![\"Earnest's](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/erikdolson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Earnests-corvette.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nSome say he was on old, old rubber. He had a flat in an earlier race, and someone said he patched the tire. That\u2019s the thing. This sport takes a lot of time or a lot of money, and sometimes both. Some of us have to do what we can to make ends meet, but sometimes there aren\u2019t any shortcuts.<\/p>\n
There’s no shortcut to seat time, either, and Earnest doesn’t have a lot of it. He’s got \u00a0a car that can bite if you make a mistake. But stuff happens. Look at Canuck going into the blackberries in July, and he’s better than any of the rest of us.<\/p>\n
Swede, who had built most of the car for Earnest, went over to check on him, and probably to check if anything he had built broke and caused the wreck. Earnest gave\u00a0 gave him a big hug. And Earnest is a really big guy, so it was a really big hug.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was on my top and the cage held,\u201d is what Earnest told him. Swede was pretty happy about that, too. The cage didn\u2019t budge. Earnest was still really tall.<\/p>\n
Ceegar\u2019s mechanic, OCD, felt pretty bad when Ceegar\u2019s mirror came off in Spokane at the beginning of the season. Merlin doesn\u2019t just change out broken pieces, or pieces that look like they\u2019re about to break, he changes out pieces that were installed at the same time as other pieces that look like they maybe once thought about breaking. Shade Tree\u2019s the same way. They don\u2019t really compromise when it counts.<\/p>\n
They know what could happen if they miss something. Which is one reason why we look to them to do what they do. They are the kind of people who work really hard to make it right. Stayslate (Beater\u2019s mechanic), Swede, Thrasher, OCD, Merlin, Shade Tree. These guys don\u2019t just handle wrenches, they know what\u2019s at stake.<\/p>\n
Honestly? I don\u2019t know if they would still be able to do it if something they built broke and there was a really bad outcome.<\/p>\n
They can\u2019t protect us drivers from ourselves, though, and if Earnest went out on bad tires, then he paid a pretty damn high price for the few hundred dollars saved.<\/p>\n
I say this while I run tires I\u2019ve run hard since I bought them to race at Road America last July.<\/p>\n
All this is pretty serious stuff and I didn\u2019t mean to get into it like that, but hey, I am who I am. I tried to explain that to a woman once, and the conversation didn\u2019t go well. She told me, women marry men thinking they\u2019ll change them, men marry women thinking they\u2019ll never change. She was much wiser than me, and that\u2019s probably why she\u2019s not still around.<\/p>\n
I confirmed with Ceegar that he set three personal best times this weekend in Seattle. It was perfect for racing. Air temps were cool, and cars just love that. Rains had washed the track clean, so tires stuck in every session. And though there weren\u2019t enough cars out there, those that were ran well.<\/p>\n
For several years I\u2019ve wanted to get another 1:29:plus in Seattle. It happened this weekend in a race I didn\u2019t win, but took second, again. In fact, that\u2019s probably why it did happen. I\u2019m always faster when I\u2019m playing chase.<\/p>\n
All the laps and races start to blend together now, especially since last night\u2019s drive home was brutal, after waking up at 4 a.m. yesterday morning and not getting back to Middleofnowhere, Oregon until close to midnight. Up again this morning at 4 a.m., again. Tired and wired.<\/p>\n
But what I do remember is that when I did wake up yesterday, I was trying to figure out how to get in front of Ceegar.<\/p>\n
I finally distilled it down to \u201cShift sooner, brake later, go faster.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yeah, I know. Simplistic. But sometimes you need simple to break bad habits, especially if you tend to overthink things. So I was shifting sooner, and in that session, tried to shift into fourth before Turn Nine instead of after, and several times, right in front of the crowd, I either went into second, or couldn\u2019t get it into gear at all. But not every lap, and I put down one really fast one.<\/p>\n
But I didn\u2019t win. Later, Ceegar asked me \u201cwhat happened to you in nine? All of a sudden you disappeared?\u201d I confessed I missed a shift. So he teased, \u201dThird is up and to the right.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought that\u2019s where fifth is,\u201d I said, looking confused, then put my hand over my mouth and acted as though I\u2019d blown it completely. Ceegar and other drivers standing there hooted. You see, we\u2019re only supposed to have four speeds forward. Four is all I have, too, I was trying to make a joke.<\/p>\n
But it wasn\u2019t a long time after that when OCD, Ceegar\u2019s mechanic, was looking in my car and saw my four speed knob.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do you know where fifth gear is?\u201d he asked, or something like that.<\/p>\n
So after my pretend gaff, and maybe it\u2019s entirely unrelated, Ceegar\u2019s car went into the trailer. They changed the rear end gears, I could smell the gear lube from 20 feet away. They went a little taller, I think, maybe to match what they might of thought would be a fifth gear overdrive in my car. I don\u2019t know. I\u2019m just making it up at this point.<\/p>\n
At lunch time, I got to take Thor, who works pregrid, out on the track for a ride. Came back in and took Jakester\u2019s dad out for a couple of laps, then the Jakester. \u201cAwesome,\u201d they said. I used the sessions to work on my line.<\/p>\n
Ceegar was on the pole, again, for the first race in the afternoon. I jumped him, again and went through the gears quickly. I didn\u2019t wind the engine out but kept it right in the middle of where it loves to make power.<\/p>\n
Shift sooner.<\/p>\n
By the time we came to Turn 2, I had just enough on him, three-quarters of a car length he\u2019d say later, that I slowly eased over to the left, squeezing him back as I took over the racing line.<\/p>\n
“I thought I’d put my nose in there to see if I could intimidate you into giving it up,” he said. No, not today.<\/p>\n
Down the hill into Turn 3A, I waited, and waited, to come off the gas, then hit the brakes hard and downshifted into first.<\/p>\n
Brake Later.<\/p>\n
Squirting out of Turn 3B, I hurtled down the back straight, shifted sooner and used what I\u2019d seen Ceegar do in previous races: I didn\u2019t slow down much through the tricky Turn 5 (where Earnest would later land on his top)\u00a0 but danced through, and when I could, I put the accelerator to the floor.<\/p>\n
Go faster.<\/p>\n
Coming out of Turn 8, foot to the floor, I would shift into third, foot to the floor, slight lift over the bump so I wouldn\u2019t spin the tires when she got light, let her gather up, foot to the floor, fourth gear, foot to the floor, thread the needle between the dirt and wall at Turn 10, don’t lift, over the hump at Turn 1, wait, wait wait, brake and downshift, hold smooth, foot to the floor.<\/p>\n
Ceegar got smaller and smaller in my mirror. It was so very sweet.<\/p>\n
After the race, Jakester put the other old Road America Tires on Yellow Jacket. We refueled. Checked the oil. We sat.<\/p>\n
In the mean time, Ceegar\u2019s Mustang disappeared back into his mobil shop. Again I smelled the sulfurous stench of gear lube. I figured they were going to shorter gears this time, to get a jump on me out of the hole.<\/p>\n
Thing is, in a fight, your opponent always gets a vote. And in this case, I was on the pole. That meant I could stuff the ballot box.<\/p>\n
When the pace car left the field and we were on our way to the green flag, Ceegar started to accelerate. He was nearly a half car length in front of me, where he should not have been, before he saw that I was going slow. Real slow. He had to slow down to match position. Real slow.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d figured if he went to real short gears, I wanted him to be in first gear and low rpm when we got the green flag. His car has so much juice that he can\u2019t stab the throttle in first or he\u2019ll just smoke the tires. He would have to ease into it, or bog it in second.<\/p>\n
Green flag. Yellow jacket hooked up her (yes, much fatter) tires. Ceegar fishtailed trying to get that screaming orange monster to put power to the pavement. I was first to Turn 2. And I was ready to fly. But when I next look in my mirrors, it was Beater behind me. And the next lap around, Ceegar was off to the side of the track in Turn 3B, and he was standing in the turn worker station.<\/p>\n
A half mile ahead, Earnest is upside down, hanging from the straps. They are waving Double Yellow Flags, white flags.<\/p>\n
I slow down, way down, to bunch up the field. They next lap around, they have Earnest out on the ground, making sure he\u2019s okay. This race is done. But Earnest is okay, and they bring his broken ride in on the trailer.<\/p>\n
Ceegar dropped out on that first lap because the battery cable to his starter motor shorted out on a header. You could see the burnt black plastic insulation. I don’t know if it was the result of last minute work or had been trying to burn through the whole weekend and finally found ground. But he pulled over rather than lose the car.<\/p>\n
So the last race really wasn’t. That’s okay. No one was hurt, and I can’t remember a better weekend of racing. Others have said the same thing.<\/p>\n
I think Ceegar goes to Sears Point in a week or two. Canuck is headed to Texas to a big race down there. Cowboy is done for the season, and so am I. Jakester has football and a girlfriend and school work. His coach told guys on the team to get girlfriends who play sports so they won\u2019t complain (or feel lonely) when they have to practice. Jakester\u2019s girl plays soccer.<\/p>\n
Merlin is already busy, busy. He isn\u2019t just an artisan and a magic maker, he is a principled perfectionist. So he\u2019s told clients and potential clients they need to take a number, and probably by next month, if they want anything done over winter. There’s only so much time, and even Merlin can’t change that.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m thinking of giving him some work to do. I think I\u2019ll have Shade Tree pull my motor in a week or so, and then I\u2019ll run it back up to Seattle, and let Merlin wave his wand.<\/p>\n
Because next year, Canuck will have the big car out, Beater will be back with his evil looking \u201969 that wrecked in Portland, Ceegar and OCD never stop improving, and who knows what Cowboy is cooking up way, way out there on the prairie.<\/p>\n
So I have to do something over the winter, if I want to keep up. Because no matter how much there is, and how well you do, there\u2019s always something left to be done if you want to play with these guys, the way we play. You can\u2019t stop or you\u2019ll get left behind.<\/p>\n
Besides, getting better and going faster and playing harder isn\u2019t something you do just once and go home. There\u2019s always more, and it\u2019s never enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s tough to see a car on its top. It\u2019s worse when medics have a driver on the ground.<\/p>\n
But we were told Earnest was all right. By the time I got back to the pits, he\u2019d already been seen up and walking around his car. They probably put him on the ground as part of protocol.<\/p>\n
There was some controversy about that when Big Mac, who was maybe the fastest of any of us until the wreck that put him out of racing, balled up his car at the end of the front straight.<\/p>\n
Some said they allowed him \u2026 Read more\u2026