[Fot] My favorite memory of Jack...

[Dennis DeLap]

I have been lucky these last few years to have spent some time working with Jack in his garage.  My cold winter drives to Geneseo would always be rewarded with the best shop talk and Triumph stories.  For some reason Jack agreed to let me work with him in building my first tractor motor - I think that he could tell that I really wanted to know how it was done.  Eventually he even taught me how to port a head.  Garage time with Jack is truly my favorite memory.  
  I'll really miss knowing that he is out there.
   
  Dennis
  

Tony Drews <tony at tonydrews.com> wrote:
  One of the things we'll be doing at the visitation is having folks 
write down a favorite memory of Jack. It occurs to me that many of 
you can't attend but would like to participate in this portion of his 
celebration. You may even find it cathartic (I find that reading and 
responding to the messages about him is cathartic for me).

If you'd like, reply to me with your favorite memory of Jack. I'll 
make sure that the whole family gets to read all of these. If you 
feel the desire, you can cc the FOT list, but that's not necessary.

I have a couple that I can share:
At IRP, when we were sharing old blue, Jack told me that turn 2 could 
be taken flat out. After the next session, I was explaining to him 
how much I had to work at it to keep the car on the track when I took 
turn 2 flat out. His response: "You're taking 2 flat out? I've not 
done THAT yet in THIS car..." - apparently he was explaining the 
hypothetical... We would push each other quite a bit that way - one 
of us would find a driving trick and couldn't wait to share it with 
the other one of us.

At Road America, when I was still sorting out the Red Rocket (my 
car), I had just removed the muffler in my quest for more top end 
power. When we got out on the track for the race, we were totally 
equal in handling and power. I believe that it was a 6 lap race. We 
were within a couple of car lengths of each other for almost the 
entire race. One of us would draft by the other one on the front 
straight, and then on the back straight (from turn 3 to turn 5), we'd 
reciprocate. I passed him like 5 times and he passed me 5 or 6 times 
in the 6 laps. I went through turn 5 and 6 with Jack on my inside at 
least once, tires squealing, inches apart, and I may have returned 
the favor. On the last lap, I managed to pull ahead for the run 
through the kink, he couldn't draft by me until the start / finish 
line - I had finally bested him! However, exiting Canada corner my 
throttle linkage broke (I had been pushing down on the gas pedal with 
all of my might throughout the race), and he passed me to finish 
ahead. We always talked about this as the highpoint of our racing 
careers. Racing inches apart, sliding through the corners on those 
wonderful Vintage TD's, totally trusting each other, man - it doesn't 
get any better than that.

- Tony

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