So the rest of the morning I tried to fill my brain with SoM/Tech stuff, and see if I could help out the other IT7 guys. Anything to get my head off of the afternoon race. You’ve been there, you know what I mean. Lunch, water, glad to see that weather is getting warmer (though not what one would call “warm”.) Help pack up the trailers, take down the canopies (which got pre-taken down by the wind and – get this – SNOW the night before…fuck you Al Gore.) Lunch, wait for the Vees to hit the track…
I was on IT7 pole, with pretty much all the guys all around. I knew that circumstances handed me a lucky break earlier in the day, but I wasn’t clear what the afternoon would bring. After all, these guys are running for season points, and I’m a guest. Then again, no one really appreciates someone just laying down…that’s no fun. Just not clear what to do.
German military strategist Helmuth von Moltke once wrote (and I paraphrase) “No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.” What he meant by that is the same thing we experience each time we try to pre-plan a race: it never goes as planned. Yet, we continue to do it. Thus went my “battle plan”. Once we got out there – I was gridded 6th – the race started at the waving green. Didn’t take long for things to get busy, as ITA cars behind me wanted to go forward, as did all my IT7 competitors. As in the morning, I put my head down and tried to run best laps, and figured things would come as they may.
And “things” turned out to be one Drew Young, in a blue IT7 that was getting bigger and bigger in my mirror (just one mirror, as the others were pointing askew to things I had no interest in). Drew had started one place behind me, and had only run 0.4s best lap behind me, so I knew he’d be a factor. But despite my having pulled him at the start, he was a-comin’! Within two laps he was trying his best moves under braking at the end of the oval, but I managed to hold him off by maintaining momentum up the hill out of Three. But on Lap Four I could see him HANGING that little bastard of a car all around that NHMS oval, and there was just NO WAY he was to be denied. He stuffed that thing into T3 with authority and I knew he was there. He put that car into three and we turned to go up the hill with me pulling behind him…
…and all of a sudden, I hear this big “WHOMP!” sound (this, over the sound of the rotary and with earplugs!) and the whole underside of Drew’s car is engulfed in flames! And I’m talking nose-to-tail, side-to-side big orange flames! I go around the outside and Drew quickly shuts it down and pulls over to a corner station. And while I’m trying to look over and see if Drew’s OK, now I have a ITA Miata crawling up my butt, trying to pass.
OF COURSE we get a full-track caution, and we spend a couple laps catching the pace car. As we get gathered up, the Miata behind me keeps pulling up next next to me and gesturing. What, am I on fire? Nope, looks fine. Wheel coming off or tire deflated? Nope, feels the same as before. I know the guy, but he probably has no clue who I am, so I just blow him off and figure he’s mad I’m between him and the next ITA car (turns out that was correct.)
So we toodle around and I see Drew’s fine, though the hood is obviously blistered. He’ll get it back together. I look back and can’t easily see any other IT7 cars…but I know they’re back there. I know Dan is back there, too, getting ready to put a bitch-slap on me, and others are close enough to go with him. I’m counting on the ITA cars between us to slow things down, but I have no clue where we are in the “15 laps or 21 minutes” race…
Soon enough, we get the “1” finger from the starter and then the pace car pulls off…and we’re gone. I keep my head down, running my best laps (I *know* I’m getting faster each lap), watching the mirrors for my antagonist…and there he is, a blue/green IT7. Dan Sheppard. I can see the red in his eyes from a full straight distance. The steam is streaming out of the top of the car and he’s coming. Each time we go around I’m mentally counting the distance and doing the math to figure how long until my demise. We go over a prominent milestone on the track and I’m counting “1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3 Mississippi” and figure I have – at best – two laps before he’s on my ass. Then that old saw about “catching is one thing and passing is another” goes through my brain but is quickly replaced with “Dude, this is Dan’s car, he doesn’t care if he wrecks the car” and I’m all like “fuck me”.
But then, just as we come out of the last turn, the most wonderful sight appears: the “1 lap to go” board at Start/Finish. There’s that Moses revelation thing again…and all I gotta do now is NOT FUCK UP.
Ever get that “just don’t fuck up” thought in your head? Ever notice what it does to you? Yeah, IT CAUSES YOU TO FUCK UP. I’m deep-braking every gawd-damned corner, watching the distance decrease with every freakin’ microsecond. Dan’s eyes are getting bigger, as is my appetite for corners speeds. And then, as I’m doing whatever I need to do to NOT FUCK UP a slow Miata appears in my windshield two corners from the end and I am WILLING THIS CAR TO BE THE NEXT SCHUMACHER, TO FIND FORCE FROM JESUS HIMSELF (the baby one, not the one with the beard) TO NOT SLOW THE FUCK DOWN. And he slows down and I try this “1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi” shit before I decide “Fuck Mississippi” and just about run him down.
And then we FINALLY get out of the last corner, and I’ll I gotta do is not miss ONE LAST SHIFT before the checkered flag.
And I don’t. It was probably the slowest and most deliberate 3-4 shift in the history of mankind.
And Dan blows by me past the checkered flag. And I think I peed myself a little bit.
Just a little.
Dan’s all about how he’s gonna take the drivetrain out of the red car and put it into his blue/green car. That’d be OK; after all it is his car. But I’m pretty OK if we have a re-match soon with these cars…they’re a lot more fun than you think.
– GA
