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Race Report, 6th Round, USTCC, Buttonwillow Raceway, October 11-12, 2008
In the paddock. My car has been sitting idle for awhile and the battery is down. With the help of Bob, Hubie and Dan, I get it bump started and take it for a spin to find out what the changes feel like. My sponsor, Bay Bridge Motors, has installed a new 15% supercharger pulley provided by my other sponsor, Mini Mania. It’s good for a 4% increase in boost from the supercharger. In addition, the interior of the catalytic converter had come loose and was stuffing up the cat like a bad cold until it was found and removed, freeing up the exhaust route. As I run it up through the gears out on the Lerdo Highway next to the raceway it feels really strong and sounds raspy and brutal. Nice. Thanks, guys!
Canyon Bob has had some good runs in the morning but as the car comes by now it starts backfiring loudly, the sound bouncing off the wall like gunfire. He pulls in. The hood comes off and flying fingers check connections. Everything is tight. Maybe it’s starving for fuel in the corners. Add some more. Go out again. Nope. Pull in. Recheck. Change distributor. Aha. Loose connection. Lash it down. Go out again. Uh-uh. And to complete the snafu, the differential detonates coming out of Turn 3. Hubie is convinced the transmission can be changed out in time for Sunday’s race so we load the car on the trailer and they’re off to the shop to rebuild it on Saturday.
I’m first on the grid for qualifying. The starter whirls his arms and I accelerate out onto the course. Two Honda Challenge cars pass me and I step it up a little. It’s the first lap so we’re not going full out but I hit the Bus Stop apex as if we were. It unbalances the car and the rear end starts coming around. I stay on the gas and counter steer but it fishtails around the other way. The rear wheels hit dirt, throw up a cloud, lose traction and snap around the other way. Again I try to catch it but I can’t and it gets away. I go all in, feet trying to push both pedals through the floor. The car slides screeching sideways down the track and comes to a stop perpendicular to the traffic flow. I find first gear and just get it rolling when out of the dust cloud come two cars side by side at speed. There is nowhere for them to go so I just grit my teeth and the outside car slams into my right rear wheel at about 60 mph, spinning my car 180 degrees. All the safety gear inside the car does its job. On impact my helmet bounces off the safety net on my right and slams into the padded roll bar on my left. My HANS (head and neck safety device), held firmly in place by my very tight six point harness, limits the travel of my head and the racing seat and harness combine to keep my body in place. When it’s over all I have is a slight headache and a severely bent race car.
Whenever we screw up, the temptation to find someone or something to blame is overwhelming. But there’s no use blaming anyone but myself for this incident. As I tell my students, accidents don’t come out of nowhere. They are the culmination of a chain of events, any one of which, if eliminated, would not result in the accident. I made 6 mistakes in a row and the car ended up on the trailer.
Read the details in my sponsor Mini Mania's blog here.
