Just when everythings was going good KA BAMA

And just when everything is going so good…..
The weekend before the season opening race the Captain of the Korner Krewe scheduled an advanced corner workers school. Hugh and Gary Attended.
Several of the drivers, when they are not competing, will go out and work corners for other events. The Porsche Club, the BMW club, Ferrari Boys and several others hold schooling sessions which require corner workers. We go watch them go around and sometimes learn things not to do.
When the session was over, Gary stopped by our place and showed Hugh how to adjust his valves properly. They were not far off, but every little bit helps.
The following weekends schedule called for a Tech and Practice day on Saturday and racing on Sunday.
Mel came over from Baton Rouge and she and Hugh left early Saturday morning to haul the car to the track. The plan was for them to get the car through its tech inspection and then to work corners for the practice session. Then Hugh would race on Sunday while Mel worked corners.
They had been gone about a half hour when I got a call from Hugh. They had been rear ended while traveling west on I-10. Rusty and I put on our shoes and headed out the door.
It did not take long to find them. By the time we got there the accident vehicles had been moved off the highway and were on the shoulder.
It seemed that Hugh and slowed down with traffic and the guy behind them in a Chevy Blazer didn’t and rammed into the back end of the trailer.
Since the trailer is low, his tires rode up onto the trailer which caused the front end of the trailer to lift, seesaw fashion, and lift the back end of Hugh’s truck enough to force it sideways.
This did several things all at once. He lowered part of the Blazer’s bumper hit the push par ( also known as a transaxle protection device ) and rammed the racer about four feet forward. That is not a good thing as the end of the trailer and its end rails were only about two feet in front of the car.
With the Blazer on the back end of the trailer pushing down and forward, the front end with the trailer hitch was popped loose from the truck and became a battering ram which it then proceeded to pummel the truck which was turned sideways in front of it. It put dents in the front bumper, the hood, the right front fender, the right side door, the right rear quarter panel, the rear bumper and the left rear quarter panel. It didn’t miss much. We’ll get to the race car later.
Mel got her neck twisted in the shake up and the EMT’s put her in an ambulance to go to the closest hospital for examination.
Since the truck was drivable, and there was nothing else we could do to help, Rusty and I followed Mel to the hospital and left Hugh to sort out the accident reports and the insurance paperwork.
After the usual waits and a good check over, Mel was released and we drove her back to the house. She would be stiff all weekend and so would Hugh. Sometimes when the adrenalin is flowing you don’t notice where it hurts. He would know it by Monday.
With Hugh sidelined by the wreck, Gary went on the following day to post the first win the in the class by someone other that Hugh. At least it was done by part of the Blind Mule Crew.
Now that we knew every one was OK, we could take a look at the racer.


The Wounded Warrior…..
#062
We had everyone home and in one piece and it was still not even noon. Mel was lying down feeling the results of the pain killers the Doctors had given her. Hugh was dancing around like a drop of water on a hot skillet.
We went out side to take a good look at the damage to the racer. It was not a pretty sight.
The front end had been rammed under the front rails on the trailer. The only thing that saved it was that it hit the winch. The winch had cut into the nose piece and I think got as far as the frame rail that protects the master cylinders before it stopped. Scratch one nose piece. Well, maybe it could be repaired.
It was difficult to tell if the front axle beam was bent or not. We would have to wait until we got the mess untangled to get a better look. Same with the steering arms.
The car was cocked sideways on the trailer. We were not sure whether the trailing arm was bent or not because the impact had sheared off the trailing arm support mounts. We would not know until we stripped the body work off and made a closer examination.
There was some body damage but that was all fiberglass and fairly easy to repair. It just takes time and patience. And money of course.
All in all, the most frightening thing was the trailing arm supports. That was going to take some fabrication and welding. That always cost money. A lot more than just replacing broken parts. We would have to strip the body off to see in there was any damage to the frame, but that must wait until the insurance guys had a look at it. It was going to take some doing to get that car and the trailer untangled.
In the mean time it looked like the Warrior had taken a beating but was determined to struggle on.

first race weekend

The first race of the season was one of the closest races we have had for third place in a while. I had a race last season with Charles Derbin that was this close but I was able to get and stay in front of Charlie. While I passed Bill several times, I could not over take him. Part of it was my tires. Since I spun in practice, I didn't want to push them to the end. They were like me, old and have lost there stick. It was like driving on rocks. (that's my story and I am sticking to it). Anyway it was fun and exciting but I wasn't very fond of 4th place thank you Mr. Roland. Any way we lined up with the formula Mazda in first, Bill roland 2nd, Rory White 3rd (me), William Roland 4th, and Barry last in the vee only 5 cars made it to the starting line. Not the 10 we were hoping for. When we came around for the start I dropped it into 2nd to get a jump on William but I had too much speed before the flag dropped and had to hit the brakes and lost my momemtum . When they dropped the flag, William had it timed perfect. He beat me to the first turn. I backed off, because I knew I could catch him in the next lap or so (at least that is what I thought). I stayed with in 1 second of him the whole race and even passed him on 3 occassions but I wasn't in possition to stay in front of him. I had a faster lap time than he did but I did not finished in front of him. His 30plus years of experence paid off. We finished within .62 seconds after 20 min of racing. It was some good clean racing. He ran about 2 seconds per lap faster than he normally does. I think I was pushing him the whole race.

William Roland working on his car to make it jump off the line.(just kinding)

The rear wing of Bill Rolands car.

Hugh and his woman working corners since his car was trashed by a Tahoe

Bill Roland new car Fast Fast and more Fast. Team car.

The Roland clan at race day. They have everything set up the way it should be.

Corner workers and racers talking at lunch time. Thank you corner guys.

Start of a new season

The first race of the season was looking to be a big formula group; However the race gods had a different idea. We had 11 cars lined up for sundays start. The first to go down was Hugh Lamb will driving to the track he got hit by an SUV. The chevy tahoe ran over his car trailer and pushed his race car into the front of his trailer tearing off the rear control arm and destroying the front of his car. Maybe now we can talk him into moving into the f2000 class. The next to go down was last years winner John Neher with pressure in his radiator broken seal during saturdays practice. Robert leonic was still missing parts to his formula swift so he was also out. The FormulaSCCA was also out due to clutch problems from saturday practice.