I am off to a pretty slow start! My racecar sat untouched all through the holidays and raceweeks. I didn't even get started working on it until the summer.
Ok, so this was more of a party than a race, but we had a great time at the "Little 500". There was a mob of 30 or 40 racetrack and message board people there to eat, race karts and tell big fibs. Great fun, www.little500night.homestead.com
For the first time, I got to race against my daughter. We were at the Electrathon race at USF in Tampa. The 14 that I drove had driveline problems all day
My daughter drove one of the Astronaut High School cars and ended up 4'th overall out of 12 entries.
Here are my partners in the #85 Electrathon car: standing is the driver Lance Barlow, and in the hat is his dad Dana. We were the overall winners at this race!
So its not racing, but I could not resist adding my youngest son Christian. He likes to put his racer up on the jack and fix it, just like me!
And now for something completely different: Crash-A-Rama! I've had an on-going internet feud with a bunch of demo drivers. It has been pretty raucus, and we've had a lot of laughs. After dishing out much abuse, I knew I had to tangle with them, so I bought this Mercury Sable and prepped it for competition on April 21, 2007 at USA International Speedway. I competed in the "Obstacle Race" and the 6 Cyl. demo derby.
The "Obstacle Race" was the most dangerous thing I've ever done. Its amazing no one got hurt. I led the race until half way when I got taken out so hard it bent the rear wheel into the frame.
Somehow, I ended up third in the demo out of 23 cars.
It was still running!
My oldest son Michael was my Crash-A-Rama pit crew.
My middle son Steven thought the demo car was pretty cool. He even painted his name on the trunk: not bad for 4 years old!
We finished 3'rd and didn't win a penny. Oh well, Crash-A-Rama was a lot of fun.
Robin added her custom graphics, including the Brainwash Sheep.
Here is a demo car that I'll run in the near future, "The Global Warmer".
Victory! Our electric car team is the hottest in Florida. At our May 5 race, we won the second 1 hour feature, and combined with our third in the first race, was enough to give us our second overall win. Team "Rolling Thunder" has got it going on!
This is not exactly race results, but I got a kick out of it. These cars belong to two good friends of mine, Tom Rose and Michael Seay. They both hate my trademark "bone" numbers, so I Photoshopped their cars to show them how cool they could look with the right artwork! So far, they are not impressed...
This was SCCA school at Sebring. I drove Tom's Mazda for two days, which totaled 4 hours of track time. Road racing is great! It really takes some technique to get it done. I am impressed with these Mazdas too. They are nearly maintenance free: raced 'em like crazy, and just put gas in them.
We were going 100+ mph in this shot, but it looks like we are idling around in drivers Ed. class.
I finally got my mini stock on track. It took until 9-21-07 to get going this year. That is a 10 month gap between races!
I had one practice session, no heat race, but went out and ran 5'th in the feature. Felt pretty good to be back!
The races rained out on Oct. 5'th; I never got a lap. Its ok, the equipment needed washing anyway.
October 19, this was a good night! I ended up second. There were only 7 cars, but I made open track passes of two fast ones, and ended up right on the winner, so it went pretty well.
November 23, 2007. I went to Crash A Rama at Speedworld. It was an amazing show: 200+ entries and at least half ended up completely destroyed, which is just what the fans paid to see.
I ran my Cadillac in the Flagpole race. There were 42 entries and I managed to get a flat tire within the first 50 feet! Some nut drove into my left rear corner, so I only ran a few laps before it became undrivable.
Then I took it out in the demo, where I was doing fine until the throttle hung wide open and I went sailing off to turn 4, outside the derby zone. Leaving the zone gets you disqualified, so I was done. It was kind of a disappointing result, but Michael and I had a good time anyway.
