19 June 2007
I never finished the previous post, and now I’m a whole track behind. I’m sitting in the paddock at Mosport, we just came here from Watkins Glen. More about that later, but here’s what happened at VIR:
So the Chapparal and the Scarab hit the straight and disappeared like the Roadrunner in the cartoons–suddenly gets small. Behind me was a very fast Lola. I knew he had four-wheel disk brakes, weighed about five hundred pounds less, and had about the same horsepower. Of course, he didn’t have Peyote’s Mojo going for him. I pulled out a small lead and was pressing on happily when the turn four gremlins got me and I spun off into the grass. I locked it up quickly so I didn’t slide too far, watched the Lola drive past while I got the engine fired up, and got back on the track in fourth place.
I had to press very hard to catch the Lola, it took two laps to get back in contact. I caught him at the top of the uphill esses and passed on the outside on the last tight turn of the esses. Pretty much on the edge there, but I got it done. I pulled out a little lead and held it to the end, though the Lola made a nice attempt in the last few turns to nail me.
Pulled off the track and they waved Peyote to a nice little podium area with a surprising crowd and a lot of photographers. Chris Economaki (!!!) interviewed me about Peyote and the race. He asked the classic question: “What is that thing?” and was shocked to hear it’s a Triumph TR3 in drag.
I got to spray champagne on a bunch of people. Tom Hollfelder (Chapparal) said “If you don’t spray me I won’t spray you”, so we just hosed the photographers.
Then we beat feet back to the trailer, loaded up Peyote and headed for Pittsburg to drop Diane’s car off at a dealership, and then on to Watkins Glen.
