This is a note I wrote about two weeks ago about Rochelle and my last
two races:
A week ago week I ran Laguna. I chased the Arroyo Counciling Volvo. He has
been running Laguna for 20 years and usually takes runs third in GT3.
He had blown his engine the month before (when Rochelle had taken second
in the rain) so he had had a brand new trick engine built for him at
Vic Hubbard's. He said he was running three seconds faster then he ever
had before. In the mean time I had improved my handling and so my times
were very close to his. It looked like it might be an interesting race.
As I sat in the car in the paddock waiting to go out, one of the pre grid
folks decided to pull on my window net and to check it's release.
I was near the back of the grid grided along side the Arroyo Counciling car,
and had hoped to jump him when the green flag fell.
Out on track, It became clear that the worker had left my window curtain
partly un cliped. The window curtain fell down on my shoulder as I was going
up to turn 8 on the pace car lap. I was afraid I would have to pull into the
pits to rehook it. I drove looking back over my shoulder and trying to rehook
it.
By the time I got it rehooked I was way out of line. As the green fell I
was trying just to catch up to my place. I spent the next several laps chasing
him. Just before the half way point, I got to hot coming out of turn 2 and
spun the car. By the time I had the car restarted all the back markers had
gone by. I spent the rest of the race catching and passing the back markers
and trying to catch the Arroyo car. I finnished fourth behind him.
..............
This week end Rochelle ran the regional at SearsPt. It was a combined regional,
national and Nasport. A BIG weekend with 500 cars entered. Most of the Nasport
cars were also running in GT3 in the national race. A couple of them also ran
the regional. There were seven cars entered in gt3 in the regional. The Nasport
cars were grided near the front with the faster GT1 cars. Near the back there
was another clump of four gt3 cars. you can guess where we were. 8^)
The Arroyo car was grided just ahead of Rochelle and it looked like there might
be some opportunity for dicing.
We had bought a new "hotlap" automatic lap timer with an on board readout.
Victor and Eric's crewman Scott said they would take care of things in the hot
pits. This freed my to watch her race from other points on the track for a
change.
The differential had been acting up and we were afraid it would not last the
race. She started conservativly but, as the lap timer later showed, each lap
was
faster then the previous one. As the race developed various cars dropped out
as a result of over cooking it, resulting in bent body parts or broken
mechanical
bits.
Near the 3/4 mark, I saw Rochelle enter turn 7 with the Arroyo Volvo. I waited
on the bridge over turn 8A to get a photo of them coming through the chicanes
together. Only Rochelle appeared. A few seconds later the Volvo coasted into
view and stopped off track with a broken cam. I started counting up cars and
realized that Rochelle was third in gt3 behind two of the Nasport cars.
Afterwards the Arroyo guys asked why their car always broke when Rochelle drove.
I attributed it to the kind of broom she rode. 8^)
Dick
........
ps: Rochelle and I just got invitations to run in the Pacific Coast Roadracing
Championship. Since she has more points and we only have one car, Rochelle will
participate. As they say "in order to finish first, first ya got'a finish."
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