Cheap Date

[Greg Amy]

Can't give you the details on all the races, but it seemed there was a higher number of flatbeds and crashes this weekend.

Tom Kelly comprehensively compressed the front end of his ITB Golf via the T2 wall; got his bell rung but he's fine (not so the car). An SSM (or SM2?) car did a similar maneuver near a bit upstream - this time the driver's side smacked flat against the wall after a tank slapper - and he was taken away in the ambulance for more checks. Again, last I heard, bell rung/driver fine/not so car. I saw Rob Thiele on the hook/flatbed at least twice, and I got flat-towed home once due to an ignition problem*.

Overall, another great event. Weather was absolutely fantastic, comraderie unsurpassed, and they even had a killer BBQ in a large tent in the campsite area. If you weren't there, you missed a good one!

Oh, as an epilogue, 9/11/11 was spent racing at New Hampshire with ~200 of our "closest friends"; a well-attended autocross was happening in one of the track's parking lots; a loud and obnoxious drifting session was going on in another parking lot, with crap cans tire screeching, smoking, popping/banging, and hammering off the rev limiters; and down the road in yet another NHMS outer parking lot they were having a soapbox derby. Were you at NHMS, you'd not find the automotive/motorsports community sulking around and feeling nostalgic and generally all bad for itself.

As Dick Patullo put it: "America, f**k yeah! I LOVE this country!"

GA

* Car died going through T3 during Saturday AM qually. With Dan's Sheppard's help we nailed it down to "no spark" (even though, somehow Dan managed to shock himself in the process...) Two car parts store trips later - and a new cap, rotor, ignition control module, and coil; probably was the ICM - we had it fired up for Saturday's PM race. Problem was, I didn't know that when you put the ECU into "timing mode" (via the computer), if you do not manually take it out of timing mode before you shut the car off it stays, even when you cycle the key. I ran Saturday's race with only 16 degrees total timing and was getting passed my Miatae at the start....again with Dan's expert help we diagnosed it, fixed it, and I started Sunday's AM race in 21st of ~40...and was P5 by T1...