Gatorade
200 / Darlington Speedway Weekend Diary
Darlington
– Thursday, August 29th.
Just pulling up to the track makes the hair on the back
of your neck stand straight up. We pull through the gate
onto the track. To the left is Turn 2 standing above us;
to the right the back stretch looks like it goes on forever
hard into Turn 3. Fifty-three years of racing on this old
lady in black – the list of great and not-so-great
drivers is too long to list.
We
get our spot, park the hauler and unload the car. Our garage
stall is next to the template stall so we are the first
to get in line. We pass through with just a couple wacks
with a rubber mallet. Back in the stall we wait and make
some adjustments for the other ten or so inspections. A
small problem with seat belt placement, a couple small adjustments…
Here
comes Mike Harmen smiling like he hadn’t just a week
earlier had his car cut clean in half at Bristol. Thank
the man upstairs.
Did
I mention it’s raining the whole time?
Friday August 30th – Still raining.
A
few adjustments for practice that gets rained out. To the
qualifying set up. We pick our position – number 1.
Years ago that would be great: if qualifying got rained
out we would be on the pole for the race; in this modern
era we squeek in on points.
Still
raining.
Starting
field is set. We’re 42nd. Race day can’t come
fast enough. Still raining.
Saturday, August 31st – Rain.
We promise great hosting reseller for portals . guelph movers, toronto moving.
Back
through templates to the scales and heights – no problem.
Push the car to the back stretch – Pit Road –
and cover it up. Winston Cup practice gets started. The
rain has stopped for now. We start moving the tool box,
tires, Nitro tanks and all other things we need to Pit Road.
The race starts 2 hours late. They wave the green/yellow
flags. A bunch of laps under caution and then the Red Flag.
Raining again. We cover the car on Pit Road and wait.
A
fireman in our stall said Billy is “nice as pie.”
Race
starts again. Green flag crowd goes crazy. Hard into turn
one – we’re racing. Billy says the car feels good.
A couple laps into it we’re only turning 7200 RPMs
– something’s not right. We lost a cylinder. Bill
stays on the track as long as we can; laps mean points.
Nascar says we’re too slow. Our day is done.
The
car is still in one piece unlike 70 percent of the other
cars that pull off the track after the race.
The
track keeps its name for today, “Too Tough to Tame.”
We’ll be back.
