April/May Solo 08

TNT

We’re off and running in 2008 for the solo program. The season started off with a very cold and rainy test n tune at Cooper Stadium. Even so, the turn out was good, most people were prepared for the weather, and when we took a break at lunch everyone decided to go on with afternoon runs to get some more seat time in. I want to thank all the corner workers who stood out in that rain. Aside from the inclimate weather, we got in a lot of runs and I think most everyone had fun.

Points 1

Our first points event of the year took place out at National Trails this year. I showed up at 5 minutes after 7 and was greeted by a long line of cars waiting to get in the gate! I felt like a marathon runner as the crowd cheered as I made the sprint to the front gate to get it unlocked! Mr. Reddy was kind enough to document the moment for posterity! The weatherman had predicted dire weather for the day and we feared for the worst. Once we were set up and going it seemed to clear up and we hadn’t even had a drop of rain. I remember just a few years ago when only the top race teams in the world had weather radar at their beck and call. Now I had 3 or 4 people with handheld blackberries pulling up the radar every hour to check on the situation for me! For most of the day we got away with dry runs! The weather seemed to go just a few miles around us with severe storms. Our last run group wasn’t so lucky. A soft, cold drizzle settled in. Just my luck as the karts ran in that heat and we didn’t have time to change to rains. It was an interesting drive on slicks but considering the severe weather in the area we were just happy to get the event in. One funny aspect of the event was that a local trucking company must have been using the same radio frequency we were on that day. At one point we heard them talking about enjoying listening to the races at Trails!

Drivers School

Right after that event, I left for another work trip to Korea. Our drivers school was held the Saturday I returned and I showed up after a couple hours sleep and being awake for over 29 hours. Tonya Smith had the instructors organized, grouped with students, and most everything was in place for the event. Then the weather turned on us again! We had a constant cold rain for most of the morning. The students and instructors soldiered on through it. Just before noon, we saw lightning and called everyone in off course. Again the weather radars came out as we watched where the front was going to go. We decided to go ahead with a long lunch break during the rain delay because we could see that the edge of the front was at the west outer belt and would clear our location in about 30 minutes. Of course that last 30 minutes had some of the coldest and hardest downpours of the entire morning! Several people decided to give up for the day. (I don’t blame them. Its hard to have fun when you are cold and soaked!) Fortunately the majority stuck around, the sun came out, and the afternoon runs were at least on a drying race course.

Points 2

That evening we swapped the track around for the next day’s race. I want to thank Neva, Aaron, Simi, Tim, Zsolt and the others who have been coming out as part of the new course set up team. You guys are doing great and its good to see new people getting involved with the club! We have also received several compliments on the new course designs as they have a new style and feel to them.

At about 2:00AM that night something caught up with me and I became violently sick. I seriously considered going to Urgent care, but by 5:00 I had improved to just feeling awful and only getting sick periodically and not constantly! There was no way I could make it through an event. Tammy gathered up the registration stuff and radios and the boys resigned themselves to the fact that they would not be able to race. As usual, our chiefs stepped right up. The event ran smoothly in beautiful weather. Tonya Smith and the rest of the chiefs made sure everything ran as usual. Everyone got 5 runs and would have had more, but a couple of mechanical break downs slowed the event just enough to eliminate fun runs. Tim Rhode even ran up to the house, picked up Drew’s kart and the boys and took them back down to race! My thanks to Tim, Craig Butt, and Doug Turner who helped out the boys that day so they could race their karts. That was above and beyond the call of duty.

Points 3

For points event number three, I was getting very frustrated with the weather man. Once again scattered rain showers were predicted for the whole day. Sunday morning I got up and sure enough it was raining at the house as I loaded up. By the time the sun started coming up and we were on our way to OSU, the sun broke out! While the weather didn’t delay us, our generator did. We have been nursing the blue generator for some time with a broken pull start system. Sunday the spark died! We were not sure if it was the stator or coil, but no amount of work resulted in starting it. The red generator came out and we went to start it and again nothing! I’m not sure when the last time we ran that generator occurred, but I don’t think we have used it since I have been chair. It may have been dead for some time and we just didn’t know it. Kind of defeats the purpose of carrying a back up! After asking everyone within reasonable driving distance if they had a generator we could borrow, we finally concluded that we would need to go get a new one. After a quick trip to Home Depot we were up and running again and should be good for another 5-10 years. Speaking of back ups, Simi Ritch has volunteered to help me with the solo chair duties. Several changes at work recently may have me doing more international travel and my recent illness on an event weekend convinced me that I needed to get some help in place. Simi has stepped up and will be a valuable addition to the team. Towards the end of the first run group the weather seemed to be clouding up and looking ominous. I backed the runs off to 4 trying to allow everything to move a bit faster after the generator delay and giving as many people runs in the dry as possible if the rain moved in. As it turned out, the clouds went on by and we ran the entire event in the dry. We practiced audit sheet recording at the event which helped me learn a couple things in preparation for the GASS event and overall I feel we are ready to host our guests from out of town. Several points races are already very tight in our third race of the season! The Subaru and Honda guys are going at it, the new Street mod class with street tires is getting good participation, and Tim, Neva and I have some great new competition from Craig Butt, Brian Hoover and Doug Turner in F125. I’m really looking forward to the rest of the season.

2008, May