The Doghouse gang gathered for another monthly race, and it was a blast. Great action and, to be truthful, much faster than I believe most of us had anticipated.
This month, we landed on the idea of racing older flexi chassis. The result was the use of several Flexi-2s and a couple of Turbo-Flexes. Some were beyond fast; closer to being ballistic.
We were missing a couple of our usual members on this Saturday. Attending a funeral stole one of our racers, a broken rib sidelined another, and a third was performing a very kind deed for someone in need. (None of us could fault him for such a priority.)
We still had a good group gathered for the day:
(L to R: Richard Sylvester, Dr. Marty Cwiakala (seated), Dan Parker, Bob Arneson, Allen Evans, Jim Beasley)
We always have a great time running our monthly race. We typically choose a type of chassis & body a few weeks in advance so we can make some preparations. For the "retro flexi" race, we also chose to use stock car bodies -- nothing with massive downforce:
(Front row: Dan, Allen; Back row: Richard/Marty, Jim, Bob, Marty/Richard)
FYI, Marty borrowed a car from Richard for this race, so each used one car for one race, then Marty and Richard swapped and used the other car for two races. Both of them ran really well, too.
But the man of the day was, by far, Dan Parker. Dan is one of those wide-open racers. His cars have one speed and one speed only. Today, that speed was "amazing." By the time we had completed all three races, Dan's best time occupied the "track record" spot on each lane. Seriously, the car was hooked up.
Although we ran three races with each driver running a heat in each of the four lanes, we only used the two highest lap totals, adding them together for the final totals:
Sure, Dan topped Richard by only two laps, but as stated earlier, Dan has one speed when he races. That also means he crashes a bit more than most. But the car was, overall, so well hooked up and fast that it didn't matter. Dan ran the better race and topped the boards.
We congratulate Dan on running a great race this month. It's been a while since he's occupied the top spot in the winner's circle. It's great to see him back where he belongs...temporarily.
Next month, we plan to run our JK F1/Indy cars. They're also fast and handle great, so lap totals are expected to be outrageous. We haven't decided if we'll run three races with three-minute heats or just two races with five-minute heats. But we have time to decide.
That concludes another month of racing at The Doghouse. We had a blast. You're welcome to join us if you're ever in the neighborhood on lovely Lake Murray, South Carolina. Until next month...
