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Sunday was another one of those days when, if you were at home, you would look out at the rain and then go to your computer and read the latest updates on MotoIQ for the next couple of hours. It was miserable out. Unexpected too, as the forecast had predicted a slight chance only. The first thing I had to do was ensure that the tires were back to their proper directionality as we were absolutely driving in the wet. Second, I had not fixed a clunk that had begun late Saturday. So with rain gear on I jacked up the car, swapped the tires and then looked for the clunk. Turned out there were no bolts missing, our adjustable rear sway bar had simply loosened enough that a bracket had rotated 45 degrees. Enough to cause a real racket on bumps, but a simple enough fix.
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| Katie coming onto the front straight at SMP. Out of eight events, I think at least four of them had rain! |
The weather was almost a repeat of event 6, with heavy to light rain throughout the morning and into the afternoon. All of the competitors were facing the same situation, wanting to be sure to get their full six events in but not wanting to harm their car in the process. One of those was my excellent track friend Joe Smiley in his 69 Corvette that was running slicks. There is nothing like the sound of Joe and his Corvette accelerating out of a hairpin corner onto a straight. Joe built this monster Corvette 30 years ago and it is a privilege to share the track with him. I held an umbrella over his head as we chatted about the horrible weather conditions. Katie finished her sessions for a win on a track with only a partial dry line – but still enough to allow her to set a record for her class at Shannonville’s full track. I ran after her with even better conditions and won my class and also grabbed a class track record. Our car handles the rain well due to its low wheel horsepower, but we also have taken every advantage of rain days to be out practicing.
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| Trophies are a great sign of a job well done; but I would do this without any because of the thrill of the corner. |
The driver’s meeting at the end was a celebration for both of us. Katie finished the season with six wins, four track records (at one point we thought it was five, but then discovered that due to a clerical recording error two years ago, she didn’t get the fifth record.) and sixth overall. Katie is CASC-OR Solosprint’s second woman class champion and, as far as I know at the time of writing, the first woman to place in the overall top ten. Up to this weekend I had been second in class, but my two wins put me first in class for my first championship and I finished fourteenth overall.
Last year I announced that Katie was a better driver than myself, she just was not winning. This year, without hesitation, Katie is not only better but she is winning too! Congratulations.
