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It is amazing how some traveling and racing can loosen up a case of writers block. The high point of the last couple of weekends has to be the recent Club Race at Summit Point hosted by The Founders Region. The weekend was very well attended with four sprint race and three enduro groups. To me this weekend was what club racing is all about. Bill Pfister and I setup our paddock right next to a very nice group of racing friends from New Jersey. By the time the weekend was over we were all cooking out on my grill and meeting at local restaurants for meals. Also we were blessed with some very nice weather and some fine results by racers from the North East. Here are some brief highlights Enduro Grp 1 had me and Tom Pank from the IMSA Cup putting on a dicing show for the overall lead for the first thirty minutes. We swapped positions about a dozen times before I fortunate enough settled into a small lead. Unfortunately we had two problems 1st my cool suit died at lap four, and then when I came in for my pit stop at the one hour mark I had brain fade and did not hit the stop watch to time the stop for the required five minutes. We thus came out about twenty-four seconds behind Tom. We chewed into his lead a little but I was getting pretty overheated so we decided discretion was the better part of valor and pulled in few laps early. Tom ran a great race earning a well deserved overall win. Enduro 2 saw veteran Jeff Burger take 2nd overall and 1st in GTC1, Our own John Ktistes was first in E-stock and 8th overall Enduro 3 put a big highlight in my memory bank. I will not soon forget the huge grin Steve Boris had when he excitedly told me that Andy Jenks and he had finished 1-2 both overall and in F-stock. Sprint Group 1 was an exciting race for our Eurotech team. We started from the pole and there were four lead changes; the most important one from our point of view was on the last lap when I passed John Ellis’ 1999 factory built GT2 EVO for the GT1R and overall win. New Hampshire’s Greg Brown took 2nd In GT2R and Rick DeMann took GTA 1st and 3rd overall. The Group 2 sprint saw Jeff Burger take 1st in GTC1 and 2nd overall and Steve Burlack was 1st in GT3S and 3rd overall. Local racers also did very well in the Group 3 sprint! Mike Trombly 1st overall and in D-stock. John Ktistes was E-stock 2nd and Steve Boris and Andy Jenks brought home F-stock 4th and 5th respectively. The second phase of our ten day junket was Bill Pfister and I spending a couple of day touring Civil War and other historic sites in the vicinity of Winchester VA. We drove up to the Quantico Marine Corp Base to see their Air-Ground Museum. On arrival we found out that this “attraction” site listed on MS Streets and Trips won’t be open until 2007. Thanks a bunch! Next our travels took us to historic Fredericksburg. There we visited some nice shops specializing in Civil War books and art. From an educational standpoint the highlight was the museum on James Monroe our 5th President and a man well worth learning all you can about. The many political and military positions he held and his numerous accomplishments in them make a stark comparison to our last couple of leaders! We finished the day by driving the full length of the scenic and wild life rich Sky Line Drive northward back to Winchester Our next days jaunt had two stops, the Antietam National Battlefield and Harpers Ferry. Antietam is a very well laid out National Park’s site. There is a centrally located tourist center with all the amenities. First we watched a very well done movie on the battle gaining an overall understanding of the political-military situation, the geography of the area, and the people involved. Then we spent couple of hours following the well laid out route map and guide book seeing all the sites of this protracted and ghastly battle. To this day the battle at Antietam is the largest single day American loss of life in battle. Total casualties (dead and wounded) for North and South are estimated at 23,100, remember in these pre antiseptic days a huge percentage of the wounded died within a few weeks. In one location on the battlefield we read about six Generals who died in that area. In a stark contrast the D-day battle of WW II saw US casualties of 1465 dead, 3184 wounded, 1928 missing and 26 captured for a total of 6603. From Antietam a pleasant half hour drive saw us descend into a beautiful valley where the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers converge. It is interesting to remember as you drive down the steep hills that a large force of Confederates marched up those same hills in full military gear from Harpers Ferry to Antietam on the day of the battle. They then went strait into the fight and played a pivotal role in allowing Lee to make an orderly withdrawal. Harpers Ferry is well worth the visit. George Washington recognized it’s strategic valve as a source of water power for industry and setup an arm production arsenal here. It is the home of many major industrial developments and of course abolitionist John Brown actions there further cemented its place in history. The final leg of our trip was a run down to VIR where PCA Club Racing was running one large combined race group in support of the Grand Am professional series. Unfortunately our arrival coincided with that of a tropical storm. The inclement weather stopped a lot of the visiting normally done with other racers. That combined with a major snafu in the Enduro race that has delayed publication of results means I have very little to offer as to North Easterners who were there. The NE highlights I’m aware of are Chris Castagna ran very well and took C-stock in both races and during the five laps of dry line running we had I managed to post the PCA fastest lap of the weekend at 1:58.4. I followed up this highlight by making the wrong tire choice on race morning and got my butt ingloriously kicked!! I could have sworn the line would dry!! This trip concluded out track plans for 2005, so until I can report on the Sebring race next February I plan to cover such topics as racing sportsmanship, physical and mental conditioning for racing, car maintenance and upgrades, and data acquisition. See you next month. |
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