Fubar, continued from page 4 eventually disqualified Meister, who trailed Hopple by a couple seconds at the checker. I have no comment on the protest as all that action occurred with me already close to 10 seconds behind the lead group. The question was whether Lyddon was pushed off the track in turn one causing the spin that brought Roberts to grief. I do know that of all the places you can go off at BIR, the outside of turn one is at the top of the list of no-nos. I have been forced down into the bumps at the apex of turn 1, but have always left room or backed off to avoid going off the outside. We are in the racing game for points and trophies, and I’ve repaired enough damage to know the penalty for indiscretion at that highest speed spot on a high speed straightaway, let alone the real potential for bodily harm. Leave the wheel-to-wheel stuff for the slower corners. The controversy took the fun away from a fine drive by Dave Hopple and left RUNOFFs qualified Roberts wondering if or where he can find a ride.
One of the benefits of finishing out of the top 4 is avoiding impound, so I hustled out to turn 6 to catch the Vee/F500 race. By the time I got there they were already pulling Mike Vrchota off his position high-centered at the outside of the corner. Tom Edwards kicked Fred Edwards all around the track setting a new race record and winning F500 and overall by over half a minute. Bob Lybarger similarly dominated the FV field, as Mike and the rest of the opposition eventually took themselves out of contention. At this point in the day, I pretty much mentally checked out, as we went back to the trailer to clean up the debris and roll the car into the trailer. Kevin Hummel had spent most of the day working on his Vector FC and searching for reasons for the strange lack of power, and I hadn’t been much help. I confess that I to
tally lost track of the activity on track in the Mini Enduro race. Worse yet, in reviewing my volumes of result sheets, I find I misplaced those from the Enduro (although I’m sure the Varnums put them in the folder) so I can give no account of the race. This is a shame, as the event attracted the largest field of the day (nearly 30 cars) and is what grass roots SCCA racing is all about. One of these days I’m going to have to rent a ride in an IT car to see if I can manhandle it around the track. Another great LOL free spaghetti dinner followed by some go-karting down the road wrapped up the Sunday activities. By Monday morning the wind had switched to the south, bringing warmer temperatures but slowing straightaway speeds. The paddock was depleted by almost half, which is too bad as the Regional is always a fun event. Almost 20 Vintage racers took to the track and were led all the way to the checker by Doug Karon’s nifty Camaro. Doug was cracking off laps at such a rapid rate that the 25 minute timed race turned out to be the longest (13 laps) of the day. Gary Aschwega again led a trio of open wheeled cars including Brian Crombie (LeGrand) and Gerry Tussing (Titan) who finished about 10 seconds back. Group 2 was led by the FM of Ken DeNault flanked by Scott Hutchison, who had turned in a blistering 1:44.8 qualifying to lead all FCs and Jeff Meister’s Vector by over a second. The race went off in a fairly predictable pattern. DeNault ran away at the front while Bill Bergeron led the early going in FC until Steve Beck got around Bill on the third lap and led a close dice from then on to the finish. Bill set fast race lap on the final circuit to trail by about a half car length. Meister led Hutchison in a bold move around Chuck Snyder’s FM at turn 3 on the 5th lap, and he and Scott ran away in tandem, swapping the lead, with Jeff
in front the final 2 laps enroute to a redeeming win in FF. Jeff Gadbois (who had corrected electrical problems from the National) and I were stretched out in intervals behind the lead duo. My clumsy drive secured second in the LOL FF Championship that was won by Jim Nash while he was working on his house back in the Cities. Steve Jondal was unopposed in F500 after Richard Schmidt smoked his car in practice. Al Murray outdrove Bruce Drenth for a convincing CFF win and Don Erickson nipped Mike Baker in FV. Despite tires donated by Steve Thomson, parts loaned by Steve Beck, plus the helpful advice of a number of FC drivers, we were unable to figure out Hummel’s engine problem, and he ran well off the pace in FC but completed his second race. Two beautifully rebuilt FF Citations driven by Dan Bruggeman and Jerrod Lindquist were entered, with Dan coming to grips with his car in 7th, but Jerrod was a non starter due to drive train problems encountered in morning practice.
Race Group 3 fielded the biggest batch of cars in the various closed wheel classes, and was dominated by Mark Knepper’s record setting "Sheep Lie/Star Neva Sheep Breeders" SP-SSZ. Didn’t have a chance to ask Mark what the sheep were lying about (I’ve heard a story about talking animals) but his qualifying and race record setting times were no lie as he led crafty LOL vet Dick Kantrud to the checker by nearly 10 seconds. Rich Gardner also set a race mark finishing 3rd overall in his ITE winning Corvette, the only other car on the lead lap. In the final race Dave Kennedy completed perhaps the most successful weekend of racing for any driver, taking a flag to flag win in SRF with Gary Jensen a close second. Mike Gorman yielded driving duties to son Glenn who drove a nice race to 5th. So ended the 1999
Fubar,
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Tonneau On-Line November 1999
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Copyright 1999, Land O'Lakes Region Last revised: November 5, 1999
