My First Race Ever

Ok first I got started racing by starting a motorsports club at UMass and convincing them to buy us an ITC Rabbit. 2 years after the club was formed we headed to Pocono for my first drivers school. Lets see we had the Kill switch turned the wrong way so when you shut the hood it would snap the lever off the switch.(Fix by next event in the log book) This wouldn't of been a problem but the alternator wasn't working and we had to jump start the car to go out for every session, plus it was rainy and fogging and downright miserable. My next school went much better, I got signed off at NHIS and was ready to race the next day. I started second in class was leading most of the race when third gear disappeared, and then suddenly everythign disappeared and the car wouldn't go. It turned out that when we were black flagged during qualifying earlier in the day the car blew a hole in the radiator and lost all the fluid, not being smart enough to check fluids before every session I blew the head gasket and melted the head. But I had a blast.

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Sam Rolfe
TBR Motorsports
#85 ITC VW Rabbit
#85 GP Scirocco
 
I got my novice permit in Feb of 03. March of 03 is my first race at VIR. I decide to buy new tires, spiffy RA-1s and go to the test day on Friday. I have to work all night the night before, and get there with no sleep.

Go to the driver's meeting and they say: "watch out for the Dan River, it's high."

Go out for first session. Go through turn one on pit out and think, hmmmm....that river is CLOSE! As in 30-40 feet off turn one.

Go into turn one for the first time at speed. Go in WAY too hot for cold tires. Go straight into the Dan River.

I was lucky no hydrolock, get pulled out and run a session later that day. Saturday. ECR race. Lap 5 or 6, starting to get comfortable withteh car. Whammo ... too hot into turn one, and into the river AGAIN.

Stupid, ended up costing me a motor (motor never ran right after that). And of course got a lot of ribbing after that from the guys and workers in the SEDiv......the Triumph Submarine....the U-44....where's your trolling motor......heard it all, and deserved it.

That's my first race, but I kept coming back.
 
My first race was at Roebling Road. I had been there for a test day so I thought I knew the track a little. My nephew and I had built a car that was designed to get me thru the schools, no high tech stuff just the basics. We were working the Toyo tire truck and decided to build a car since we were already there anyway. We traded two tires for a motor, a power plant on it's last legs. We had also arranged to buy a new motor from Mike at ISC Racing soon. I arrived at the track on Saturday morning and jumped in the car for practice. Little did I know that my nephew and Mike had installed the new motor the day before. Slow out of the pits, I gained momentum going into the big staightaway and pushed the pedal to the floor. I was thinking "man, this old motor sounds good". Looking down at the rpm's, I saw 8000+ in 4th gear when I entered my "old" (late) braking zone. It became immediately apparent that I had carried way too much speed into the 1st turn. I left the track in a straight line over 100 mph and plowed halfway to Atlanta. Hey, that was no way to treat a ROOKIE!
 
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