21 replies to this topic

[Tex]

There's so many thoughts, so much to say... TOO much to say, I'm sure I'll forget someone or something.

To begin with, I have to echo everyone's sentiment by thanking Mike and Jackie for their hospitality and patience with a bunch of yahoos like us. I never saw Mike tell Jackie to do something because she was already doing it, and I never heard her complain or saw her frown. Mike worked around the clock, LITERALLY, to get prepared for the racing to begin on Friday.

I was fortunate enough to be his and Jackie's guest (along with Howie and Noose) at their house in Downer's Grove. I think it was after 2 AM Friday morning when Mike finally drove me back to his house (from the track), Howie following in his car. I drank half a beer and conked out. I was awakened around 6 AM by Mike walking through my room on his way to the garage, saying he's "just come home to get something" and he was going right back... to the track... where he'd RETURNED after depositing Howie and myself after 2 AM! So, he'd done an all-nighter, after getting only a couple hours sleep the night before, and continued on until all of Friday's racing was over and done around 3am Saturday morning... up around 7 AM Thursday morning straight through to almost 4 AM Saturday. Then back at the track early (later?) Saturday morning around 9 AM, going until the F1 race was over around 3 AM... again. Sunday was a blessing, with only the Can-Am race on the King, finishing around 5 PM. Unreal. MAN, what a grind.

Sunday evening, sitting on the front porch at Mike's drinking beer with Mike, Jackie, Noose, Howie, Ralph Thorne, and Jobiwan, we were being entertained by the lightning in a thunder storm. I turned to look at Mike... he was sitting in his chair... out like a light.

I can't finish this tonight... going to bed. More tomorrow evening after work.

[Pablo]

Tex met and exceeded his goal of being competitive!! I was playing catch-up to him all weekend.

It was great pitting next to you, Tex.

[Tex]

Catch up? CATCH up?! Catch up, hell! It was I trying to catch up to YOU!!! LOL.

It was good racing with you, Pablo; if I could race against you regularly, it'd make me a better driver. I NEED to get better before "next time".

[Tex]

And I TOLD you I'd forget someone... Matt Bruce. Sorry, Matt... no excuse. Matt was on Mike's front porch Sunday evening also, before he had to leave to catch his flight.

Matt, I would like to have heard some more about your powerboat racing days!

[Cheater]

LOL, Tex. That is just Mike's normal Sano routine.

I think it was at Sano I that a bunch of us went to a 24-hour restaurant after locking up the raceway Sunday night. We had a table of ten or twelve and were a pretty loud bunch in a nearly empty place. It didn't take too long before Mike had his head down on his plate snoozing away... the noise we were making didn't seem to bother him at all!

[Tex]

Like I said before, I'm sure I'll leave names out, so I'll apologize now. Nothing personal, just got CRS(Can't Remember S$#t). Pablo. John Miller. Nelson Swanberg. Ken Bryan. Jack Beers. Guillermo. Eric Balicki. WesP. A.J. Cap'n Andy. Keith. Ray Price. Dave C. Bill Fullmer. Bernie. Steve Levitsky. Rob Hanson. Mike Galasso. Hard racin' gents all. When you travel a long way for a race, you REALLY want to make it worth your while and throwing away a position really hurts. Keith Brown nipping at my heels in the flat track F1 B-main. Ray P. and Jerry Kulich 3 laps ahead and behind me in the C-Main for the JK spec race. Tied with Rob Hanson for 3rd in the B-Main, 2 laps from the moveup. Two laps behind Wes and one lap behind Pablo in the F1 B-Main on the King track. What I'm trying to say is that, even though it's not the A-Main, we're all scrappin' as best we can. I enjoyed a measure of success previously unknown to me. But that wears off quickly and you start to think about what you DIDN'T accomplish and WHY. I missed a couple moveups because I drove poorly. I yanked my car from a race 'cause a design flaw was threatening to adversely affect the race of others; gotta make some changes. I realize that my infrequent visits to my local track(s) is partially to blame for my poor driving. Pound out the laps. Laps, laps and MORE laps. I thought I was better prepared for the King races than the flat track races, but it turned out the opposite. EVERYone has driven King tracks while not as many have driven flat tracks. Kyle Stokes(owner of Ranger Raceway in Garland, Texas) let me put in some laps on his flat track just days before it was disassembled and turned over to it's new owner. Those practice laps were invaluable; thanks, Kyle. Thursday night, actually the wee hours of Friday morning, I put in 300+ laps on the red lane of the flat track and 300+ laps on the black lane. Laps, laps, and MORE laps. I'd get in a rut of 6.2's and 6.1's when I'd turned some 5.8's already. I'd tell myself I wasn't going to get off that lane until I got back down to the 5.8's again. Did it. Every time I'd return from a break, the same thing... can't seem to match the times I got down to previously. But I wouldn't leave that lane until I DID get back down to the previous times. I think it's for this reason.... laps, laps, laps, laps, laps and sticking with it until I got my times back down, that I did as well as I did on the flat track. I didn't do this on the King track and it showed. I'd done some decent laps at Dallas Slot Cars not long before coming to Da Sano, but the two King tracks are different enough that I'd lulled myself into a false sense of security, thinking my DSC lap times would make me competitive at Da Sano. If I use my lap times as a comparison, I'd say that DSC's King is about 4 tenths faster than Mike's track. This made me 4 tenths SLOWER at Mikes than what I thought I'd be.... very deflating. Now that I'm back, I can see that I need to visit my local tracks more frequently and pound out laps, a LOT of laps. The end result will hopefully be slightly faster laps times and, more importantly, fewer offs. I'd like to also thank Mike Barnett, another local DFW racer, for the use of a ProSlot motor for the King track races. It was a GREAT motor; he'd only broken in the brushes and sent it off for a refurb and it sat sealed in a Proformance motor box ever since. Unfortunately, my inexperience with the motor led me to not utilize it as effectively as I could have. It took me a while before I dialed out some brakes, and then more brakes, and then finally dialing out ALL the brakes.... and had NO problem on red in the deadman. Until I dialed out all the brakes, I was checking up short unnecessarily, getting NO coast at all. With all the brakes dialed out, I think I got smoother and picked up a tenth or so. But it was too late to do me much good. Oh well, lessons learned. I came, I saw, I did good, I did bad. Hopefully, I learned something.

[Tex]

Here's some rather grainy pics I took. No one you haven't already seen.

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[Tex]

A couple more........

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[Tex]

Plenty of pics still to come..........

Greg, why bother resizing them.... the website seems to do it all by itself(?).

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[Tex]

Dos mas.........

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[Tex]

zwei mehr.....

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[Tex]

ran out of foreign languages..... two more

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[Tex]

guess what? uh-huh........

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[Tex]

like Noah's ark, two by two........

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[Tex]

I tried posting the pics without any snappy patter..... wouldn't let me....

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[Tex]

we're gettin' there......

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[Tex]

gettin' near the end.....

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[Tex]

almost.........

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[Tex]

aaaannnnndddddd................

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[Tex]

th...th...th... that's all, folks!

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[Bill from NH]

Nice photos Tex! Not grainy at all, if you look at the pegboard hook holes.

[Ron Hershman]

Grainy pics are better than no pics....thanks for taking and sharing Richard