So, what a great day Sunday was. Y'all want to hear about great people? Well, I tried to do this after Jacob's great trip to Daytona, and now I'm going to again try to mention everyone here again who supported Jacob and me this weekend. (Note about the stolen photos – they were all photographs, not ‘hero cards’, except two. This is going to be along list, but even then I know I will miss thanking or mentioning someone who made Jacob (and, well, yes, me too) smile this weekend. I need do this because, I just need to;

• Jan & Max; Bless you.
• Katie, Trudie, Kimberly, the team; I'm not really sure if Jacob knows how much you truly care about him. His father knows though.
• Andy S.; Thanks for helping to foster his passion for cars and design.
• Rick Howard; Thank you for taking your personal time to make sure we were okay this weekend, it's easy to see why the team supports your efforts the way they do.
• Jordan; happy 21'st birthday, hope you got a taste of Andy & Milka's champagne.
• Andy & Milka; you are two real people who know how to bring joy to a person. Jacob truly enjoys your friendship.

By car number;

# 01 & 02 CGR; I wish they would change the livery on one of the cars, they’re difficult to tell apart from a distance. I have never spent any time with the CGR teams or drivers. But I see other people who obviously are friends and fans and the team seems to treat them very well, as the Crawfords do us. So, it does make it hard to root against them when I see them willing to stop and talk to anyone who asks.

# 04 SGS Grease Monkey Porsche; Yes, one of the cars (03 or 04) was purchased from AASCO, the other is new. How do we know, the crew chief is Demitrious, of AASCO – Daytona fame! What a great surprise to see him there. He had done so much for Jake at Daytona, we met in turn 3 during the Cup race with a HUGE hug. Then we stood there together to watch Craig Stanton & David Murry win the Cup race. Very nice touch.

# 06 Corvette; Stay outta da way man!

# 09 Spirit of Daytona; the team has a young lady who appears to be a team manager type. Like Trudie Crawford is. I still don’t know her name but she is a very friendly person and always says Hi with a smile. I might beg for a deal on the 09 diecast just because of her. BTW – I still don’t like orange.

# 2 Citgo; I wore my new blue Citgo shirt. Damn if didn’t everyone else on the team and fans wear red or white on Sunday. Geez was that obvious. At least I had Jacob in his blue Maserati suit to keep me company!

# 4 Boss; Still the prettiest car out there! EFR is too cool. And his son Ian has been raised well, you can tell.

# 5 Multimatic; Muttlymatic, I liked that one. Gray is still ugly, even if you try to call it silver. Remember at the first test sessions when cars weren’t painted and lots of people didn’t like them? Same here. They need to send over someone from Action to decorate it though.

# 6 MSR; I didn’t see it after the wreck. Hope they had some Rx painkillers on hand for everyone. The car was very, very torn up. I said to Jacob when we saw the car in the paddock that I did not feel they would be able to fix the car before Barber, if they can afford to. It was major damage!

# 7 Pap-Parts; One of the lost photos was the door flying off at Watkins Glen with Shane Lewis at the wheel. It had not been signed, we were holding that for the autograph session. Reason is because Jacob already has a Shane signed special photo from Daytona, so there was no urgency here. Shane had Jacob sitting in the car at Daytona and has e-mailed several times. I feel hurt when people call him a twit. Sure am glad I’ve never done anything stupid and someone felt like calling me a twit. Gosh people, chill.

# 9 Mears Riley; I felt stupid walking up to the SpeedSource GA Cup cars and asking for Sylvan, only to have the guy answer, “I’m Sylvan”. That was Friday before Jake got there. I told him Jacob would be over to meet him on Saturday, but we never saw each other again. He really wanted to see the photo I had of the Chuck Goldsborough car and Sylvan’s car at Watkins Glen to sign. Oh well. And then, I forgot all about asking him about the DP. Drats.

# 10 SunTrust; That car looks mean. I saw Wayne Taylor approached by fans several times and he never turned them down. One of the stolen photos was signed by Max at Watkins Glen, but not by Wayne, so I did not have the need to ask.

# 18 Chase; I spoke with Robert briefly a couple times. He recognized me right away the first time and walked over with outstretched hand. I appreciate Robert and his efforts. I have to admit that when I saw him under the car after the first practice, it kind of reminded me the time I met Alan Kulwicki at Watkins Glen. They look just as happy working on the car as they do driving it. I heard over in the Crawford area that Milka was involved in Johnny Miller’s spin going into turn one, that Milka was being conservative and early braked ahead of Johnny, and he had to spin to miss her. I guess Milka was worried there for a while that Johnny was upset with her. But I didn’t sense that from him when I heard him talking about the incident. The Chase car still has a long way to go, but I wouldn’t give up on Robert. I wonder what he would think about the AK comparison? And another lost autograph request.

# 21 & 22 (& 16 too); The class of GT. Both cars and people! Boris Said is, by far, the greatest. Before the start of the Rolex race Jake & I walked past Boris on pit lane. I asked for him to pose for a quick photo with Jake. He stops, puts his arm around Jake, smiles, I push the button, and, NOTHING! Out of freakin’ film! No freakin photo. Thank goodness I could not hear what he said to Jake or what he was saying when he walked away. I did hear him mutter something, but I didn’t hear it all! Stupid father, I’m sure. If the #16 didn’t have their failure, whatever it was, it was going to be a PTG sweep of the podium, for sure. Boris’ autographed here card from Watkins Glen was one of the stolen items, I wanted to have Joey Hand add his.

# 23; Jacob’s description of the paint scheme – “a swimming pool on wheels”. Guys, get some new paint. Oh, and find an engine builder too. You build a great car, but need to get that GM powerplant figured out. Oh, and please get the Solara built, would you?

# 27; I really like the look of the Lista Doran. Another photo from Watkins Glen to be signed was stolen. Didier Theys was a main target for autographs the first time at a GA race. One of the names and people I knew from years ago. His previous autograph hangs in the office.

# 33 & 34; Guys, Jacob can drive a stick shift now – put him in! Dr. Stephen Earl is so funny! Those last three laps were described as “ice dancing”. His yellow victory lane Dunlop hat was singled for Jake. Glen Marquis, Dave Siebert, the whole team still consider Jacob part of them. And Jacob wore the Maserati fire suit all day Sunday, until we got home. The #33 is chassis #001. The #34 is chassis #005, the ‘bumblebee’. Jacob was hoping for more blue and less white on the car when he first saw it. (Me too). Plus this team has the most fun of anyone there. Jeff Segal, “The Kid”. Helps prepare the “the chariot” for Darius. If you go to a race, and want to see a proud crew chief, please go see Glen Marquis, you’ll be very glad you did.

# 36, 37, 38; Now there are three teams cars that all look alike, but should. Fast little suckers too. Except after full course cautions they should stick all the SGS cars together. Not that would have been a really fun finish.

# 39; Chris Hall was very, very nice. Spent a good deal of time talking with him. It’s a very small organization that requires the full support of Crawford. The front of the car looked great. Only to have to do an engine change, Friday night I think it was. Hopefully they can modify their approach to 2005 with a true paying sponsor. I’m not sure just how deep Larry’s pockets are.

# 41 & 42; Well, Kathy thought they were the best-looking non-DP cars there. The green & blue really stand out. Didn’t last long though.

# 46; I read after we got home they announced the purchase of a Crawford. I wish I had heard that while we were there.

# 54 Kodak; I wanted to show off all Jake’s photos on the new Kodak paper I bought just because of them. But then there weren’t any photos on Kodak paper after all anyway…

# 57; John Stevenson owns car dealerships near here. I stopped in today at his request to see about getting a good deal on Jacob’s next victim. I mean, car. Very nice, soft-spoken man. Car isn’t very fast though, the definition of ‘gentlemen drivers’.

# 58; A couple of issues here. First, Darren Law is now one of my favorite Grand-Am drivers. I had a special photo of the #20 pass of the #58 at the Paul Revere I was going to have Darren & Andy sign, this one was for me, I admit. On Friday there was an opportunity to get to Darren in the paddock near his car. So rather than wait, I went back to the folder to get out this one photo. Darren took plenty of time to sign the photo and talk about Jake. Later, when Darren did get to meet Jacob on Saturday, Darren treated Jacob like they were old friends. The funny part about meeting Darren is how I got into the area. There was a nice, clean looking, young gentlemen standing there in front of the cars all by himself. When I kindly asked if “I could meet one of the drivers, Darren Law”, he responded, “Well, I’m one of the drivers, but for the other car”. I had just ignored Hurley Haywood to get to Darren Law! Talk about ‘oh my, now I’ve gone and slighted one of the greatest road racing drivers ever”. Truly embarrassing. Darren wanted a copy of the photo, so if I do get Barber, I owe Darren a copy. I’ll have Andy autograph to Darren first, he-he.

# 59; Hurley – sorry man. JC France, may be bigger than Boris. Strong looking dude, too.

# 66 & 67; RJ didn’t get to see Jacob but I talked to him for a while. I appreciate that he has genuine concerns for Jacob’s well being. The Racers Group guys sure will have a busy week. I wonder where they are doing their work, there’s no way they could get all the way to California and back.

# 80 Picchio; I think it’s ugly, Jake likes it. All in the eyes of the beholder I suppose. But it needs work, the body was not that well put together in my view.

# 81 Rx; I got a photo taken of Jacob with Brent & Cort, I sure hope it comes out.

# 86 Porsche; Note to self, when picking fantasy league choices, make sure you know both drivers. Just because the second driver is your favorite SGS driver (Craig Stanton), does mean the first will get their job done. And as cute as Mae is (those eyes inside the helmet in the car just before qualifying were DAZZLING, it will cost you in the league. Stupid slacker I was there, huh?

# 43 theracesite.com Porsche; Craig Stanton and David Murry are wonderful people. Craig, the comment from Kathy was something to the effect of “you’re better looking than any of those pictures” or something like that. I’m pretty sure I didn’t bother to listen to the end of that! Keep kicking that Caddy’s butt! (Sorry Terry).

# 29 Acura and # 65 Mazda; Jake and I couldn’t come up the answer “What to you get when you mix an Acura with a Mazda”? If you wonder what I’m talking about, check out the GA-Cup photos section. We saw that wreck start, continue, and finish. Jacob took a tour of the paddock after the race just to check out the carnage. Not all that bad, really. The Acura boys were pretty funny about the whole deal, we didn’t talk to the SpeedSource guys, just took a photo of the car though.

# 2 Lexus; I did get to deliver the photo from Watkins Glen with Chuck, Craig & David to Chuck before the folder was taken. Chuck was nicely appreciative. We did not bother to go have Chuck autograph the special photo Jake liked from the chicane at Watkins Glen with Chuck getting two tires in the air, because it was in the blue folder. I’m pretty sure Chuck doesn’t read these internet articles, but if you’re out there Chuck & Sylvan, some day I’ll copies of that photo to you for you guys to keep along with Jacob. That one photo was the best plan Jake had for the weekend, that’s why I made sure to meet Chuck & Sylvan on Friday before Jake got there, to make sure they were okay with this. Damn.

So, there’s one unfortunate story in an otherwise wonderful weekend. I believe these people at Grand American Road Racing have been brought to Jacob and I for reasons. The escape they provide for a weekend is immeasurable. God bless guys & gals, drive safe.

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