Summit Point April 3, 2005
From
coastal Virginia, one has to drive across the Blue Ridge Mountains (Ok, you
west coasters would call them hills, and those in Kansas would call them Mt.
Everest) to reach Summit Point, West Virginia.
Spring has NOT crossed the mountains yet.
Kathy
and I drove up Friday morning and arrived about midday to find no room in the
inn. Every space was taken except for
one miserable space way back in the woods.
Upon the advice of several, we hung around until someone broke during
the practice day and went home freeing up a space. We got a nice spot, it seemed, on the gravel across from the
paved paddock spaces. We setup and
visited around and waited for registration to open. Registration was an adventure, even ignoring the closing in rain,
as the region had cancelled my entry. I
had used their on-line entry system (weeks ago) but encountered some software
glitches and their system had charged my credit card twice. I send them an email asking not to be
charged twice. We got to talk with the
Registrar, who was rude and kept saying, “You obviously did something
wrong.” Anyway, after redoing all the
forums they let me in. I should have
left then. If only I knew.
It
rained hard all Friday night. And
really hard all Saturday morning. My
space had about 3 inches of standing water.
The Beckers were located in the white water stream just across from
me. It was cold and I stood around in
the trailer considering putting on the rain tires. It would be awkward doing that while standing in the lake. The water was higher than my Duck shoes when
stepping into a low spot. I quickly
used up my supply of dry socks. A few
brave (?) souls went out for the morning qualifier, reporting running streams
across the track in several places.
Turn 5 had only ¾ of a car width without standing water. I continued to stand around in my
trailer. Having spent two weeks
repairing the nose damage from Savannah, I was in no hurry to put the Speads at
risk. Kathy was off at a nice dry, warm
mall somewhere in DC. Envy.
By
midday, the rains abated, and the lake drained down to only and inch or
two. I put on the rain tires. Schedule was progressing slowly. Our second qualifier got off about
3:30. It was drying, but still very
overcast. Most used dry tires, but I
decided to use the rains since I knew they would still be steams across the
track in several places. Car was comfortable on the rains, but I only got 3
laps before being black-flagged for sound violation. 107db! My times were DQ
and I would start dead last of the 22-car SR field. Dozens got busted during the day. Sound at Summit is in a depression on the straight and is tough
to pass if your exhaust exits left.
Stewards suggested that I move the exhaust to the other side of my
car. HA! I grafted on a scabby elbow on the exhaust to direct it aft. I was all that I could do.
Kathy
returned by 5 PM and brought the rains with her. We put stuff away and went off the warmth of the hotel and dry
clothes. By now the wind was blowing
HARD. It would blow at 40 mph all
Sunday. I was wishing I had stayed
home.
Sunday
was cold at 40ish degrees. (At 40mph,
what is the wind chill?) Anyway the
rains had stopped, but we were getting occasional snow flurries. Fun. Put on the old race tires. I was gonna buy new ones (Summit requires
very soft tires…. not much traction on the best of days), but figured it wasn’t
worth it now. My goal for the weekend
had been reduced to getting a start and maybe a finish.
Our race got off just after the lunch break. The green flag got waived off and several cars in the back of the pack got severely surprised. Amazingly, there was not contact. The next time around, I hung back a bit hoping to avoid mayhem. Lap went very sensibly with no offs. I got by several cars and played cautiously. Turn 5 still had water on the apex, and caused some problems (you had to go a bit wide there). On lap two, I had passed a few more cars being very careful to lift to shift near the sound station. As I neared the apex of Turn 5, my car suddenly did a snap spin. WOW, that was unexpected. I thought perhaps I had gotten into the widening water spot. Anyway, it took me a couple of tries to get the car pointed in the right direction. The pack was long gone. For the next 9 or so laps, I concentrated on going faster. I caught up with the back of field and was able to pass with relative ease. By lap 12, I was beginning to get into a good rhythm and had caught up the forth place DSR (Adam Zimmerman) and was closing the gap to the third and second place cars rapidly. Then I saw the black flag board with my car number on it. I had obviously miss timed my shift point on the straight. 105 db. My race was done; DQ again. Matt DiRenzo had a big lead in DSR but had a fuel pump problem and retired. Dick Knoblauch, in his freshly Kaw ZX10R engined car took the win (God, is that engine compact, looks like a 600cc motor!). My race times in the 1:18 range were better than I expected and was second best of the DSR finishers. When I got out of the car, I noted that the last 12 to 18 inches of my left rear fender was gone. I guess I got a GOOD shove in Turn 5 on lap 2. Don’t really know for sure. Anyway, I have many days of fiberglass work ahead of me. A fitting end (puns intended) to a crappy weekend.