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Did Boeing eliminate sensor for profit?

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By Erik Dolson

Last week it was reported that versions of the MCAS software on planes sold by Boeing to the military were required to have three angle of attack sensors installed. Planes sold by Boeing’s competitor, Airbus, also have three angle of attack sensors. Three sensors are designed to compensate if one should be damaged.

Two civilian Boeing planes that crashed earlier this year, killing 346 people, had only one angle of attack sensor with similar software. It is believed that faulty sensors indicated the planes were approaching a nose up stall, and triggered software that flew the planes into the ground.

Why did Boeing sell planes with only one sensor, when most experts say that “critical systems” need redundancy, and the airplane maker was clearly aware of this issue from their experience with the military?

One possible explanation is that Boeing expected customers to order the planes with the additional sensors as “options.” This strategy, employed often by automobile manufacturers, allows a car, for example, to be advertised at a low price and then be sold at a higher price if options are selected, and the options themselves can be sold at a higher margin.

According to the New York Times, options can add millions of dollars to the price of a plane.

So, a question to be asked is whether Boeing deleted one or two of the angle of attack sensors with the expectation of adding them back to planes at customer request and at a greater profit, or “gaming” the sales process.

If so, a follow-up question is where in the development process of the civilian 737 Maxx was that decision made, who made that decision, and who signed off on it.

Because it is hard to imagine engineers in a company that claims that “safety is our top priority” would have signed off on such an obvious problem.

The Boss

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By Erik Dolson

“Boss!”
“Not now, Rat,” said Donnie Boastful. He was packing his briefcase with new golf balls to take to his course in Florida. Or New Jersey. He couldn’t remember.
“Do you have to call me that?” Rudy the Rat sighed.
“Nope,” Donnie Boastful said with a smirk. “But I like to. So I will. I’m president. I can do what I want.”
“You got that right, Boss,” said R the R. “But I got something else that you want.”
“Oh yeah?” Donnie was distracted choosing between a pink golf shirt or one that was creamsicle orange. To go with his new tan.
“You know I work with some Ukrainians, right?”
“Yeah, but I don’t like ‘em. They tried to help Hillary and they hurt … you know, that guy with the great suits … worked for us for about 10 minutes … I can’t remember his name though… maybe he worked for someone else. Hand me those socks, would ya?”
“Wow. These are nice!”
“I had them made from the wool of just-born lambs. They’re monogrammed before the lamb even comes out, so I won’t feel the thread.”
“Nice,” said Rudy the R. “His name was Manafort.”
“Who’s name?”
“Never mind. Anyways, I was talking to one of my “clients” in Ukraine, and he said he got him some dirt on Biden.”
“Slow Joe?!?”
“Sleepy Joe.”
“I want to change it.”
“You can’t. It works.”
“I’m president!”
“You is a TV star! They’re always right the first time.”
“Oh. Yeah. Ok.”
“ANYWAYS… my Ukrainian says Biden stopped an investigation into his son working for a corrupt oligarch!”
“So? What’s wrong with that? If Ivanka ever got in trouble, not that she would, or even could, I mean, if she wasn’t my daughter I’d…”
“BOSS! We can paint your opponent with this shit until the election! We’ll just say it’s corruption, don’t matter if it is or not. We just say it over and over and over and over and over and…”
“Rat!”
“Sorry boss.”
“Is it true? Can your guy be trusted?”
“Since when does that matter? He’s the guy Biden got fired for not going after corruption. We just say he got fired because he WAS going after corruption. After Biden’s son! Nobody’ll know the difference!”
“Hey, that’s pretty good.”
“My Ukrainian guy also said it was Hillary’s people who got the Ukrainians to spill the beans on Manafort. AND, get this, he says Ukrainians have Hillary’s email server!”
“Oooooohhh, I’d like to get my hands on that. The server, I mean, not…” Donnie Boastful shuddered. “Where’s Melania? You seen her? Feels like I haven’t seen her in years! Probably hanging out with son of hers.”
“Yours?”
“What are you sayin’ there, Rat?”
“Yirz. That’s the nickname of my Ukrainian guy. You want I should dig up some more on this?”
“The Ukraine’s just had an election, didn’t they? Elected some anti-corruption funny man or sumpthin’? That might make it tough to make up some dirt. We got any leverage?”
“The new guy they elected wants some weapons to defend his country against the Russians. We could maybe, you know, scratch his back if he’ll scratch ours.”
“Rat, you know I don’t like to be touched. You washed your hands before you touch my socks, right?”
“Always. In my line of work, especially for you, I have to wash my hands all the time.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Donnie Boastful asked.
“Just that you’re the cleanest president in the history of the world!” Rudy the Rat smiled, twitching at the same time.
“Universe. Cleanest in the history of the universe, even before that, before the universe had history, I was the cleanest!” said President Donnie Boastful.
“You bet you are,” said Rudy the R.
“What were you sayin’ about that Ukrainian guy? He is friends with Russians? So am I! Am I ever! You know how many apartments they bought from me? Paid a premium too, paid twice what they were worth if I didn’t tell anybody it was them or where they got the money.”
“No he’s afraid of the Russians. The Russians want his country.”
“Why doesn’t he just sell it to them? He could be a rich man. Not as rich as me, but … ”
“I don’t think you can sell a country anymore,” said Rudy the Rat.
“Oh yeah? I kinda had my eye on Greenland. Who owns Greenland, anyway?”

Boeing may be screwed

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By Erik Dolson

Airplane manufacturer Boeing announced earlier this month that a safety committee had been formed on the board of directors after two crashes of the company’s 737 Max aircraft took 346 lives.

A safety committee! On the board! Thank god. Shareholders and passengers alike can fly much relieved.

I’d like to add a couple of other suggestions, distilled after talking to current and former Boeing employees over the last few months.

First, fire CEO and board chair Dennis Mullenburg. These tragedies occurred on his watch, and he lost all credibility while repeating the demonstrably false “safety is our top priority.” The crash of two 737 Max planes due to faulty software, faulty systems, and faulty processes made that claim absurd. Mullenburg is partly reponsible for the aggressive focus on profit that led to these tragedies.

Boeing exists to make a profit. Safety is central to that goal, but not the primary. Ask any employee who answers to a Boeing manager who himself or herself is under intense pressure to reduce costs on a regular basis.

The 737  Max was a bit of a kludge in the first place, an end run around regulations that would have required a completely new certification if Boeing had fielded an entirely new design. Recertification would have been expensive and caused delays, adding even more expense. So, Boeing told regulators and customers essentially that the 737 Max was “the plane you know and love, only better!”

But the company had installed new engines on the plane, and placed them farther forward. The engine pods cause lift when the nose of the plane is pointed up. The new location resulted in forces that pushed the nose up even further. This “divergent condition” can eventually cause a stall, and the airplane to fall out of the air.

Normally, a divergent condition is not allowed in passenger aircraft, which are supposed to return to a stable position if no forces are applied to the pilot’s controls. So Boeing came up with software that pushes the nose down when sensors indicate a stall is imminent.

It appears a sensor malfunctioned in the two planes that crashed. The airplane “thought” it was nearing a stall, and pushed the nose down. Pilots repeatedly tried to pull the nose up, but the planes were stronger and persisted, until they flew into the ground.

The central questions here are why didn’t Boeing catch this problem before people died, and can it be fixed?

I suggest that Boeing didn’t catch the problem because of the “culture” within the company. The end run around certification set the ball in motion. Constant pressure to cut costs and speed up development added momentum. So did the policy of not requiring and then informing airlines that pilots would need more training on the new systems.

These decisions were not the result of “safety is our number one priority.”

Can the planes be fixed? Certainly more sensors can be added (ONE!? Boeing allowed planes out the door with a single critical sensor!? There should have been three!). The software is being modified to give pilots more control.

The FAA in the United States may allow the 737 Max to fly again soon. After all, Boeing has a huge lobbying force in Washington D.C. Money matters.

However, transportation safety agencies in other countries may require that the plane not have a divergent condition at all, and/or that pilots be able to recover the plane from any flight situation with the software completely inoperable. Can the 737 Max do that?

Can the 737 Max recover from a near stall with the current engine design without software assistance? Can Boeing recover if only the FAA certifies the plane and it can’t fly in other countries? Would anyone fly on the plane?

The problems for the 737 Max go deeper than a software glitch, and the troubles at Boeing will not be fixed by adding a safety committee to the board of directors. At some point, the plane and the company may require a more significant change in design.

If not, I suggest that the entire Boeing board of directors and top management be on the plane as it goes through the more extreme flight tests. Then shareholders and passengers alike would be assured that the planes are as safe as they can be.

My fellow (Republican) Americans

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I’d like to address the 18 percent of Republicans who now support impeachment of Donald Trump for high crimes and misdemeanors.

Thank you. For your courage, for your allegiance to America over a would-be tyrant, for believing that no man is above the law, thank you.

There are many places where you and I agree about policy. I’m no more a rabid liberal than you are a rabid Republican. One of the first things we can agree on is a recognition that the other loves this country. You have shown this to me, and I hope to show you as well.

Current immigration law needs reform, people should be able to refuse to bake a cake for any reason, and if you like your insurance, that is
your business.

But first, you and I and all the others who feel as we do, that the malignancy in the White House must be cut away, need to act. We need to write personal letters to other Republicans, we need to speak up at the cafe in the morning, at our service clubs, when with friends.

We need to let others who feel as we do know that they are not alone. Together, as Americans, we can do this, and prove to the world that American democracy is like no other in the world.

Rudy the Rat on “official business”

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By Erik Dolson

So, Donnie Boastful tells Ukraine on the phone that it needs to play ball if it wants weapons to defend itself against further Russian aggression. Maybe he’s telling his Russian friends that now would be a good time to throw a little scare into Ukraine, ya know, just to soften them up a little.

The goodfellahs in Donnie Boastful’s not-quite-as-White-House scramble to bury the transcript of that phone call because it smells like a dead fish, it’s got high crimes and misdemeanors spread over it like rancid mayo‘d tuna oozed out from an overstuffed “All About Me” greed roll.

They code the transcript and hide it under the stack of “Classified – Security Clearance Required” papers that sit in the corner that Donnie needs to read to do his job but he never does, because he believes his job is to be DONNIE! and everything else is just a distraction.

So he then sends his personal lawyer — not State Department officials, not diplomats or ambassadors — his own lawyer, Rudy Raat Face, aka Rudy the Rat, to Spain to meet with Ukraine and discuss that little “favor” he referred to on the phone, you know, (whisper it) that Biden investigation…

And Rudy the Rat points out, again, that there’s people over in America that Donnie can tap to work on this end, the attorney general, in fact, Donnie Boastful calls him “My Attorney General” when he’s not calling him “My Bill Barr” when he’s not calling him “Billy the Bat” for the way he beat on that Meuller guy.

Donnie thinks it’s great having his very own attorney general that he doesn’t even have to pay! because Donnie Boastful thinks he’s the most important man in the history of history, and using the Justice Department to smear a political opponent is justified because what hurts Donnie hurts America, because America depends on Donnie, Donnie is America.

September 11

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By Erik Dolson

I remember that devastating attack 18 years ago. No, not like it was yesterday, but I remember where I was and what I saw on that day, knowing then that our world had changed.

I remember the heroes, the firemen and cops, and the journalists. The best moment of the Bush presidency, when he said Americans should come together, not break apart. When Peter Jennings said what separates America from other countries is that we don’t blame groups for an act of their few.

I saw then too how the crisis would be used by those, primarily on the right, to sow fear and anger, because they can’t thrive on hope and optimism. They divide us to conquer, humanity be damned.

The man who would lead us but is morally insolvent and will never be a true leader, the promise of information which has become a weapon of mind control, a generation raised to believe history doesn’t matter, give me despair.

But then I again remember the heroes, and remember that America IS great, we CAN rediscover that a house divided will not stand, that what we do for one WILL benefit all, that self sacrifice is the mortar between the stones of America’s foundation, e pluribus unum, we can change the world.

Then I find hope.

Wrapping it up

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By Erik Dolson

(Jacqulyn Mincheff at CRC. Photo by Keith Scott pnw-racing.com)

Weather for the Columbia River Classic car race in Portland was appropriately British. The event was paired with a large collection of Mini’s, MG’s, old Rovers, Jaguars, part of the All-British Field Meet. Dark gray clouds rolled over the city, threatening to dump rain by the barrel.

A lot of us in the big engine cars don’t like racing in the rain. Yes, we do know that the best racers shine brightest when the track is wet, but the risk / reward ratio for us is a little high with all that torque. It’s not like we’re 20 something and invincible, or racing on somebody else’s dollar. Plus, parts get tired over a season, and little things ignored tend to mount up. There are big races later in the fall, investments you have to prepare for.

Swede’s paddock wasn’t there, which meant that Falcon, Canuck, and BlueZen were out, either saving themselves for a national race in Texas or just done for the season.

Cowboy’s Corvette was without an engine, something locked up his sump pump at the last race in July and the engine was not back from the builder. Ceegar did not come down from Seattle, and there were rumors that he may be done, the fun gone out of racing because he was tired of being punished for things on the track he didn’t do, and tired of seeing others, meaning Team Cobra, not being punished for what they did.

I asked around. In fact, the Team Cobra driver, Snake, received a 13 month probation for aggressive driving from SOVREN during the Pacific Northwest Historics in Seattle, which was shared with groups that the Seattle organization affiliates with. If there is an infraction in that period of time, they will immediately be put on the trailer for that event and face further consequences.

This whole thing is a little weird, from my point of view. Ceegar and Snake have both ruffled feathers with their driving style, partly because they are the most aggressive drivers out there in our bush league racing. Certainly, Snake is the more aggressive of the two. The two best races I’ve ever run were against one of them or the other, and both times I came in second.

I really hope Ceegar comes back, and so does everybody else. I don’t think he knows how we value his contributions to the sport and to the charities we support. SOVREN has flowed millions of dollars to the Seattle Children’s Hospital, even before a $60 million bequest from the estate of Bruce Leven, a racer of legend known for his occasionally over the top aggressive racing. Leven hit every racer I know at least once, me twice. I probably deserved it.

Ceegar is more subtle, but very important to our dying sport. Plus, he’s fun.

I started at the back of the pack in the race late Saturday afternoon, because we missed the previous race altogether. Mule, my mechanic, had topped off my oil twice while preparing the car back at his shop, once more than needed.

Saturday morning, the overfill pushed at least a quart out and onto the nose of Mr. Polished’s Corvette right behind me, rude and dangerous. There wasn’t much time between the morning race and the first race on Saturday afternoon. We didn’t get the excess drained in time — Mule also works on the three Polished family Corvettes. To his credit, I suppose, Mule had warned me earlier in the season he might not be as available at the track as he used to be. I’m hoping that gig works out for him. On Saturday, it meant that we started last in the final race of the day.

Coming into Turn 7, in second gear and foot easing into the brakes, I was setting the car up for turn exit, at the limit of traction, ready to power down and run like hell to Turn 8.

Then YellowJacket went lifeless. She had popped out of gear into neutral, coasted into the turn with the engine at little more than idle.

At that point I stopped setting up to get through the turn, stepped on the clutch, shifted back into second (Yes, I could and probably should have just matched revs and pulled back on the stick, but I don’t like the sound it makes if that goes wrong), steered with one hand and tried to find the sweet place between traction, driving line, and acceleration.

In about a half second.

I didn’t quite make it. YellowJacket pushed right through the turn and out onto the grass, losing all the ground I’d gained coming up through the pack like a banshee with attitude, trying to catch Mr. Polished. I checked my mirrors, waited for a good moment of reentry. It was not fun, limping along with a transmission that randomly decided if it would stay in second gear. Aside from causing the one off-track excursion, there was a loss of the confidence needed to take things closer to the edge, which is where I like it.

And it was my fault, going for a few years on a crucial part which should be refreshed every year. I spent more on the failed weekend than I saved by putting off the rebuild.

I decided not to run on Sunday. Even though the weather cleared up for the morning race, a good portion of the field had gone home. Some friends, family really, were going through some personal turmoil. My head wasn’t into the game, and this is not a sport for the distracted.

So, I sat in the stands and enjoyed watching Ms. Polished win her first race of 2019, overwhelming a Porsche in the final two laps for an exciting and well deserved victory. For this weekend, at least, that was enough.

SVRA Portland Historics

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By Erik Dolson

The SVRA race in Portland is already something of a blur. I should have taken notes, but sometimes life itself feels like driving through a rush hour on a six-lane highway capable of funneling cars at 70 o 80 miles an hour but regulated to 60, the shear volume of traffic reducing speeds to 30, then 20, then 10, and now zero, inching along,

Three in the lead. Photo by Austin Bradshaw, flyingbyephoto.com

unable to get off, unable to do anything besides sit there, barely moving and barely conscious except for awareness that hours of life are being lost that will never be regained.

I didn’t know then I was already showing symptoms of a bug that would dog me all weekend, and lay me low in five days. It didn’t affect my racing, I don’t think, just my attitude. Of course, I’ve always hated rush hour. Read more… →

The wheel comes off.

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This video, taken at the Pacific Northwest Historic Races earlier this month, would be hilarious, if it didn’t depict a life threatening situation for at least five people. The impatient should start at minute 6:30.

First is the driver of the Mustang, Bob Hooper. His wheel came off at the fastest part of the race course, and he was traveling well over 100 miles per hour.

Second are the people in the worker stand. To me, it looks like that wheel is headed right at them. But I think it bounced over them, instead. Thank you folks in white for being out there!

Third is the driver of the Jaguar from which this video was filmed, Gunter Pichler. All of a sudden there’s a wheel bouncing twenty or thirty feet in the air over his car, while the Mustang is going sideways through the gravel in front of him. He just down shifts and keeps driving. Thank you for sharing this, Gunter.

By the way, Hooper and friends went out on the course, found the wheel and axle some place in the weeds, repaired and bolted everything all back together and kept racing that weekend.

No wonder we love these people!

Rose Cup

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By Erik Dolson

We all got together again the following weekend in Portland for the Rose Cup races. Seattle officials were still debating what penalty, if any, Snake would be given for aggressive driving.

Cowboy came by my paddock and said, “You need to go talk to Armadillo. They’re talking about giving them a life-time ban.” Armadillo is president of the Seattle club.

“That’s not right,” I said.

“That’s why you need to go talk to Armadillo.”

There were all sorts of ironies in this situation. To begin with, I promised myself decades ago that I wouldn’t get involved in politics of racing. I’d had enough of that for a lifetime at my real job. Racing was my refuge.

I also live alone on a hill top in MiddleofNowhere, Oregon. Cowboy has a ranch so far out they named his town after a city in India. It’s not like we’re members of a homeowner association. We also each race a Corvette, and this was a dispute between two guys who love Fords.

Not that it matters.

But Cowboy and I are not opposed to speaking up, on occasion. We agreed that a lifetime ban was too severe. At one time, great drivers like Garbage Man were told to pack it up early and just go home for the weekend when they drove far more aggressively than Snake.

So I wandered down to the end of the paddock where Armadillo was selling helmets and gloves and fuel to racers. I sat on the floor of his trailer to rest a hip that had just about had enough of standing around on pavement, two weekends in a row.

Armadillo asked me what I thought about the situation. I told him Snake made some passes in the Seattle race that I would not have made. That there are situations where a small mistake could hurt someone else.

But Snake comes from different level of competition where everyone is more aggressive, and his finishing position is certainly more important to his “people.”  The passes probably seemed acceptable, to him, I said to Armadillo.

“There are some who want to give him a lifetime ban. They say they’ve talked to the Cobra guys over and over,” Armadillo replied. “But I have a problem with that. We’ve never penalized him before.”

“Then where’s the due process? Maybe you need to get their attention, and I don’t know if that’s five points or whatever, but not a lifetime ban. A lifetime ban is too much.”

Then I remembered something from the days when it was often said that we were supposed to “take care of each other out there.”

“I think race officials have the the power to fix this in about one minute,” I said to Armadillo. “Use the black flag. Bring a driver in if his driving is too aggressive.”

A black flag would be more effective than concerned conversations, especially with all of us Type A personalities. A black flag brings a driver in off the course. The penalty is right now, and that impacts your finishing position and hence your starting position for the next race. It’s a penalty that even a 12-year-old can understand.

I know this because, in the old days, when I was 11, I received a couple of rolled black flag warnings that modified my behavior.

“That’s an idea,” Armadillo said.

It would put a lot of responsibility on officials and turn workers, but we already trust them with our lives out there. Maybe a few cameras at key points along the track to resolve disputes, I don’t know.

But I did know I didn’t want to be any more involved in the discussion. I’d made that promise to myself that I would stay out of the politics. It was time to go racing. This was the Rose Cup!

Racing gods have a sense of humor, though. After qualifying, I was third, again. We line up two by two when we start a race, so there were two cars in front of me.

One was Ceegar. The other was Snake.

They had a clean start, and Snake just drove off and left me and Ceegar to battle it out for second. I did everything I could, too, to get by Ceegar but I couldn’t do it. My lap time was 3/10ths faster, but he did to me exactly what I’d done to the silver Corvette in Seattle. Ceegar’s TransAm Mustang was always exactly where I needed to be.

I tried to dive underneath him into the corners, but he was there. I tried to squeak by on corner exit, he was there. I thought I had him a couple of times, but he was right there and I couldn’t go around. It was great fun trying.

After the race, I was going to drive through his paddock and give him a high five, but I noticed that my clutch didn’t disengage the engine and the car didn’t slow, so I went over to my own trailer. The transmission wouldn’t shift, either.

We made a quick adjustment. When we went to start the car to test it, the engine did not turn over. No sound. Nothing. Mule, my mechanic, grabbed a volt meter to test if it was a switch or the starter.

’‘Funny, I just told someone ‘We never have to work on your car,” said Mule.

“You what!?!” I was amazed he would invite the racing gods to strike us down. “You NEVER say that!”

Mule replaced the starter with one we had in the trailer.

“It’s been used,” he said. “I don’t think it will work, or we wouldn’t have taken it out.”

“No, we took it out and replaced it several years ago at this event, before we realized that the master switch went bad, and we saved this starter as a spare,” I said, hoping my memory was better than his.

I was lucky, the replacement starter worked.

So now we could attack the clutch problem. Jakester’s mom brought cheeseburgers from across the highway for dinner. We kept working. Rather, Mule kept working. My job was to hand him wrenches and pry bars and whatever else he needed. Cowboy came up with a stack of clutch plates we could use to rebuild the clutch in the car.

The car was on jack stands, which gave Mule less than 18 inches of clearance as he lay on his back on a sheet of cardboard I’d put in the trailer for exactly this purpose. The cardboard made it easier to slide under and out from under the car.

Mule had his “creeper,” a wheeled cart to lie on while wrenching under the cars, but it raised him several inches and didn’t give him enough room for his elbows. Once he put his head down to rest. He’d slid part way off the cardboard and his head hit the hard pavement with its scattering of gravel. I brought him the foam pad I stand on in the trailer to change into my driving suit.

Mule also works on cars for Mr. & Ms. Polished. She’d broken the rear end of her Corvette. Their crew arrived with a new rear end just as it got dark. Mule told them he would put it in in the morning, that he wanted to get my Yellowjacket up and running. They seemed disappointed.

It wasn’t a cold night, and thankfully it wasn’t raining. Mule struggled to lift the transmission, but eventually it came free as he complained he wasn’t as strong as he used to be.

A man came over and asked us to turn the generator off that was providing light to work.

“Can’t do that,” I told him.

“It’s ten p.m., isn’t that quiet time?” He asked.

“I’m not going to argue with you. We’re going to keep working, but I’ll move the generator as far away from your van as I can,” I said. Jakester and I set the generator up on the other side of a trailer that had a much louder generator running, and surrounded that loud one with cardboard so the couple could sleep.

Eventually, I told Jakester to go home. At 12:30, I told Mule we needed to call it a day. The transmission was out, we could install the clutch in the morning. I told him to get the rear end in Ms. Polished’s car first, though. They depended on him too.

That job took longer than anticipated, and we didn’t get our clutch wrapped up by the race Saturday morning. So I missed it and that afternoon, started in 25th position instead of 3rd.

When the green flag came down, I carved my way up through the pack. What a rush! Diving inside of one car, to the outside of the next. Barely hanging on around the long sweepers, braking as late as I dared at the end of the straights. I love to play chase, and this was to get a shot in the final race that would be held the next day.

But the real performance was by Snake in the Team Cobra car. He turned a 1:20:001 in that race. I had the second fastest time out there, and I was three and one-half seconds behind him! I’d like to say it was because my clutch was still a little raw, that that the tires were a little greasy, but no.

He also had 120.099 that weekend. These are unheard of times for vintage “production cars.” Granted, the Cobra was never a “common” car, but neither were ZL1 Corvettes like I drive.

I should say that “they” had a 120:099. The reason they were able to turn that time was the harmony between an outstanding driver, an extremely well performing chassis, and a powerful and reliable engine. That’s the only way to get it done, and that’s how it was done.

Ceegar was held in the paddock because he was running two cars in separate classes, back to back, and he couldn’t get to the starting grid in time to start in his earned position in our race. In the final race on Sunday, he had mechanical issues and was only able to finish 7 laps, but turned in a good time.

I went after the Cobra with everything I had in Sunday’s feature. I jumped him and the Porsche from Seaside on the start, and actually led for a couple of laps. It was close racing, but he could have run away from me at any point. That is what it is.

It’s a remarkable to see a car like that Cobra dance in the hands of a driver so skilled. The car looked as if it barely touched the ground, and only then to change direction. The rest of the time it seemed to float on a thin crackle of its own energy, like a bouncing ball of lightning. Watching Ceegar is like that at times, when his car lifts one or both front wheels off the ground, or when the back end chudders first one way then the next, clawing for grip.

After the race, on the podium, Snake had his hands full of roses and water and the checkered flag that I offered to hold for him, with a smile. At the end of the ceremony, they presented me a trophy for upholding the spirit of vintage racing.

I don’t know.  On any weekend I can look around the paddock and see others who deserve it more. Like Cowboy, who 25 years ago talked me back into this absurd sport that saps my income and consumes my summers. Or Mr. & Ms. Polished, who have resurrected important cars from the past that would have been forgotten and possibly destroyed. Personally I would name P.I. Tiger, who always has a smile and a good word and whose honesty of soul shines as brightly as the car that he’s rebuilt more than once after being hit and never his fault.

But, humbled by other names on that trophy, all I could really say was thank you. And then worry about getting a new clutch ordered and some new brake pads, decide whether to spend another thousand on tires for the next couple of races, and pray the engine would last until the end of the season because when it breaks, we’re done.

Even when the race weekend is over, parts are broken and repairs need to be made, and late nights are followed by early mornings and then by hours of hauling a heavy trailer home, it’s still not enough. It’s never enough.