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Racing has been very, very bad to me. In ITB I lost the cylinder head in the first SCCA race, and 3 intake rockers in the second. John broke a throttle cable in his first race and lost second place to two separate metal to metal incidents on the last lap in his second SCCA race.
On the trip back to Milwaukee Wednesday night, we planned to have the repairs done before the BRIC on Friday. A full day of running around and hard work produced a well repaired B8 late Thursday. Friday practice was rained out, but Saturday went well. A gear change to get more RPM in the long straights was done before the main event. I went to get the car to grid early and, just then, noticed I was stuck in reverse. A few hectic minutes to pop the transmission rear cover off and properly set the shift forks and I was on my way.
The Rennen Festival at Blackhawk was a Driver School and Regional race. In the school I taught a Corvette ITE, a Peugeot ITE, and a BMW 320i driver. They all did very well and raced the next day. The ITB class had 4 BMW's - Val Rajik's 320i, Mark Huston's 320i, Angelo Gazzola's 318i and my 318i. The Volvos from Hell had a bad weekend with a crash at 6 and an eventual disqualification of both. Joe Prinz ran against the DQ'ed Volvo all race, keeping up after getting passed. I ended up in sight of them most of the race, but without any competitor around me. The final result was a welcome second place. |
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Chevron racing started out rough
as well. The first weekend out I broke the ignition and overheated the first race. That problem solved, the second race was won (only car in class.) BMW CCA Octoberfest went well enough at first - qualified
first overall - but the green flag and turn one brought mayhem as the steering broke and the ensuing spin brought me nose to nose with Gordon Medenica's Chevron B6,
taking us both out. The situation was bad enough for John not to race the next event where he qualified the ITB car very well.
The race saw an oil spewing Super
V passing me and staying in the way. The plan was to take him on the back of the course between 10 and 11. I let a gap develop to get the run on him and came into turn 10 to find gravel at the apex. The
car slid 4 wheels off track driver's left after the apex and I tried to straighten it out before the brake markers at 11. Much fishtailing in the grass and no reduction of
speed was the recipe for a nervous moment. I thought the car was calm enough when returning to the track. WRONG! The 190 degree spin brought the left rear
into concrete and made an awful noise. Now it's time to fix again.
