What an exciting day. Today at Candlestick, was the second in the San
Francisco Region SCCA Solo 2 series. The course was wet and woolly!
Make that muddy. Today there were 5 drivers in two cars in E Prepared.
Last years EP SFR champion Gene? in his Fiat 124 coupe, a friend of
his, named Ron? that was runner up last year in SFR EP and champion in
another class in 98, and another new driver in their Fiat. Then there
was Daniel and I in Sadie. First run, Daniel was fastest with a high 44.
something, but picked up 2 cones. I was next to last with a 47.
something. Second round, everyone 'cept me was in the low 44.s Third
round I went for it and posted 43.97? and took first, only to have Ron?
in the Fiat
spin through the finish lights with a 43.5 something. I ended up second
again, last years champ, Gene was third, Daniel fourth. It turns out
that the first events' EP winner was an OSP car, and one of the other
drivers is trying to get those results changed. What was exciting for me
was that this old guy beat the young hot shoe, AGAIN!! Also,
that when I left the event I had the 6th fastest time of the day up
through 7 of
the 8 run groups, maybe 150 entries. Last event I was 34th of 281
entries. Another really exciting thing happened was that there was an
old guy like me who kept looking at Sadie, really scrutinizing her.
Didn't say anything as we were getting her ready. "Old Datsun roadster"
he finally said. I said "yeah, great little car." He noticed that I'm running
solexes, said "to bad you don't have SUs I have a set of jets and manual
with charts and info explaining how to set them up" or something like
that. I said I do have
SUs, I just put the Solexes on this year, I'd be happy to take them off
his hands. I gave him a quick rundown on Sadies history. He pulled out
his drivers license which identified him as Steve Fuerlhelm. I exclaimed
Wow, are you related to Duane?" "My dad" was his response. I again
exclaimed "Wow!! your dad was the first owner of this car!!, it was one
of his Factory race cars for '68." He remembered those days of the
roadsters and his dad and
uncle Dan Parkinson racing them. Steve was down from Oregon on a
business trip and staying in the RV park just west of Candlestick Park. He
heard the roar of motors and came over to check out the noise. He had no
idea that SRL 701 was going to be there. In my excitement, I forgot to
get his phone number and address.DARN!!
But he also told me is dad is still alive, that his dads last racing
effort was a Z powered airplane fuel tank that went over 200 mph at the
salt flats. Steve said he himself raced rally cars, but
after "flying" a few times and with the how expensive that was getting,
decided to retire from that.
David Pina
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