Little Things

Jakester and I had high expectations after Seattle, where we’d set three personal best times and a new lap record for our group, according to some who’ve been around. We were headed to Portland, after all, and Portland is “home.” I’ve been running cars at Portland since the 1980’s.

The Portland race was being run by a new promoter. SVRA knows what they’re doing, and has the resources to do it. Still, there will be “discussions” when a new way of doing things governs a herd of “Triple Type A” personalities.

Canuck stacked up the Camaro, “Roxanne” in Seattle, and his new Corvette isn’t finished. But most of the rest of the “Bad Boys” showed up, and there were some folks we hadn’t seen before from out of state, and the TransAm grid, mostly from California. And Fireball, driving the gold Mitchell Mustang from even farther out in the weeds than me and Cowboy.

The Mitchell boys are still pretty fired up about the Ford vs. Chevy rivalry from the 1960s. They make it a little like Hatfields and McCoys, in that some things are hard to let go. They always accuse me of running a huge motor when I beat them, and I didn’t appreciate it much when they sprayed oil all over the track in front of my car, and on the faceshield of my helmet, a couple of years back.

Last time we were together, with Looser the owner as driver, not Fireball, the Mustang  got tangled up with Excalibur and Ceegar, doing some damage. The year before, Fireball contacted Canuck. Stuff happens, right? But stuff seemed to follow that car around.

Last week in Seattle, Yellow Jacket was hard to start once. Merlin was standing right there, flipped off the fuel pump, which left enough juice to spin the motor to a start.

“We’d better put another starter in the trailer, just in case,” he said.

Normally less than six hours from Seattle, it took more than 8 hours to get home. Two days later, Mule, my mechanic, came up to my place to put in the new starter. We didn’t want to take the chance it would strand me on the starting line.

I said maybe we should put the old one in the trailer as a spare.

“You could, or get a new one for the trailer. Do you want to take a chance that your replacement is no good?” asked Mule.

Good point.

Two days after that, we were in Portland. Montana Mustang and Montana Mom saved us a spot next to them, so Jakester and his dad and me set up and changed the oil and were ready to follow the SVRA type of schedule.

Instead of three days of racing, we practiced twice on Friday, qualified on Saturday morning, had a race Saturday afternoon and another on Sunday morning.

Montana Mustang was not happy with the new schedule.

“I came to race, not drive around,” he said.

I could see his point. It’a a long way from Montana. It bugged him all weekend. He was still fighting some brake issues, too.

Montana Mom aksed if Jakester and his dad and me would be around later for sandwiches. Like she had in Seattle, she fed us lunch all weekend, and would only let us contribute fresh fruit to the feed.

“Somebody has to make sure you boys have something to eat besides cookies and burgers,” she said. Thanks, Mom.

Family guy was pitted right next to us. Maybe because he owns a tire store, he noticed that one of the tires on my trailer had started to split because of age and time in the sun. He could see the steel belts. Jakester and I got out the spare, and made ready to change it. I’d lost a tire on that trailer on my way back from Seattle in the spring, probably due to the same thing. This would be the year I bought six new trailer tires.

It’s the little things.

After the driver’s meeting before the event, I watched a guy from Seattle angrily harangue the race promoter about one of the tech inspectors, who had required the electrical cut-off switch on his car to cut off power to the fuel pump (for emergency crews in case of accident).

He seemed to be arguing that a fuel pump pumping high octane gas into a potentially explosive situation wasn’t a bad thing. But then it became clear it was the way the inspector said this would not be allowed, apparently.

Culture clash. Or maybe just communication difficulties. I try to steer clear of that kind of thing.

Ceegar, who has what we think is a legal TransAm car, has been “disinvited” to play with that TransAm group. Like a number of the “Bad Boys” from the Pacific Northwest, he doesn’t necessarily think winners should be decided in private before the race begins. We don’t show up to drive in a parade.

OCD is Ceegar’s crew chief, and just about as tenacious as his name implies. He talked to folks running the weekend. They didn’t object to Ceegar going out with the Transam boys during practice, but said it was up to the TransAm folks. OCD went to talk with them. They said it was up to the TransAm “boss.” He wasn’t around. So, nobody said, “no.”

Ceegar waited in the pits when the TranAm group went out onto the track, then went to the startling line and was waved onto the course, with “permission.”

He cut through the field like he usually does, eventually catching the lead car.

“They didn’t like that so much,” he said with a smile after the race.

He basically stood on the toes of the race official who Ceegar thought took too much delight in delivering the reprimand, and confided that smirking would not be conducive for employment in Ceegar’s company.

Or something like that.

For a half-hour.

Later, when Ceegar’s Crew Chief “OCD” went to talk things over, the official said he never intended to speak with Ceegar again, not in this lifetime.

Culture clash.

Fireball came over after qualifying to say I had the car to beat.  He was gracious, and I tried to be the same. I’ve had a heart to heart talk with him in the past, and it’s hard not to like the guy.

But Yellow Jacket didn’t really feel settled during practice, nor qualifying. I thought it was me, or the track was greasy, maybe I had asked too much of the tires or was trying to get too many races out of them. But that’s what I had, so that’s what I’d use.

I don’t remember when things began to get worse. Maybe halfway through the race Saturday afternoon. Whenever I stepped on the brakes, the car would veer left. Not a lot, and she straightened right out again. But it was a little unnerving, and caused me to tip-toe around the course.

There was a half lap to go when there was a “clunk” when I turned the wheel from left to right, or right to left.  We spun out diving deep past Fireball in the Mitchell Mustang in Turn 7. And then Yellow Jacket wouldn’t start.

We got towed back to the pits.

Mule came right over from where he was helping out on Cowboy’s car.

“I don’t know how you drove this thing,” he said when he crawled out from under. The trailing arm on the passenger side that helps hold the right rear wheel in place had broken.

So we started to thrash. We put the battery on a charger. Jakester and his dad rode bicycles around the track, looking for a missing part that holds the trailing arm connection together and could not be purchased at local hardware stores. I went to everyone with a Corvette. No luck.

Finally, Mule gave me a list and sent me to Lowes’s, where I went that evening and again when Lowe’s opened at 7 a.m.  Sunday morning.

Mule pulled it off. “This will hold for a half-hour,” he said. It wasn’t perfect, but it would do. We put the battery back in. We tested the alternator. Everything was ready to go.

I’d start from the back, but that’s a favorite of mine. I just love to chase. And Cowboy said we were supposed to start where we had qualified on Saturday morning.

On my way to pre grid just before the main race, Yellow Jacket felt so good, I wondered how long that trailing arm had been “not quite right.” I was distracted. The clutch is very firm. I stalled the motor.

She would not start.

I waved some men over, they pushed her, I popped the clutch, she started and I took the qualifying place (the wrong place, by the way) amid some confusion in the starting grid.

But even though I kept her running, eventually, there just wasn’t enough juice left, and the engine died. One of the cells in a fairly new battery had failed. That’s what had been going wrong since Seattle: not the starter, not the alternator.

I was stuck in the starting grid, watching all the other cars go out to race. On “my” track. In the biggest race in Portland this year. After Mule had slaved to get the trailing arm fixed. After we’d charged the battery, replaced the starter, and checked the alternator.

It’s the little things.

Fireball won that race. At first I was tempted to say that would not have happened if we’d been out there, but that’s racing. Even though Ceegar was in front of him, Ceegar ran out of gas on the last lap.

It’s the little things.

Fireball won the race in the Mitchell Mustang because he drove well, as he always does, and because they were ahead on all the little things.

It didn’t take long to get the trailer packed up. I was almost done when over the loudspeaker, I heard them give Fireball the first place accolades and the medal. As I drove past where a large group of them were all celebrating, I gave them a thumbs up. I don’ t know if any of them saw it, but I meant it. They deserved it.

After 13 years of racing, there’s bound to be parts on the car that are tired, and ready to let go. We replace things that have gone wrong, like a broken transmission; things that might go wrong, like a starter; things we know will probably go wrong, like wheels with thousands of laps on them.

We should have replaced old and tired trailing arm bolts, but sometimes we miss some things, especially things like a year-old battery.

Keeping ahead of all the little things that could go wrong takes a lot of effort and, at times, it seems like it’s never enough.