The day broke cool, sunny, and beautiful! As Jacob and I were driving up to the track around 8:30, I commented that this is what they mean when they say "Not a cloud in the sky". Jake made it a point to complete a 360 degree survey and confirm my observation. I was born and raised about 90 miles north of The Glen, and the summers here are great for days like today.

We just wandered around the garage area at first. What seemed interesting was the range of preparation teams were at. Some cars were completely finished and ready to go racing. A few teams were frantically making last minutes changes. I had a nice conversation with David Seibert of Ferrari / Maserati of Washington. They has very high hopes for a successful day of racing today, and some pretty neat sounding ideas for the rest of 2004. Unfortunately those hopes were dashed by a very serious wreck on the #34 Ferrari (comments about a particular Corvette were made later during the race), and the Maserati still continues to have some growing pains. But I still hear such positive comments around the race track during the day, about how nice the car looks, and of course the great sound.

Jacob decided we would watch the start of the race from inside the boot area, so off we went. We got there just before the warm up laps. Again, the boot has great viewing areas, but needs loud speakers. So we were completely unaware of what was going on around the track. All we new was that after the first cautions, on about the second or third lap, the #5 and #7 DP's were missing. Then a few laps later another is gone. It's now a few hours later when we get to the garage area and see broken car parts and an idle #7 that we find out what was going on. We did see the #54 have a right rear tire go flat and spin out coming down the hill. By good luck it was not collected by the other cars coming over the hill.

While in the garage later on, the #67 Porsche from the Racers Group came in on the flat bead. It took about 15 minutes to get it off because the right rear suspension damage. The gravel that came out from underneath was plentiful. Later we heard a story that the driver at the time was very upset with another driver he claimed caused the wreck over at the chicane, and reportedly was trying to punch the other driver, who wisely stayed inside the car behind the netting. I did not get the name or number of the other car involved.

We walked up and down pit lane for a while. With the passes supplied by Jan Crawford, we had hot pit access. It's fun to watch pit stops up close. At one point the #10 car pits right in front of us. The only reason for the pit was to provide bags of ice and water to the driver. Zero work was done on the car. We went down to the exit of pit road, right behind the #54 pit, the last pit box. That was a neat place to watch turn one action, right at ground level. Then they were pushing the #16 AASCO Porsche up the road behind the pits. We caught up with Craig Stanton. Apparently, under caution, Craig got caught between gears, and somehow managed to trash the transmission. He wasn't very happy with himself, but he's the type of person to talk openly about what happened without shame. Just too bad, since I did have the #16 picked in the Fantasy League SGS class! But we did get to say goodbye, he will be at Mid-Ohio next week with White Lightning in the ALMS race. So now I have a reason to watch that race too.

Then we headed out to the chicane. Obin was there clicking like crazy. Jacob grabbed a nap in Obin's chair while I climbed into the back seat of our car. We were going to try to drive home after the race, so I needed to get some sleep. After then catching some of the race action there, we headed down to the Crawford pits for the end of the race. The #2 fell a couple laps behind and they were never able to get their laps back. I don't know the circumstances of how they lost their laps, but based upon what I deciphered, there may have been both mechanical problems, and some strategy errors based on timing of pit stops and caution flags. Maybe it was bad luck and not poor strategy, I just couldn't tell. Hopes were high with less than an hour left that the #4 BOSS Snowplow car would get them a podium finish, but alas, it wasn't to be. The computers and technologies in these cars and pit boxes is outstanding.

The were multiple computers following the cars' performances all the way around the track. A very important part of each team's performance in a Rolex race is the feed from SPEEDTV. The teams do not have spotters around the track and they rely on the televisions in their pits. I would think that some of the larger and more popular teams could recruit some volunteers to man some headsets and be spotters along a track like this. I am willing to wager several teams made significant moves by knowing exactly when and where wrecks were taking place and determining pit actions even before the caution came out. I think there were a couple teams with wives / girlfriends / team friends at selected spot doing just that. If your car is down in the boot coming up towards the final turns, and another car spins out say over in the chicane, you can have your car dive into the pits just before the caution flies. What a huge advantage. If any teams are looking for a volunteer, I would do so!

So none of the cars Jake & I were routing for (#2, #4, #66, #16, #09, #39, #33 & #34) made it to the podium. So rather than hanging out in Victory Lane, we decided to head home. I miscalculated the drive time - it was a couple of minutes before 5:00 AM when we pulled into the driveway. Jacob & I spent some cool times recapturing the events of the weekend. I stole a question from Craig Stanton, and asked Jake "What was the best part of the weekend?" The top three were the go-kart race, victory lane with Craig Stanton, and the visit to Ferrari of Washington on Thursday morning.

There are four more race weekends between now and Virginia International Raceway in October. I don't think we'll be able to get to any of those four, but if not, it won't be because we're not trying. Being able to have friends like Jan Crawford and family provide us passes and meal tickets, food and drink from them and SF/MoW, free hotels using my frequent traveler points, and eating cheap at Pizza Hut and Subway, Jacob and are are able to make this trip for gas money and snacks, around $100 or so. Now that we're home, I get to pay the bills. I had just about finished paying off the insurance deductibles from his January stay at "club med," only to come home to the May hospital stay bills. I don't know how some families cope with these bills. I am lucky enough to have a job and income that allows us to know that eventually these will get paid. Other families are not so fortunate. But without the generosity of the Grand-Am community, Jacob would never be able to participate in weekends like this. Without significant strides in research towards a cure and better treatments for cystic fibrosis, these kids probably won't have as long a life as many of us. Both that doesn't mean we can't make it fuller. Although not with my entire family for the day, my wife and other son, Jacob's brother Chris, were in Pittsburgh visiting family this weekend, this was still a great, great Father's Day. The car ride home talking with Jacob for endless hours about the weekend, and singing LOUD to music Cd's (60's 70's, 80's mix of the classic R&R) was tremendous.

Best wishes,
Sput

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