We had threatening weather in the Twin Cities on
Saturday, June 15. I was in Rochester to watch my
8-year-old niece carry the torch for the upcoming
U. S. Olympic Festival. They are having a torch run
all over the state. We got lucky there and it did not
rain on her torch run or the subsequent family picnic.
We made it back to St Paul without bad weather, but
the sky looked ominous. That night after dark we had
serious rain, thunder and lightning. I went out
to the garage and erected the hood on the Spridget.
What? you are reading this on autox? OK, I put the top
on. I was a bit worried about the weather for the 3M
autocross on Sunday. Dr. Bobwrench e-mailed me that
it was raining hard in O'Clare (I'm Irish on my
mother's side) at 1:30 AM. Jeez, Bob turn off the
computer and get some sleep! When I awoke, I did not
feel well. I will spare you the gory details, but
suffice to say that Kaopectate tastes awful. The
streets were drying from the overnight rain. I
stumbled out to the garage and fired up Bridget and
headed east. It was not raining, but it was windy,
dark and threatening. Just what you need with a
rusty old Spridget on 008R's.
I made it to the lot before registration and was
relieved (no pun intended) to see that the
rent-a-john was in place. I registered and teched
without incident. My shift to second gear worked
perfectly as I pulled away from the stop sign after
tech. This is where I had the transmission failure at
my last 3M event. Barry Schonberger from Indiana was
there with his tube-frame Tiger. He has it painted
orange-and-black tigerstripes on the rear now, with the
front still white. Looks great. We see Barry once a
year. He comes to visit relatives up north, I think.
Always happy to have him. The Tiger is fast and
pretty, he drives it well, and he's a really nice guy.
When the Dutton showed up topless, Dr. Bobwrench
dropped the top on Elizabeth. Then I removed it from
Bridget and then Brian Erickson removed the top from
his MGB. If Brian is as silly as Bob and I and has
given his car a name, he is keeping it to himself. I
took Bob on my second practice run. On a 180 left, we
understeered over a pylon and off the course. As we
reentered, I remarked that his weight threw me off. Yeah, that's the
ticket, Bob's weight. (end of part 1)
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