Our first-ever SCCA National Tour event at Castle Field in Atwater, CA,
came off extremely well.
There were 276 entries, however, not everybody made it to the
event.
The weather was sunny and breezy.
The concrete surface had a light layer of concrete dust on it
through which the first run group cleared an 8-ft. wide swath each morning.
I'm sure we'll hear/read about other aspects of this event from
people who were there and even from people who weren't. <G>
My own experience was generally positive but dealing with the
scales caised more than a bit of grief on several competitors, including
Frank Stagnaro in C Prepared and Jim Tikijian in D Prepared. Frank's car
was 4 pounds under his minimum. He was assessed a two-second time penalty
and came back to win the class. Jim was about 25 pounds under in his 1098cc
Spridget and they gave him the slowest time in class plus a two-second
penalty.
After Pat's Sunday runs our Lotus 7A--packing over 210 additional
pounds of ballast!-- weighed in just one (1) pound over the minimum. Whew.
For my runs two run groups later I stashed five (5) pounds of tools (Silver
tape and nylon ties held it together) into the back of the car. When
weighed the car was now at 1212 pounds. Where the other six pounds came
from is a mystery. Jim's penalty moved me to second in DP, only 5.5 seconds
behind Chris Kannan. The "equalizer Ballast mandated by the SEB certainly
did its job. Chris Kannan loaned his class-winning Honda to Paula Whitney
who was second after Saturday but she felt ill on Sunday and didn't drive.
Jeanne's Wienies provided/sold hot dogs and ran out! The Jesus
Villarreal dinner party under the wing of an air museum's aircraft was a
great social gathering.
--John Kelly
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