I did have a chance to make some new friends at the restaurant across from the track. One night, a group of us, including Peter Biondo and his wife, Jackie, went in to pick up some take-out food. Well, Jackie had to start trouble. Some dude, who had apparently been drinking all day, wanted to know if Jackie was for hire. At first she was flattered, thinking he meant to drive a race car, but then she deduced his worldly plan. Naturally, she was offended, and the drunk apologized profusely. However, like a typical drunk, he somehow had a change of heart, later deciding that it was we who were wrong. The matter was settled peacefully, but not before this individual, who was 6 feet 7 inches tall and not skinny, decided to challenge Peter's diminutive brother, Sal, to a little mano-a-mano combat.
After Chicago, I had a tough decision to make: spend the following weekend at Pennsylvania's Maple Grove Raceway in an attempt to win money at the rain-delayed Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals or go to Darlington Int'l Dragway in South Carolina or Thunder Valley Raceway Park in Oklahoma to chase points on the divisional level. After a quick glance at my checking account, I headed for Reading. For a short time, I actually considered going to Darlington on Friday and driving to Maple Grove for Saturday, but I thought better of it.
As was the case for the Indy rerun, I went back to Reading in downsized mode: just a duallie and a small one-car trailer, but no air mattress this time. The race results were basically the same; I screwed up the finish line by a few-thousandths in round four with a bye run and a winnable heads-up race looming as the only obstacles to the final. Once more, defeat snatched the race from the jaws of victory.
I arrived home around 2 . Monday and had to be loaded and back on the road for Dallas by 8 . Tuesday. I managed to leave on time. Unfortunately, that was the end of anything positive for a while.
A mess in Texas
I arrived in Dallas to find, as usual, waterlogged grounds. I quickly realized this was going to be another two-shift Sportsman event, as has been the case at this state-of-the-art facility several times in recent years. After more rain on Thursday, the Sportsman program was postponed until Monday. Beautiful. Our instructions were simple: Go park at Wal-Mart for four days and come on back.
I came up with a different plan. I parked the rig and caught a ride to the airport with a friend. I almost don't even want to mention the nearly $700 walk-up airfare to get home; it didn't matter at the time. My son, Timothy, had a ballgame that weekend, and if I could be there, I was going to. However, on Saturday, as I was moving furniture as part of my mother-in-law's impending relocation project, the Wal-Mart parking lot in Dallas looked pretty good.
I returned to Dallas Sunday about midnight. As luck would have it, I was on the road to Las Vegas less than 18 hours later. We parked Monday morning, got a couple of time runs, and went right into eliminations. I felt good, but after two first-round losses that would both meet the aforementioned .007-second criteria, it was time to make miles.
Once again, another quandary confronted me. When Dallas eliminations were moved to Monday, I had to change my flight home from Vegas. Now I had to change it again or be stranded in Vegas for an extra day. I know, there are worse things than being stranded in Sin City for an extra day, but I just wanted to get home. I was beat up and frustrated and ready for a break. I was scheduled for a red-eye flight, but I tried to go standby beginning around 10 . After failing miserably and wasting five hours in the airport, I caught a cab back to a casino to kill some time.
While killing time, I was remembering how the airline was looking for people to get "bumped" from the flights I was trying to get onto. I wondered if my red-eye was oversold. It was, so I ended up with a free ticket for my troubles. Better still, the morning flight was also oversold. Two free tickets! This was the best thing that had happened to me in a long time. Free airline vouchers are invaluable to someone like me who often needs to go places on a moment's notice. Boy, I sure could have used one a week earlier in Dallas.
I finally got home and enjoyed every minute of it. The kids and I went to a pumpkin farm for Halloween and had a big time. I went to my son Timbo's last football game of the year (cold, wind, and rain, don't you know?), and even though it was a loss, I loved being there.
Viva Las Vegas!
Las Vegas - the race I'd been looking forward to for months. The pit area is all pavement, which means no mud, and it's in the middle of the desert, which bodes well for a dry weekend.
My wife, Donna, and I flew in on Monday, and our friends, Sal and Toni Ann Biondo, flew in on Tuesday. We were going to vacation a little, race a little, and just have a good, fun week. No miserable weather, no mechanical problems. Just a nice week, and, we hoped, some good luck.
Fat chance. Where do I even begin? Things were going along just swell, and everyone was having a grand old time, and then the stuff with race cars had to begin. I rolled onto the scales with the Stocker on Thursday, and guess what? I was sent to teardown. Never mind that we had dinner plans with the wives and had promised we'd be back early. I'm told that I was invited to the teardown barn because I'm in the top 10. That's quite a reward. Teardown is kind of like trying to decide when to have a baby: There's never really a perfect time. Except for at Indy, there's the perfect time (for teardown, not pregnancy!).
Sal and Bernie Cunningham helped out, each in their own special way, and we knocked it out in relatively short order. Teardowns are never an enjoyable task, but they're part of the deal if one aspires to be a class racer. I just hoped that everything went back together the way it came apart and that everything passed inspection. Thankfully, it did.
Friday brings the first round in Stock and class eliminations in Super Stock. It was a history-making day for Camp Fletchburger; I won in both cars. Strike up the band. It's about three in the afternoon, and I'm all done for the day. All I have to do is fill out the class winner's form, grab the trophy, and head off for a night of romance with my honey. Wrong again.
NHRA tech official Bruce Bachelder had a diabolical look about him as he approached me on the scales. He advised me that I was being sent to teardown with the Super Stocker as well. I was sure he was kidding - there was no way anyone would make a guy tear down both cars on the same weekend. Well, he wasn't and they would. I went all year without being apart in either car, and now they both come apart in one weekend.
After much discussion with Elroy Adams, I was resigned to the fact that this was really happening. I requested that the engine be sealed and that I be allowed to do it in Pomona. "No good," he said. "People will complain that you're being given special treatment." I argued that even my worst enemy would understand NHRA working with me to a reasonable and fair compromise: Tear down one car on Thursday, seal the other and do it the following Wednesday in Pomona.
We eventually struck a deal, which allowed me to do the second car Saturday morning as it was now late Friday afternoon. Saturday morning was the second round of Stock, then the first round of Super Stock. I hoped I would have a less stressful day on Saturday. Fat chance.
My second-round opponent in Stock backed into me in the staging lanes and crumpled the front end of my Summit Camaro. He started his car, looked out the back window, and backed right into me. It smashed the nose, the grille, and the fender, and I had to race this guy in about four minutes. Luckily, he didn't get the radiator, and the hood still opened, so I guess it could have been worse. Naturally, there was hardly a scratch on his car.
I beat him, and we traded insurance cards on the return road. Obviously, there's no insurance for such a situation; you just have to hope the person is honorable. Fortunately, Summit plans to repaint all the cars this winter, so all the guy is on the hook for is the parts. Because the car is a '69 Camaro, all the parts should be readily available. The downside is that I had to look at this thing all wadded up for the next three weeks.
I got stuffed in round one of Super Stock, and we quickly moved through the teardown procedure. I've been torn down many times over the years and have never been found illegal in any fashion. Engine builders Gary Hettler and Brian Tilburg build a fast, legal piece. At least I was confident I'd be left alone in Pomona.
The race in Stock featured more of the same. I had a .009 reaction time but screwed up the finish line by .003-second. There's really more to it than just that. I was racing Jeff Hefler and knew I had to beat the nose of his low-slung Firebird. During the staging process and the early part of the run, a number of things happened to distract me, and I forgot all about his nose. I rolled up next to him at about 1,100 or 1,200 feet and started ripping the throttle to beat his tire, forgetting about the nose. Nice job, genius. Another late-round opportunity given away.
The race I had been looking forward to was just as miserable as the rest. Like every race in recent memory, now all I could think was, "Get me out of here!" Donna and I flew home, and a few days later, Thomas and I flew back. The Division 7 Lucas Oil Series race was the following weekend, and I need to win just one round in Stock to clinch the Division 1 championship, as my buddy, Sal Biondo, was less than one round ahead. Can I please at least do that and salvage some dignity?
The way things had been going, I was actually scared. I figured I'd go to start the car to pull into the burnout tray and the battery would be dead or something. When my win light came on, I just said, "Thank you, God." It's not a huge financial windfall, but it is an accomplishment, and there is the Gold Card and the pride in knowing you won one of the hardest divisions in the country.
Just for the fun of it, I went on and won the event. Now, please, don't get me wrong. I was thrilled to have won; it seemed as though I hadn't won in a year. However, it occurred to me that here we were at the same track, with all the same guys, as we were a week ago. The only difference was that now, instead of $18,000 to win, it was about $2,800. Remember, timing is everything.
Winning the Division 1 championship was cool, but the best part of the weekend was having Thomas along for his first time in Las Vegas. He needed a break from school about as badly as I need a break from racing. The poor kid's in eighth grade. He has to get up by 6:30 . for class at 7:20 . He goes straight from school to whatever season's sport is practicing, gets home at about 5:30 ., showers, eats dinner, does his homework, and it's off to bed. Hmmm ... that sounds a lot like being a drag racer. Throw in the fact that he just got his braces and they're killing him. I figured the little man could use a vacation.
Thomas had the time of his life. We rode the roller coaster at the New York New York Hotel & Casino, and we rode the Big Shot coaster on top of the Stratosphere. That Big Shot ride is awesome. We rode it three times. You absolutely have to do that if you're in Las Vegas. It was, hands down, the best ride I've ever been on.
Thomas enjoyed seeing The Strip and walking through a few casinos, but his biggest thrill was doing the ride-along program at the Richard Petty Driving Experience. Talk about cool. For $99, he got to go 170 mph in a Winston Cup stock car. The kid is almost 14 years old; how much better can it possibly get?
Well, Thomas begrudgingly hit the friendly skies on Monday, and I happily made my way out of Vegas Tuesday. That night I had to pick up Sal at the Ontario, Calif., airport, which, with the size of my rig, went surprisingly well. The next day was the typical maintenance deal: oil and filters, valve lash, tires, etc. One more time and we can call it a day for the year.
The end of the road
Thursday in Pomona went smoothly, as time-trial day normally does. That night, I was invited to participate in the Summit Racing Series banquet. What a tremendous program they have. The 28 winners from every class in every division come to Pomona to see who's the best overall. It's something I'd love to have been a part of, but, unfortunately, that program didn't exist when I was a regular participant in . competition. Then again, who am I kidding? I never won the bracket finals, so what difference would it have made?
Friday dawned with the first round in both cars and, sadly, the end of my year in Super Stock. My opponent, eventual winner Gary Stinnett, went .00 and dead on his dial. As it turns out, I wasn't even in the race. Oh well, now it was time to get to work; a major corporate decision had been made.
I've been bumping my gums for quite a while about building a big-block for my dad's Super Stock car. Now, the talking is over. I sold the engine out of the car to longtime West Coast Super Stock racer Bob Bales. I blew rny other engine earlier in the year, so I'm now officially out of the small-block business.
Hettler is now building a 396-cid aluminum-head engine. This is the same piece I use in Stock, and it has worked pretty well there, so I have high hopes for the Super Stock combination. No one is really using it with an automatic transmission, but Hettler thinks it should be decent. This is all in an effort to make the car faster, thus, in my humble opinion, making the finish line easier to judge. I know I could be introducing a whole new set of problems the car will have more power and a three-speed to boot - but one has to keep trying to improve one's program. Lord knows, it's getting tougher out there every day.
Back in Stock, I had a heads-up run in round two. I raced Keith Lynch, who had been very fast all year. Fortunately, my car made a pretty good run, and I was able to slip by for the win. Unfortunately, that would be the last win light for the season. In round three, I lost to the eventual winner, young Brad Plourd. I had beaten him in the final in Vegas the week before; now he evened the score.
Let's face it, I lost to the winner in each class. It was their day, not mine. That's just the way the whole year was.
With the engine and transmission out of the Super Stocker, I decided to drop it off at Gary Wisecarver's chassis shop for the extensive chassis renovation he has wanted to do since it left his place the last time. Gary is a super person who does great work, and I'm very excited about the whole project. If he thinks he can make the car better, I'm all for it. I told him, "You're the man; do whatever you want," and with a control freak like me, that should speak volumes about his abilities.
From Wisecarver's it was straight home. A mere 2,950 miles with a pass through Virginia to drop off the car. Once home, it was time to spend the day washing the most disgusting motorhome and trailer you've ever seen and handle the winterizing chores because, guess what? It was going to snow that night. Welcome home.
There's much to do this off-season. The Super Stocker is having an extreme makeover, and the Stocker is not far behind. With all of my stuff wintering at home for the first time in several years, it gives me the chance to give it some much-needed attention. And I need to get on the wife's Chevelle wagon bracket car, too. There's just not enough room for everything. Somehow, I've got to get a shop built next year. The garage on the house just isn't going to make it.
Well, that's all. I'm done crying about 2003, and I'm going to move on with a vengeance to 2004. I want to improve myself, get motivated, rest up, and be ready when the bell goes off. That's all a man can do. Finishing third in both classes wasn't bad, and winning the Division 1 title was nice, but I've got to win races. Not runner-ups, not semifinals - wins.
Happy holidays and God bless.
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