March 29, 2009

Can you believe it's snowing today in Salt Lake? We had about 10 days straight of snow in December and hardly any until the last few days. It seems to follow me. As most know, I've been spending a lot of time in Seattle and Wenatchee, WA lately. It rains or snows almost everyday I'm there. I keep telling people that I'm going to give up the security business and racing as a hobby and put all of my efforts into a ark building business in Seattle.

Mikey came over Friday night and we got the car pretty much ready for Las Vegas. We bled the brakes, installed a new rear rotor and pads, fixed the brake spring. I also went through the fuel system and installed a new left nerf bar. Today, I'll do dome cutting and fitting of a replacement nose piece I picked up from Wysong last night, then wash and load the car if the weather will cooperate. I'll be leaving on Tuesday so that I can attend a trade show in Las Vegas on Wednesday and Thursday. Let's hope that I can have a good weekend and dig myself out of the points hole that I find myself in after 1 race.

March 26, 2009

Gregg is leaving in a few minutes to head down to Perris, CA to run the dirt Focus race on Saturday night. I'm jealous as hell. I was hoping to go down with him and Brian but I'm swamped with work. Instead I'll work on my car and get things ready for Las Vegas next week. Mikey is going to come over tomorrow night to help me finish things up. We've got to put in all new brake pads, possibly a new rear rotor, a new brake return spring, bleed the brakes, pack the front hubs and install a new left nerf bar. The backstretch at the LVMS Bullring is the fastest section of track that the California or Utah Focus cars run on, so having good brakes as you enter turn 3 is a big deal. Last year Gregg had a brake problem and ended up with a very nasty burn on his back when his rear rotor went red. I'm going to leave on Tuesday since I have a 3 day business function in Las Vegas prior to the race. I'm not a gambler but Vegas is always a fun place to go for a couple of days.

March 16, 2009

Well, it was both a good and bad weekend at Lake Havasu. The good part was that we finished the main event running after overcoming some adversity. And contrary to the local bets and laughs, I didn't blow my stack all weekend. There were a couple of close calls, but nada.

Brian, Gregg and I got out of town Thursday night around 7:30, but had to stop at Billy Cox's to help him get his car started. Once we were on the road we drove through the night arriving in Lake Havasu about 5:30am. I had two conference calls to take part in so I didn't get any shut eye until about 9:00, just about the time Remick called and wanted us to come to the track to unload. I finally got over to the track about 1:00pm. When we finally got on the track the car was pretty decent right out of the box. At the end of the night I was 14th out of 19 cars that practiced but I knew we were on really old tires and the speed would come. By Saturday morning we were 5th quick overall and just .1 from 3rd. We missed the track slightly during qualifying and slipped to 11th. That would have been OK but I was involved in a Lap 1 incident in the heat race and had to leave the track on a wrecker. The wrecker guys didn't pay attention and in the process of loading the car destroyed the nose piece. That was the one close call on the temper. A few people think I blew up because of the way I tossed my gloves and HANS device into the car. It was just a small frustration toss.

After the wrecker dropped the car in the pits we went to work. We changed the left rear tire and wheel, pulled out the nerf bar, rebuilt the muffler and beat the dash back into place. I was forced to the rear of the field for the start. On Lap 4 I got over anxious and got into my friend Ron Duncombe exiting Turn 4. It was my mistake and I apologize to Ron and his car owner Gary Walton. I don't screw up like that too often. On the restart I started working my way up and eventually made it to 13th. I raced Gregg and Billy hard for 12th, 13th and 14th. Gregg and I passed Billy with Lap 23 and I took some good shots at Gregg but couldn't get it done. On the final lap as I went into Turn 1 my brakes went all the way to the floor and I couldn't slow down and tapped Gregg. It wasn't hard enough to hurt either car and there was nothing I could do but I still felt bad at the end of the night.

After the races the gang went to London Bridge Resort and Kokomo's Club. I have to say I loved being in a party town for college spring break. At the party the girls were mostly from Southern Cal and Arizona. Tons of bikinis and even less. I told Tommy Hunt that USAC needs to sign a 5 year deal to race at Havasu, always on spring break weekend. Next year I plan to stay an extra week on vacation and chase the college girls

March 08, 2009

The 2009 race season is almost upon us. We'll be loading up on Wednesday night, heading out on Thursday, practicing on Friday, then racing on Saturday. As I'm typing this blog we're about 67 hours from loading up. For a hard core racer this is like the last week before Christmas. Even though I'll be in Seattle during the early part of this week, I doubt I'll sleep much. When I do sleep I'll be dreaming about the race weekend. I'm already in the early stages of "race-day Bob mode". My friends know that Bob and love to laugh at him as he get's more and more stressed out. Opening weekend is always the worst. It's a new season, there are off season changes that we make every year and now it's time to see if we're a hero or a zero.

Everything is almost ready. About all we're lacking is to replace a kingpin end cap that stripped. I'll order some pieces tomorrow morning and have everything waiting when I get home Wednesday. Gregg and Brian are going to get the nitrogen bottles filled and pickup the golf cart from Turf Equipment while I'm gone. We're going to travel down with a long time local racer who's new to the Focus scene, Guy Remick. He's purchased a 53' stacker trailer so we decided to pool our resources and share expenses on the way down. Here's hoping all of us have a safe trip and a good race weekend.