Fubar, continued from Page 2
I was running my last set of year 2000 tires on the car, and they were very slow to come up to temperature on the smooth RA surface. Meanwhile, almost 50 Formula Mazdas were all over me like the proverbial cheap suit, and I didn’t have much opportunity to re-learn the circuit while focusing on my mirrors at every corner. The car ran fine but I was slow, so after the session we picked up three new Goodyears from Bob Lybarger and consigned the old ones to the throwaway pile. We mounted the harder 430 compound tires and had car checklisted in plenty of time to play nine holes at the Elkhart course, get a home-cooked meal at our Osthoff room and make it back to Siebkens for Jaeger call.
If the weather Friday was good it was even nicer Saturday, and we made the long trek down to the false grid to our computer assigned slot in qualifying, 5 cars from the rear of the 81 car field. By the time we were waved on track the first cars on track were already passing us into turn 1, and the session for me was an unending series of missing braking and turn-in points as 2-3 FMs divebombed virtually every corner. I never got a decent lap, and at the end of 25 minutes of frustration left the track only to be paged on the loudspeakers to report to the Stewards at Black Flag. This I did, and was told that T & S was getting only intermittant returns from my new $265 transponder, even though it apparently worked fine throughout Friday’s session. Knowing nothing of the details of the black flag deal, my old buddy track announcer Greg Creamer came to my defense, but speculated that I had pulled some no-no on track. I couldn’t have passed under yellow as I didn’t pass anyone all day and had actually dropped back
a spot from my number 75 starting position on the preliminary grid. I obtained the transponder test box from Tech and found no problem with my set. We shimmed the transponder out to shoot at a more straight angle at the track and packed it in for day 2. My son had also completed a long second day working as a go-fer for Lars Lindell and his dozen shop prepared SRFs, so we stopped up at his room for a quick cocktail before meeting Chuck Snyder and family at 27 Stafford in Plymouth for dinner. Chris was almost too tired to report to Siebkens. I say "almost" as all the usual suspects were there, but I didn’t see either Tom Kendall or David Hobbs, so was out of there before midnight.
"Last Chance" Sunday morning qualifying showed T & S getting almost no return from transponder, and another page for me to meet with Stewards Ed Ozment and Ken Patterson. "Big" Ed O. (who has put on a couple pounds since leaving the Cities and was recently assigned his own zip code) informed me that the few times they recorded during the session would be thrown out and I was on double secret probation. It really didn’t matter anyway, as I was no quicker even with my best set of tires, but I biked down to T & S and Ken Patterson’s son came up to our paddock and checked out my transponder installation, which he agreed looked good. I dropped the transponder so low it was almost dragging on the track and began planning for another "tail end Charlie" Sprints start. What the heck, the thirty cars in front of me only included 3 former National Champions. It was rumored Bruce May would have shown up but his transponder was delayed in shipment. Other LOL qualifiers in our group included FM: Matt Downs-8,
Fubar, continued on page 6
The Tonneau is the official publication of the Land O’ Lakes Region of the Sports Car Club of America. Opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Land O’ Lakes Region, its members, officials, or board of directors. Letters to the editor are always welcome. The Tonneau staff reserves the right to edit letters for length.
Editorial staff
Editor 'N Chief
Lois Bjelke
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New Brighton, MN 55112
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Lynn Anderson
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Email: Kellison-FV@juno.comTonneau On-Line Publisher
Tom Fisk
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Contributing Editors:
Dick Dickinson
Tony (FUBAR) Foster
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Harvey West
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Tonneau On-Line August 2001
Page 4
Copyright 2001, Land O'Lakes Region Last revised: March 13, 2003
