Now that it is probably snowing outside, it must be time to conclude the report on our final road racing event of the 20th Century. Just before I forwarded last month’s article I received reports that Brainerd was mentioned by a former Russian KGB agent as the location of a buried stash of arms and ammo. I’ve been unable to confirm these reports, but it makes sense to me. Russian agents intent on creating social unrest and citizen based revolution would cut off the Minnesota lakes area from the general population. Crazed walleye fishermen would then run amok in the Twin Cities in their rusty pickups with toppers shooting at police and burning government buildings. Either that, or when the heat was turned up on Russian spies in the US, they would retreat to set up a perimeter defense around Maddens. They could then eat buffet breakfasts and play golf until the Marines moved in on them, when they would drop their 5 irons and grab the AK-47s. In any event, the construction crews digging the foundation for the new motel at BIR better be careful they don’t trip off a 122 mm rocket. Speaking of the Colonel’s, checking in at the track represents a stark contrast in 1999 from a quarter of a century ago. Back then it was a beat up little cabin in Donnybrooke campground for Registration. Now there’s a palatial administration building where our old building once sat. Of course we couldn’t use that			facility, but there was a (temporary) trailer right by the (temporary) mud puddle with moderately dangerous (temporary) stairs where we could find the always friendly and efficient Registration folks, headed by Kathy Goettsch and Pat Lamon, trying their best to make do. They couldn’t get too comfortable, as the Region had to get our stuff out of the trailer by the end of the weekend. But LOL still manages to keep Registration open for the longest user-friendly hours in the Division. Why can’t Chicago keep R/A Registration open long enough to at least give the poor working stiff from Minnesota a chance of getting into the track before dark Friday night? With Labor Day ’99 falling on the latest possible date, the weather was once again a factor this year. Friday test day reportedly went well under warm sunny skies, but as I was flying into MSP from the west coast Friday afternoon there were ominous clouds building over the Dakotas and western Minnesota. Due to my being out of town the full week separating Road America from BIR, race prep at the Fubar shops consisted of a quick look under the hood and an even quicker change of gears in the Webster box. This was completed well after dark Friday night. By the time the Swift was back in the trailer and all equipment stowed, I had time for a quick 3 hours snooze before the 4:30 alarm went off. We were pelted with intermittent showers on the drive north but real rain didn’t start until about 5 minutes before the open wheel group was headed for the grid for Saturday morning warm-up. The wet track kept all but a few loonies in the paddock. I made the loony list with a few cautious laps on my aged grooved Hoosiers, and the main straight presented the normal condition of an ice rink right after a Zamboni drove by. A Formula Mazda must have done about Fubar, cont. on page 3		LOL Board of Directors Doug Dill Home: (612) 925-1731 Steve Gingras Home: (612) 263-0739 T3sgingras@aol.com Norm Johnson Home: (612) 870-9503 Rallyboy@worldnet.att.com Mark LaBarre Home: (651) 407-7293 mlabarre@telepool.com Chad Lemmons Home: (651) 688-7976 Shannon Murphy Home:(612) 798-3575 John Niemi Home: (651) 766-8027 Greg Youngdahl Home (507) 332-0297 gregy@deskmedia.com LOL Web Page: http://www.scca-lol.org

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Tonneau On-Line	November 1999	Page 2
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