July 23-24, 2005

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.

OK, maybe “worst” is an exaggeration. It was brutally hot all weekend, the Atlanta region was short on F&C staff on Sunday, and the Chattanooga contingent didn’t fare as well as usual in competition, but it could always have been worse.

Due to prior commitments, I didn’t make it to the track until mid morning Saturday. Joining me was a long time friend and Volkswagen enthusiast, Charlton Wiggins.

By the time we got there, we found Efren already having problems in the form of a failed timing belt tensioner, and Dave Hester hammering on the bottom of his car to ‘realign’ the safety loop that would contain his driveshaft if it were to let go. Dave eventually ‘fixed’ his problem but Efren couldn’t find the replacement part locally. He resigned himself to waiting until the next morning when his wife, Gema, could bring his spare from home.

Later in the day, Will’s brake master cylinder went out, causing him to smack a GT Lite Renault Le Car and ending qualifying for both of them. Luckily, all of Will’s body damage was easily repaired and the car was ready to be raced on Sunday. The Renault driver had his car back on the track on Sunday too.
 

2005 Races

November
   ARRC
July
   Road Atlanta
   Roebling Road
June
   Lowes
April
   Roebling Road
Feburary
   Road Atlanta
   Roebling Road

<< Older            Newer >>
 

Anthony Henderson, who was actually vying for his first outright win, was the next to suffer. His group was waved off on their first try at a green flag. During the first slow ‘race’ lap his brake pedal broke off!! Not a warm, fuzzy feeling, I’m sure! Fortunately, enough of the pedal shaft was left for him to limp back to the paddock and stop there. When we looked at the pieces, we could see that the pedal had been repaired before by brazing.

Saturday evening, Bill Perry mentioned that some of the corner workers had had enough of the heat and decided not to return on Sunday. Since I had most of my worker gear with me, I decided to check things out at the worker meeting Sunday morning. As I drove up to the meeting, my first thought was “are the flaggers already on station, or is that really all there is?” Yup, that was all there were. I’m told that my being there gave them the minimum legal number of workers to conduct a race.

I gotta say, I always feel appreciated when I work for Atlanta Flag Chief Stan Martin. He assigned me to station 8, which is the first station on the back straight. Since this is on a straight section of track, this station is usually a non-event for the driver. Not so for the workers, though! The enduro was the first race Sunday morning and the action started on the first green lap! So much happens in turn 7 that the workers there can’t always get the car numbers of the offenders before they are out of sight, so station 8 tries to take up some of that slack. Also, cars that can’t make it back to pits after one of those turn 7 incidents tend to stop at 8. Good thing we had two people so one could stay in communication with race control while the other attended to the driver!

Finally, by Sunday afternoon we were (almost) through the period of tribulations for our drivers. Efren’s wife brought the needed part for his car and they made their repairs during quiet hours. Dave Hester and Rusty White completed their group 4 race without incident as did Will, Efren and Vesa in group 6. The only remaining glitch was when Chuck’s car, for no apparent reason, lost power at anything above an idle. Though it started running right again within less than a lap, it still cost him a finishing position.

So many people helped this weekend that I’m not even going to try to list them for fear of leaving someone out. You know who you are, and, Thanks!!

-Art Thompson

Picture Gallery from this event
                           Photos by Linda Hester
 
  

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