October 6 weekend – the weekend really began on Friday night
when we stayed up late while I used a tire grooving tool to cut up rally
tires. Nationals were a week away and
we’re in a pickle as we knew there would likely be a lot of mud at the event and
we wanted to get contingency if possible.
Only Hoosiers has contingency but they don’t have mud tires. Thus I decided to convert a set of Hoosiers
into mud tires using a tire grooving tool.
Friday evening I was able to cut up two of the tires before going to
bed.
Saturday started with coffee with the pups. Then we found ourselves driving up to Greeley
to purchase a spare Miata subframe. By
the time we were back in the Denver area we were starved and stopped at Illegal
Pete’s for lunch before making a quick stop at Walmart on the way home. I set about cutting up another tire while
Susan busied herself installing a cat-activated heated bed in Slayer’s
shed. As Slayer has shown himself as a
power cable-biter Susan hid the bed’s power cord behind some excess tow strap
we had in the garage.
After she finished and I had thoroughly scarred another tire
we hopped in Flo to drive to the Tiedeman’s house for dinner and
conversation. It was great to see them
again and talk about this and that.
Gregg BBQ’d burgers and we brought a homemade ranch dip and a bunch of
veggies. It was a nice time and we
stayed until around 7:30 before making our way home again. I did some cutting on the final rally tire
before succumbing to my tired hands and retiring to the couch with Susan and
the pups for the evening.
Sunday we slept in late.
As usual I was up before Susan with coffee waiting until she rolled out
of bed. I felt lazy but eventually made
my way into the garage to finish cutting up the last tire. Slayer made his presence known by leaping on
my lap for attention and generally being a sweetheart. I was very happy to finally be finished
cutting up the rally tires. In the end I
cut roughly seven pounds of rubber off via around 3,000 separate cuts. Good times.
We made a little trip out to replace Slayer’s newly heated
bed that he had torn up the night before (ungrateful bastard). Susan found some instructions on converting a
cooler into a cat house so we picked a big cooler up at Walmart. Then we fruitlessly searched Pet Smart for
straw before driving to and finding some at Murdock’s. Once home I cut a hole in the cooler and
Susan taped the sharp edges and added straw.
Dinner was homemade chicken nugget thingies with Susan handling much of
the cooking part while I mushed up raw chicken in spices and whatnot. While the final results looked funny it
tasted great. Susan tried to coax Slayer
into his new keep (I wrote “Slayer’s Keep” on the top of the cooler) but he
wasn’t having any of it. We may need to
cut the entrance hole bigger. More to
come on this for sure.
It was a cold weekend outside and the sky misted water for
much of the evening so we called off further productivity for the weekend. We settled on the couch with Bella and
Pebbles for TV and internet videos and all was well.
October 8th – we picked up a fully-caged Scrappy
after work. The cage was finally done so
once we were finished eating dinner we hopped in the suburban and headed up to
Brad Ames’ place. We found the car
looking good although the seat wasn’t installed. We talked about the process and Brad’s
thinking with different aspects of the cage.
There was an issue with the door not allowing room for the seat so Brad
cut out a hunk of the door which was nice as I believe he did a better job than
I could have. Then I helped Brad push
his rally car out of the way and drove Scrappy into the back of our
trailer. Once home I backed the car into
its permanent spot in the garage. While
it would have been fun to start installing the racing goodies I’d already bought
it was late and we had other things on our mind.
2018 RallyCross National Championships, October 11-15
Thursday – around 7:30 in the morning had us on the road to
Iowa. We’d gotten up early to pack up
the last few items and the pups before we were on our way. It was mostly an uneventful drive with only a
little drama involving the dogs figuring out where they could and wanted to lie
down. Bella ended up on the center
console and Pebbles spent most of the journey on the bed from her kennel which
Susan had positioned behind the center console.
Pebbles obviously needed her space and seemed happy when she got it. We did stop a lot as my general rule on road
trips is that we stop whenever we feel the urge to do so.
We arrived in Indianola around 8:30 and went straight to our
hotel to unpack a bit. The plan was to
go to a restaurant for a drink with some of our nationals pals we only see once
a year but on the way out of the parking lot a quick check of the establishment’s
hours of operation had us turning around.
I found out shortly after that the place was still open but we’d already
gone back to our room by then and I wasn’t willing to venture out again for the
evening. We tested leaving the pups in
the hotel room while we were away but found that they had apparently barked the
entire time we were gone. Such is! The parking lot of the hotel was interesting
as there were several other rallycrossers who’d also booked rooms and there
were at least six tow vehicles with trailers holding rallycross cars taking up
many of the available spaces.
Friday we woke up earlyish to take care of the dogs and
catch some sweet Continental Breakfast.
The girls were attached to Susan while I fetched us food and
coffee. The few available tables were
mostly staked out so we sat down with another guy who happened to be the person
running the event we traveled to attend.
Another Coloradan, Keith Lightfoot, joined us and we chatted about racing
while we noshed and sipped. Soon Susan
and I loaded the puppers into their kennel inside the suburban and drove to the
rallycross site.
We had several things scheduled for the day. First we unloaded the evo and unhooked the
trailer from the suburban. I parked us
next to some of the Utah contingent.
They had rented two large three-car trailers for the trip. One competitor who drove had the master slave
cylinder fail which made for an interesting story. He couldn’t easily keep the car out of gear
so had to stall the car to stop and use the starter to get going again. I recently had the same part fail on Scrappy
and sympathized though his situation was much worse as he was several hundred
miles from home and the part was virtually impossible to fix on site. He ended up competing with the car but
struggled to keep up with the other drivers.
We had some time to burn so walked to the designated
building to check in and get our worker assignments. Last year Susan was stuck shagging cones with
the plebs and was relieved to find she had timing duties for this event. I was to write for one of the run groups
again.
We had brought an extra set of rally tires so unloaded them
from the evo and I drove over to the tech tent to wait in line for tech. Once they got going the tech folks had us through
in no time after giving the car and our helmets a looksee. This year we were running Hoosier rally tires
which had a contingency. If either of us
placed in the top three of our class we’d win a tire, two tires, or four
tires. Thus the tech person had to sign
off on an extra two forms for us and Susan took pictures of the evo to prove we
were running the correct tires. Then it
was on to the practice course.
I wasn’t planning on us taking any runs on the practice
course but after watching how the other drivers struggled with the muddy
conditions I had a change of heart. We
went back to our trailer and swapped out the uncut tires for the tires I had
cut up the weekend before. Then we were
back to the practice course and, after waiting in a long line, I got a chance
to try out the tires. The results
weren’t exactly promising as the other drivers with actual mud tires were much
quicker. I wasn’t completely demoralized
as the weather forecast called for zero precipitation for the remainder of the event
(it had drizzled much of the day Friday).
In drying conditions I still felt confident we’d be ok. We both took turns on the practice course
with Susan beating my times pretty handedly.
After flinging mud about we went back to our home base and drove
the suburban to a nearby middle school to take care of the dogs. Technically they weren’t allowed on site at
all but we figured we’d probably be ok if they just stayed in the suburban the
entire time and their paws never touched the ground. This proved to be the case although I’m
pretty sure none of the site folks knew Bella or Pebbles were there at
all. In any case the girls were happy to
get dinner and walk around a bit before we had to lock them away again.
At 5:00 there was the class inspection where we lined up the
evo with the other modified competitors.
In the modified classes this is largely symbolic as most any
modification is allowed. Thus we spent
the time checking out the other classes.
It’s always fun to see the large variety of cars at nationals and it
gave us a chance to say “hi” to more folks we don’t interact with but once a
year. I volunteered to be on the protest
committee (if someone protests the classing of a car then the protest committee
decides its fate). At the time there
were no protests which had me thinking I was in the clear.
Dinner was provided in the same building used to check-in
and we were lucky to be some of the first folks to get in line for the
food. It was catered from a local
grocery store and I’d rate the offerings on the right side of alright. We chatted with those at our table until the
planned Town Hall began.
The Town Hall started with a raffle (we didn’t win anything)
and then moved on to a question-answer session.
We asked questions and the RX committee tried to come up with
answers. This largely went alright
although I think simply the act of talking in front of a crowd of people
increases emotions. I even asked a
question of my own about ATVs and UTVs.
This mostly went over like a lead balloon but I was glad to start the
discussion. It was toward the end of the
meeting when I was told there was a protest relating to the classing of a
car.
The deal was that a MR2 was missing its rocker panels. The story was that they were rusted badly and
had largely been ripped off at a local rallycross at some point in the recent
past. The car owner had cut off much of
the remaining rust and then arrived at nationals to run in a class which
doesn’t allow for the removal of any body panels. While I completely understood and sympathized
with his counter-protest that it wasn’t his fault the rules are clear in that
they do not have allowances for body panels rusting away. The other two in the protest committee shared
the sentiment and we declared our verdict against the car. I was relieved when I saw the car running in
its original class the next day replete with rocker panels handcrafted from
sheet metal from Walmart.
Saturday was the first competition day and we were up early
to eat breakfast and have some coffee before heading to the event site. It was very cold outside and a constant cutting
breeze really did no one in the elements any favors. There was a delay in grid as the grid spots
weren’t finalized for whatever reason but soon we had the evo parked where it
needed to be. As we were running last in
the last run group (literally I was the last driver in the third and final run group)
we had an abundance of time to get ready.
Susan had to go to the timing trailer but I was free to unload the spare
uncut rally tires and load up our blue cart with various equipment which I
parked next to the evo for the day.
As my work assignment was to write up an article I watched
the competitors in the other run groups and took notes. I spent much of my time outside before
retreating to the confines of the evo with its heat blasting on full. The first class to drive was the prepared
cars and the difference between those with and without mud tires was
depressingly stark. Those without mud
tires struggled mightily while those with mud tires basically did what they
wanted on course. I was worried about
our prospects but there wasn’t anything to do about it but hope the ground
dried up a bit before we were to race.
Susan finished her work assignment and we sat together to
watch the second run group while I took more notes. Technically I was only supposed to write for
the second run group but I had taken notes on the first group just in case
there was some sort of mix-up with worker assignments (this has happened
before). It’s amazing how much more
nervous I get at nationals than at local events. I could hardly think straight as our turn finally
came to drive.
First we had parade laps to tackle which I did with extra
twitches of the steering wheel to get a feel for the surface conditions. While we’re not allowed to drive at speed
there are no rules about abrupt steering inputs while on the parade lap. What I discovered was that the course
actually had quite a bit of grip which dramatically raised my spirits.
I drove well during our heat and finished slightly out of
first place by the time our allotted three runs were complete. On only one of the runs was I the fastest but
I was pretty close on the other two.
Plus I hit no cones. Susan
struggled on her first run which was unfortunate as being aggressive right off
the bat is key to being competitive at nationals. While she did improve dramatically for the
other two runs the damage was done. After
we finished driving our heat there was a brief break before the afternoon
competition was to begin.
We took advantage of the lull to grab lunch which a local
grocery store (the same one that catered the night before) sold on site. The food was yummy and soon Susan was back in
the timing trailer and I was again taking notes. The story with the prepared drivers was the
same as the morning although I could see that everyone was much more aggressive
in general. The stock drivers in the
second run group were the same as they did their thing.
The afternoon course was very short with few actual
features. This can be both a good and
bad thing. Simplicity is nice but it
doesn’t give drivers much room for error or ways to be quicker than their
competition. Susan absolutely did not
like the course and it showed in her times.
The cone she picked up on her second run didn’t help either. The top driver from the morning had a
transmission issue which gave me the chance to slip into first place. Again I was the fastest driver on only one
run but was quick enough on the others to be in the lead at the end of the
day. The course conditions actually
improved enough that before the last run Susan and I rushed to swap the cut
tires for the uncut tires. Did it
help? I don’t know but we both did
improve on the final run.
After the day’s racing was through we packed up our stuff
and swapped back to the cut tires (the conditions would likely be slicker on
Sunday). We were hoping to take a group
picture with the Colorado and Utah folks but found that several of the drivers
had already left the site. We decided to
get dinner at the same Brickhouse Tavern we went to the last time we raced in
Iowa. There were at least two people who
broke into song at the mention of the restaurant’s “Brickhouse” name. Low-hanging fruit but we all still laughed.
Susan and I arrived later due to our tire-swapping and
taking care of the dogs and found ourselves standing with some other hapless
rallycross drivers as the joint was packed.
A college football game was on the TV and many of the patrons were clearly
invested in its outcome. There was a
line of tables already full of rallycrossers and we resigned ourselves to hang
out until a table opened. We didn’t have
to wait long as luckily the line of tables directly next to the
rallycross-table was one group and they left minutes after we took our places
looming over them. In hindsight said “looming”
may have helped speed them along. Soon
enough we were all seated with tables and chairs to spare for later
arrivals.
We had a merry old time chatting about all things
racing. Most of those around Susan and
myself were Colorado natives which was nice.
Soon enough the tables we’d procured were filled up. I’d guess there were close to 40
rallycrossers occupying the restaurant when all was said and done. Twas a good time.
After eating more than our fill and imbibing on a couple of
glasses of house wine Susan and I made our way back to the hotel to watch old
episodes of American Ninja Warrior (which were weirdly crappy) before falling
asleep.
Sunday wasn’t quite as early as Saturday though it was still
hard to get out of bed. We packed up our
hotel stuffs and the pups before grabbing some food and coffee on our way
out. Once back at the racing site we
gathered up who we could find for our group photo. The night before Susan had put a callout for
it on Facebook but we still were missing a few folks when the camera finally
did its thing. Bummer but such is.
The schedule of the morning was the same as the day before
with Susan working timing while I took notes outside before eventually giving
up and making my way to the evo’s warmth.
It was oh so cold. I was also oh
so nervous. My lead wasn’t tiny but
didn’t feel large enough to me. I’ve
done this enough to know that one bad run often shifts the outcome of these
events and several awesome drivers were ready to pounce if I screwed up.
When it was finally our turn to drive I about lost my mind
when the course was dramatically changed from what the other run groups ran
on. This meant that we were driving over
fresh grass and then the sloppy mud beneath.
The overcast sky began to mist and sporadically drop fat drops of rain
on our windshield. As I was in the top
spot I was to drive first in our class.
*flashback to watching the non-mud-tired prepared drivers
struggling*
I endeavored to be aggressive on my first run and, oh boy,
was I aggressive. I honestly thought I
must have hit at least three cones when I finally crossed the finish line. I was all over the place and didn’t feel
great about the run at all. Somehow I was
clean and my time sufficient that I was still in the lead with a decent
cushion. The second run felt slightly
less crazy and I was feeling good before my third and final run of the
event.
I was on the start line about to launch the evo when the
safety folks decided it was a good time to change one of the first turns of the
course. I tried telling the starter that
I promised I wouldn’t roll over if they left it alone but this did no
good. In the end this last run felt the
best of all my runs by a large margin although I did hit my one and only cone
of the event (in the corner where the course change was made as was proper). I held onto my lead to claim my second
national championship victory and knew it as soon as I got out of the car. Our local star photographer caught Susan and
my victory hug which was quite a moment.
I should note that Susan drove quite spectacularly on
Sunday. Whether it was the course itself
(designed by a Colorado driver), the lack of pressure (there was too much time
to make up to trophy), or something else Susan put in a great performance. Somehow we need to get this level of driving
to begin on the first run and continue all the way to the last run at next
year’s national event. So much of this
sport is on our heads and Susan is clearly capable of being competitive when
she has the correct mindset for her, whatever mindset it may be.
After our hopping about in celebration was through and we’d
wiped some of the grins off our faces we packed up the spare tires again and
loaded up the day’s equipment in the suburban.
There was time before trophies were awarded to attach the trailer to the
suburban and load up the evo in the trailer so we did so.
The trophies were preceded by another raffle drawing before
the metal we were waiting for was handed out.
Having my name called out was something else. Since I won my class my picture will show up
in the SCCA magazine at some point in the future. There are greater rewards but it is a cool
thing nonetheless.
After taking more pictures and shaking a few hands and
saying a few goodbyes we slid into the suburban’s seats to begin our journey
back to Colorado. Our first stop was to
get gas and our second was to buy food and snacks.
While I pumped fuel Susan walked the pups around. We fretted over the position of the evo in
the trailer and ended up pushing it back a few inches before I realized the
angle of the slope we were on was making everything look squirrely.
We then stopped at Walmart to get our food stuffs and snacks
when Susan noted how low one of the trailer tires was. It turned out that it had picked up a nail at
some point at was very low on air pressure.
Luckily we had a full-size spare tire we’d packed just in case which we
swapped out right there in the parking lot.
The misting from the end of the event had turned into sleet and snow but
the trailer helped block much of the moisture as we worked. In no time we were on our way.
I felt inexplicably tired shortly into the drive so we
stopped to take a quick nap before continuing on. This rest was a good investment as I then
felt awake all the way until midnight when we stopped for the night at a
Comfort Inn in North Platte, NE. The
drive was windy and it showed in our abysmal gas mileage.
When I walked into the hotel I found the attendant asleep
sitting up. As I’m not a bad man I
lightly tapped my wedding ring hand on the counter to cajole him out of
sleep. He did a fine job checking us in
and we were soon in our room and on our way to sleeping ourselves.
We set our alarm to go off early Monday morning and ate and
drank the provided breakfast and coffee fast before falling into the suburban
to finish our trip. Susan slept for most
of the drive and I contented myself to listening to my latest audio book. We made great time in the daylight and Susan
woke up right as we were about to enter Denver.
Once home we spent time unpacking everything
(uncharacteristic for us to do right away) and let Slayer out of his shed. As is procedure we had locked him in there
while we were out of town with a pile of food and plenty of water. Slayer was happy to see us and meowed
mightily when released. He’d made quite
the mess with straw from his new keep and pulled out the bedding from his
kennel. I somehow convinced Susan to
clean his full litter box as I finished unloading the suburban.
We ordered Chinese takeout for a late lunch/early dinner and
Susan elected to take a nap shortly thereafter.
We finished out the long weekend sitting with Bella and Pebbles on the
couch. It should be noted that the dogs
were very good on the trip and we were mildly surprised they still seemed to
like us after being locked up together in their kennel in the suburban for much
of the weekend.
October 19 weekend – the weekend really began on Thursday
night when I received a text from Alvin asking if I’d like to drive on their
Lemons team. He’s asked before but this
time I had most of the necessary racing gear already and only had to pay to
play. Thus I reluctantly agreed.
Friday I got off a bit early from work to take care of some
Scrappy errands. I was concerned the
rear bars on Scrappy’s new cage weren’t legal for Lemons so I loaded up the car
in the trailer and drove to High Plains Raceway to ask the tech people to take
a look at it. As there was a Lemons race
on Saturday and Sunday, Friday was the tech and practice day. John was there hanging out with Alvin’s team
and we chatted while I waited around for the tech guy to check out
Scrappy. I also had my racing attire on
hand to be tech’d but it failed as I didn’t yet have the proper neck restraint
posts in my helmet. I immediately texted
Susan to make a quick trip to Wine Country Motorsports to pick up the proper
parts which she did and I installed them later after I came home. Eventually the main tech guy took a look at
Scrappy and told me the rear bars had to be relocated. This was a bummer but exactly what I
expected. I hung out for a few more
minutes before making my way home.
Saturday began very early in the morning. Of course we arrived at the track earlier
than necessary but it was nice to not be rushing around. I was added as a driver on the team and had
my racing gear tech’d successfully. I
had met most of the rest of the team the day before and spent a good amount of
time talking with them about how the event would go. The race car was a red 1990 Audi Coupe owed
by a guy named Mark Friends. There were
three other drivers including Alvin, a guy named Chris, and an older fellow
whose name eludes me. All nice guys
though it was obvious they were worried I’d be a poor driver. Honestly this was my biggest concern
too.
Alvin was the first to race and almost immediately received
a black penalty flag and had to come in to be berated by the event staff. Yikes!
One of the other cars caught on fire and Susan and I watched it burn
while the driver ran away (this caused a long delay). Besides his earlier mistake Alvin drove very
well during his 2.5 hour stint before I got my chance behind the wheel.
I was nervous when I donned my racing gear. It was literally the first I’d had it all on
together and everything seemed to fit alright.
I had my marching orders for the driver switchover and levered myself in
the car after the refueling was complete.
The belts were tightened more than I’d prefer and in a couple of minutes
I was off.
The experience was something I’ll never forget. The engine was incredibly loud and I was
shocked at the noise when I mashed the throttle to pull onto the track. The windshield was some kind of plexiglass
which was scratched up badly from an attempted cleaning the day before. The interior of the car was stripped (of
course) and in front of me was the original gauge cluster, zip-tied in place
and mostly blocked by the smaller racing steering wheel. I didn’t immediately know the shift points
and quickly found the rev limiter. The
car was incredibly easy to drive and the brakes were amazing. It had sticky tires and I was soon barreling
around the track.
I thought the steering wheel felt a little loose so on my
second lap I gave it a good shake. To my
horror the wheel popped off from the steering column! I was on the long straight and quickly
slammed it back home and pummeled the wheel with my hands to make sure it was
snuggly in place. I was really sad I had
left my action camera at home as I’m sure the scene would have been comical to
witness. The other team drivers were
mortified when I later relayed this experience to them.
I simply had a blast driving that little Audi. I passed many slower cars and was passed by a
handful of faster cars. I skidded, slid,
locked up the tires, and accelerated my way around. There were a couple of close calls with other
vehicles but generally the others on track were courteous and passing went
without much incident.
After an hour or so I noticed a vibration from the front
left tire when turning hard right. I
figured I had flat-spotted the tire and just kept on keeping on. What I should have done is come in to have both
front tires swapped out as around the two-hour mark that tire blew out coming
into the first turn of the track. I kept
control but was in a bad place as the rest of the track lay in front of
me. I limped almost halfway around
before a corner worker waived me down and called for a tow truck. This process seemed to take forever but
eventually I was whisked back to our paddock spot where two fresh front tires
were swapped in (the right side was also in bad shape). I ended up finishing out my session after
another 30 minutes finding the new tires oh so much grippier than the old
tires.
I was hot after hopping out of the car but felt like I could
have driven another hour to two. It was
just so much dang fun. Susan and I hung
out for a time while Chris did his thing before I changed into my civilian
clothes and we made our exit. Susan and
I had to attend a CDR meeting down in Colorado Springs later in the evening so
we left the track around 4:00.
We stopped at home to shower, eat, and take care of our
animals and then jumped in Flo to drive down to Overdrive Racing which was
about an hour away. There we found
around eight other CDR individuals drinking adult beverages and trying to lay
down the quickest lap times on the kart track.
We weren’t interested in joining them in karting and instead hung out
and chatted while sipping house wine.
The schedule for the evening was karting followed by catered
BBQ and then the Annual Meeting. The
Annual Meeting is required by the region’s bi-laws and, as I’m the RallyCross
Director, I felt obligated to attend.
The food was alright and the meeting blessedly short. I don’t blame the Regional Executive per se;
there’s only so much excitement to be generated regarding stuff we’d already been
talking about at our monthly meetings over the past year. Shortly before 9:00 Susan and I were back on
the road and bound for home where the pups and couch awaited.
Sunday began a little later than Saturday but we still required
alarms to get out of bed when we had to.
We threw what we needed into Flo along with Pebbles and pulled
away. We did have to stop at Chris’
house to pick up some spare wheels and tires as they were burning through the
tires faster than normal. The story was
the team was trying new tires which were supposed to be really great. While they were really grippy they also wore
quickly which is why I got to enjoy the first flat tire the team had ever experienced.
The day’s racing was already underway when I parked the car
near the team paddock. We hung out and
chatted about how things were going and watched the older driver lay down his
laps. Over the course of the day I
suited up three times to help out during the pit stops which was interesting
for me. The team did well but ended up
outside the top spot. We did stay to
watch trophies awarded which was fun.
Lemons does give trophies to the class winners but spends
most of the time giving awards to teams that strike their fancy. Teams that have make great fixes, drive the
worst or most interesting cars, and have the most surprising results earn the
greatest hoopla. It’s an interesting
culture for sure.
On the way home Susan ordered Domino’s for dinner which
arrived shortly after we unloaded our things and took care of the pets. We were tired and spent the rest of the
evening on the couch with the puppers as was proper.
October 26 weekend – it began on Friday for us as I drove
the rally bus while Susan followed in Flo to FRA to help set up the next day’s
mega-course for the last RallyCross of the 2018 season. Upon arrival we cruised around to find a
decent path and then I sat down behind the wheel of the bus and Susan climbed
into the back to throw cones. It took
some time to make the first pass as I wanted a very long course. Susan did a good job chucking the cones. It took a few times around but eventually we
finished a decent rough draft and Susan took video which we posted to the
group’s Facebook page of the result. It
was dark when we finally made our way back home and on the way we stopped for
dinner and to pick up a few things at Walmart.
Saturday began early but not the normal super-early of most
events since the course was basically set up already. We pulled onto the field around 7:15 and
commenced doing our normal setup. Almost
immediately I caused a problem when the pull cord on the generator broke. This was a major bummer as we have no spare
and the bus was cold from sitting on site since the day before and refused to
start. Luckily Todd Briley had a
generator with him that we used to plug in the bus’s block heater and the
timing equipment so there weren’t any delays.
We eventually recruited a spectator to let us use his truck to jump the
bus which did not immediately help. We
tried starting it periodically until right before the first car was about to
drive when the bus finally started. We
were so relieved to be able to power the timing equipment via the bus!
There was a large turnout which combined with the large
course had me changing the basic structure for the event. As we’ve done in the past with similar
scenarios half the group drove all morning while the other half worked. Then the two groups switched roles in the
afternoon. It’s not a perfect solution
but eliminates downtime due to worker-driver switching. I elected to have modified AWD run in the
afternoon as most of the veterans are in the class so we could work the course
first and take care of any initial bugs and delays. This worked well and allowed the drivers six
runs on the giant course before we broke for an hour lunch at 12:30.
The afternoon group was purposely a bit smaller which was
great as there were some delays from course changes that had to be addressed. Susan and I had a blast driving the course in
the evo and had several different folks take rides with us which is always
fun.
I had brought my newest GoPro camera which I was sticking on
random cars in the morning. This had
been successful until Melissa finished her recorded run without the camera
stuck to the back of her Forester.
Whoops! I went to where I figured
the camera likely fell off and after some walking around actually found the
dang thing. Well, first I found what was
left of the mount and, despairing, I then stumbled over the camera itself which
was remarkably still running. Despite
being hit by more than one car it was still functional!
We wrapped up the event more-or-less on time and I read off
the day’s trophy winners. Susan had
first place locked up before the last event so took it easy and landed in sixth
place. I actually tried but could only
manage to be second in my class. We had
put together prizes for the best costumed car and driver with Halloween days
away and the drivers who had made some effort received candy and toy cars. We found the site gate locked when we tried
to leave but Todd was able to get one of the lock combinations messaged to
Susan so we could finally vacate the premises.
Normally the night would then simply end with Susan and I on
the couch but when we got home, Josh, who drove the bus back, hadn’t yet left
so we invited him to hang out and have pizza with us (Susan ordered on the way
home). We chatted in the garage and
eventually (it was late) ate some yummy Domino’s. After Josh left we did sit on the couch but
not for long as we were tired. We ended
up in bed before 9:30 which hasn’t happened in a long time.
I was up early on Sunday to feed the pups and work on
editing the videos from the day before.
It took longer than I thought it would as the software I was using
wasn’t the most stable and crashed my computer.
I was close to being done when Susan finally made her way out of the
bedroom and started up some coffee.
Once finished with the videos we decided to try uploading
them from Panera Bread as it would surely be quicker than our horrid internet
at home. Schmaybe it was a tiny bit
better but we called it quits after only two of the videos were online. We ate lunch and drank more coffee before
stopping by Walmart for Susan to get her flu shot.
Back home we decided we should probably take advantage of
the good weather and perform some maintenance on Scrappy and Tia. Said maintenance was the exchanging of most of
the vehicle’s fluids. This did not go as
swimmingly as I’d hoped as we both had to make separate trips to Lowes to buy
tools which only partially helped. By
the end of the day I wasn’t able to do half of what I wanted which was a
disappointment. Susan was productive
though and managed to apply 3M clear bra to Scrappy’s headlights and front
markers (headlights, taillights, and sidemarker lights must be removed or taped
over per Lemon’s rules).
In a break from my frustration I heard a vehicle in our
lower 40 and found our pal Dan Hipwood dropping off his car trailer. I invited him up after he was done and Dan
hung out with us talking about all things racecar. It was fun as he’s an enthusiastic guy with
good ideas. Eventually Dan left and we
finished up what we were working on before going inside to finish off the last
weekend in October on the couch with the pups.
October 30 – we went to a Goo Goo Dolls concert at the
Paramount Theatre downtown. Susan headed
straight there after work as she lucked into a meet & greet with the
band. I came up on the light rail and
met her in the lobby of the theatre after waiting outside for a few
minutes. It was cold and rainy but
fortunately I spent much of the time in line under an awning. We had middling seats and Susan came prepared
with binoculars for better close-up action.
The show started late but there were no opening acts which I believe
everyone appreciated. The first half of
the show was the band playing through their 1998 album from top to bottom. I was really cool to hear the older
songs. The second half was a mix of some
technological gimmicks and regular old-style Goo. It was entertaining for sure and the spectacle
went on for around two hours. We both
had a good time though Susan wished the meet & great went longer and we had
closer seats.
On Halloween Susan brought Bella and Pebbles to the office
where all three dressed up for the occasion.
Susan was a race car driver, Bella was a pumpkin, and Pebbles was Wonder
Woman. All were adorable!
Pet update – Bella, Pebbles, and Slayer are doing
great! Bella is her Bella-self and
Pebbles continues to come out of her shell.
Pebbs (as we like to call her) barks at us when she wants something. Often times we have no idea what it is that
she is looking for us to do but we find it hilarious (for the most part). Both pups were fun to bring along to Iowa and
we love having them around. Slayer has
been a sweetie for the most part. He
likes to hang out in the garage when Susan and I are in there working on things
and we have recently found he likes to sleep in Scrappy’s racing seat. One night when Slayer didn’t come for dinner
Susan found him in his shed when she went out again later. This is the first time we have observational
proof that he knows he can re-enter his shed which is a relief.
October was such a busy month for our family. It’s hard to believe so much went on. I’m looking forward to having a little more
free time over the winter though we will likely find plenty to do. My family is visiting us for Thanksgiving
week, we have a trophy presentation to prepare, a new RallyCross site to
finalize, a Black Rhino gift exchange to schedule, our 20-year anniversary trip
to Glenwood Springs, Christmas, New Year’s… Yeah, we’ll find stuff to keep us
busy over the next few months.
