a complaint letter, with probably as much getting done. At the end of the day NASA is a business, so if they ban a racer from racing they just lost a huge chunk of change. So they have to balance the perception of caring (enough to mollify me) with not making the other guy mad so that he keeps coming back, but balance that with – is this A$$hat so dangerous that he will eventually kill someone and get us sued. IF this guy has been a source of constant problems NASA will tell him to sit the bench for awhile or pull his license and tell him to play somewhere else. Why did I complain in one case and not the other. Well Jim Levie witnessed the incident and said the guy basically just drove in the back of me. Also this guy didn’t come and look for me. I wandered a bit to see if I could find him to see what his story was, but nothing. He didn’t show up for the awards ceremony and people are parked over a 5 mile square parking lot. I had Ted and Brendan by my car in case anyone stopped by (like the 944) guy. So we’ll see what happens, I’m guessing nothing. In the meantime I’m looking for a discount bodyshop.

Another ‘to put it in perspective’, ironically (sad irony not funny irony) poor Jim Levie got victimized by a Miata during the sprint races in roughly the same place. Unfortunately he didn’t get off as light, and his car looks like a wadded up pop can. Thankfully he was all right.

Poor Jim!