OK, Long post on weekend. 175-180 cars with great weather. Saturday started with the Charlotte Hornets booster club (hornets nest) all over the infield starting at 6:00 am setting up for autofair that is a week away??
Big wig informed us he was not leaving so management for CMS had to come to the track to remove them. Next year we will hand out paintball guns to group 1 and give deductions for every hit. Had time in the schedule after open wheel was combined so we caught back up. Big groups with some real good racing. After group 2 we realised there were quite a few number problems, turned out the orbits software was defaulting to the race from May at CMP. I am too stupid to run it so left it to more able folks to fix. Results were a challenge to say the least but the workers pulled it together and got things fixed.
As some have mentioned we did have some real creative corner cutting because CMS paved a large area inside 3A-3B for the drift crowd, and we were not allowed barrels by safety. We will find an alternative next race. Special thanks to all the drivers that came to me with problems with a great attitude so we could get them fixed, this was my first race at CMS as chair and EVERYTHING had changed since 2006. Track officials and security were incredible and I still can not believe they rolled that fork lift so fast Saturday night to get the armco fixed to continue the CCPS race. I was driving the pace car for that race and figured we would run the clock out before going back green. As I said in my earlier post please be brutally honest in your emails to me about what needs fixed for next year, I want this to be a great future race for us all.
Race Chair hat off, driver hat on.
Only had time to run one race and still work, so I brought train wreck out. Had the wrong gear in with no time to change so had to live with it. Hooked up on the bumper of "the shape of the future" TR8 of Jeff Young and he punched a big enough hole to drive my trailer through. Still could not stick on his bumper through 3-4 as I kept bogging down and would gain some back in the tri oval. He did help me a 10th to get the grid spot in front of him.
By race time I knew I had to try something else so I just twisted a lower gear longer to keep under the bumper of the cars in front. ITS Mazda's will turn past 9000.
Had a run on Chuck Hines coming into 3 but stayed in the draft and pushed him through the corner so he closed real fast on the lead pair of Thompson and Parrish. He ducked right between the wall and Parrish in the brake zone and the car stepped out and they were both collected into the wall. I will leave fault to those involved. Dove to the bottom to avoid and ended up right on the bumper of Kent. Went full course and when we went back green I just stayed glued to his bumper and let him pull me. We ran the second half of the race within a 10th every lap. Last lap Kent got a bad exit on the banking and I got right to his bumper down the back straight. We had an IT7 mid track entering 3 so it was decision time. To hard to pull down so I went very high to the wall and the IT7 moved down giving Kent the middle line. I got a good run down the banking and closed fast but Kent saw me at the last minute and covered the line. No time for another move so he got a much deserved win.
Pulled the car in the trailer and went to work as race chair.