What an exciting day of racing we had Saturday! Various reasons that I'll explain hereout.
Despite being a very hot summer day on the banks of Lake Murray in central South Carolina, we still had a great turnout, with a total of eight racers making it for this showdown.
(CW from front/center: Jay Pittman, Dr. Marty Cwiakala, Allen Evans, Richard Sylvester, Dan Parker, Bob Arneson, David Erickson, Jim Beasley)
For the first time in quite a while, we were joined by a longtime friend from our days of racing in Abbeville, Jay Pittman. Now that he's retired from full-time work, Jay and his lovely wife travel and just do, you know, retired stuff. it was great to have him with us again.
The car of choice for this month's competition? The JK Indy car -- one of the group's favorites. FYI, Jay had to purchase one just for this race. Prior to race day, he had not touched it yet, let alone get some track time under his belt with it. It was a totally new experience for him.
Also rejoining us was Allen Evans, who has been missing some of our gatherings while tending to a DIY project at home -- turning a Mazda Miata into an Exocet. Needless to say, he's got other things to do, but we're glad he chose to spend his Saturday with the gang.
Again, JK Indy cars, an exceptional way to spend the day at the track.
Front row: David, Bob, Jay, Dan; Second row: Allen, Marty, Jim; Back: Richard)
We chose to run two races with eight heats of three-minutes each. Each driver ran all four lanes for 12 minutes of track time per race, in rotation. After running both races, we chose the winner's best total from either of the two races.
On this day, it was Bob Arneson! Unless my memory fails me, I believe this to be the first time Bob has ever captured the top spot in one of our single-driver races. His car was fast; he was focused on the task at-hand; no one could do it better. Congratulations, Bob.
Here are the race totals:
Some of the drivers improved their totals in the second race, while others started strong and dropped a lap or two in the second race. But when you look at the totals, it was really fast, close racing.
Another exciting race is in the books at The Doghouse. For August, we have plans to use JK LMP bodies on the JK Indy chassis. Again, we expect fun racing, as these chassis handle really well and enable all of us to rack up the laps.
Until then, go race / have fun.
