Fubar, continued from page 2 a dozen 360s, but managed to stay off the wall. (Ed. note: The official count was 17!) As the following sessions came and went the temperature went up and the track gradually dried, as a few beams of sunlight broke through the clouds while the humidity increased. The stage was definitely set for a round of late afternoon showers ahead of the cold front now moving through western Minnesota.
We weren’t disappointed, as just before FF qualifying, black clouds gathered over Gull Lake and fairly intense rain soaked the back section and made the rest of the track treacherously damp. The car was on jacks until about 10 minutes of qualifying had passed and the rain slowly subsided. We then put on one of the few new sets of Goodyear slicks in the free world and set out to find the dry line. The search was futile, as after tiptoeing down the straightaway for 3 cautious circuits, the rain started in again and I came back into the pits along with most of the 14 car field, some giving up and heading back to the paddock. Then with maybe 10 minutes left the sun actually broke through so we headed back onto the track. As I tried to get up to speed, both Ray Lecuyer (who had stayed out the whole session) and Dave Hopple blew by me and I watched them run through turn 2 at almost full speed throwing huge rooster tails of spray but amazingly not spinning into the woods. Virtually all the quickest laps were set right at the end of the session with the exception of Jerry Szykulski who was 4th fastest right before the mid-qual rain broke out. Don Lyddon nipped Lecuyer for pole with Hopple a very close third, while the rest of our group was spread out well behind in time. This was not fun, and I pulled into the post session weigh-in line giving serious consideration to giving up on
the driving schtick. The only way down the most treacherous drag strip is straight down the middle of the track being verrry gentle on the gas, or you will end up pulling your broken car and bruised body of of the concrete walls, feeling a lot poorer. After the short Friday night and a real long day I was totally beat, so after the traditional LOL free dinner plus a couple cool drinks, we were back at the AmericInn for total collapse. Sunday dawned cool but mercifully dry, and a brisk breeze out of the northwest gave promise to record-setting wind aided lap speeds. The open wheel warm-up went well, and although I didn’t get to run with any other Fords, I saw impressive numbers on the tach turning in for turn 2 as the wind pushed the Fubar engine to some unreal rpm. Unfortunately, as we went over the car afterward, I discovered that for the third straight BIR weekend I had cracked another front brake rotor, this one a brand new Campbell Motorsport piece drilled by A & B Machining. This was not good, but most fortunately Jeff Gadbois just happened to have a matched pair of rotors in his spares box, so we set about changing both fronts. About this time Duane Wagner happened by on his rounds of the paddock and took a quick look at our Swift. Duane is a very quick study on racing equipment and he immediately pointed out not only the half dozen major flaws of which I was aware, but also another 5 or 6 I never even thought about. In the midst of all this I had to dash up to the tower to catch the first 2 National races so I could send something realistic to SportsCar, but by my return Duane had helped Chris and crew get our car ready to run while belaboring the obvious - it was time for a serious rebuild of our Swift. Duane offered his assistance in between his engineering work on the Polaris motorcycle.
Fortunately the Varnum family had
kept a folder up to date with all results sheets neatly tabulated, so doing the SPORTSCAR deal was much easier. Not only that, but after the event they mailed me the few sheets I was missing plus a stamped and addressed envelope to SPORTSCAR! The Vintage race saw 5 cars under the two minute mark with Colorado’s Gary Aschwega in a Winkleman leading Gerry Tussing and Rich Stadther to the checker. Bob Youngdahl had the top finish in closed wheel in his Elva Courier. In National Race 1 both AS top finishers had set the first of many lap records for the day. Randy Van de Loo missed qualifying, but made an impressive charge through the field in his AS Camaro, until a big spin in turn 10 on the last lap cost precious time and left him 5th in AS. Any drama in Race 2 and FC was centered on the runner-up position, as Steve Thomson was continuing his dominance of the class with a lap record on Saturday set without the tailwind. He then ran away with the overall and class win on Sunday, while lowering his previous race record by almost a half second. Both John Hogdal and Bill Wiedner were running the harder compund Hoosiers, and they were slow coming up to temperature on the very cool track. A slippery spot at turns 7-8 put Hogdal off course the first lap and Wiedner wound up almost 4 seconds behind Steve completing the first circuit. By the second lap the gap was almost 7 seconds, as I asked Scott Gates working Thomson’s radio on top of the tower how he was keeping the driver motivated. Hogdal recovered to win a race long dice with Wiedner, who was also worried about noise meter readings, but secured the CenDiv FC championship with third place with Gerry Kraut 4th. In FMazda Dale Vanden Bush also went off at turn 8 on lap 1 and handed the early lead to Brian Snyder, son of neighbor Chuck, and commuting in from Santa
Fubar,
cont. on page 4
Tonneau On-Line November 1999
Page 3
Copyright 1999, Land O'Lakes Region Last revised: November 5, 1999
