Sunday, June 15, 2008

Chalk up another win for Team Allstars

On Fathers Day, we have a Championship race scheduled. Jason takes the time off to spend a quality day with his father. I figure it's just me by myself. Given that I had to drop my family off at the airport before the race, I headed straight to the Speedway to make sure that I'd have time to walk the course before going to pick up the Civic.

While I'm there, Sebastian doesn't have a car and asks if he and Shauna can drive the car. Since Jason isn't here, it's an opportunity for me to go head to head against Sebastian, so I say yes and I make it very clear that he's not to hold back. If he can win, he is to go for it.

I do my walk with a couple of people tagging along for the course analysis. Then I head off to pick up the Civic. After that, I return to 'chill' in the heat and try to study for my mid term on Monday night.

Just before lunch, Tom Berry comes to see if Lisa can drive the civic also. Both Ken and Ekstrand are no-shows, so she doesn't have a ride. With the heat and potential competition with Sebastian, I was concerned about the tires overheating. I said it would be fine if she didn't mind taking her runs after both of us were done. That was fine, so now we have three drivers in the same heat.

We go out for the lunch break course walk and Chuck Fowler comes along for the walk. I've been looking to walk with him for a while now. We go through the course and discuss lines. Hopefully he is all set.

Finally, it's time to run. Tom Berry's family comes to serve as pit crew to water the tires for us. We have a group of people around the car - Tom, Lisa, Marshall, Christine, and Shauna. It's nice having a group of people around, but I miss Jason not being around.

Sebastian goes out first and comes in with a 69+. I take my first run and come in with a 67.2 +1 and I didn't see the finish line, so I didn't brake until way past the finish line and lock up sliding between cones after the finish - but I don't hit any! I chuckle to myself because I think I got away with it, but later they announce that I have a cone on the first run.

Sebastian doesn't go any faster on the second run and it looks ugly. I make another run and come back dirty again. I'm still in second place after second runs. Now we are up for third runs and Sebastian stays in the 69's. All I have to do is stay clean and I can win. I go make my run with an emphasis on staying clean. I start to get late in the slalom and back off to keep the car under control. I already know this run is going to be slower. It looks like Sebastian didn't bring his A game today and I end up managing an ugly 68.0 to win the class, putting me 1.1 seconds in front of Sebastian.

It looks like Chuck also manages to place 2nd in class. I think that's the highest he has placed to date.

This is a good day to celebrate - 17 years of marraige, Father's Day, a win in STS, buddies doing well as a result of help with the course walk.

Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there that may read this.


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