Its hard not to get a little melancholy this time of year. Cloaked in brilliant red, yellow and ochre, bathed in the low dying golden light, the mountains and valleys on the road to Cumberland tell of the fleeting nature of all good and beautiful things in our lives. All around were plentiful signs that the end of the party and the long cold dark is coming. Carving my way upland Friday under a turbulent sky in the brilliant azure Daytona Coupe, hoping to beat the rain, I thought of the journey of Donna Mae Mims, barrier-breaking SCCA H-Stock championship club racing pioneer from the '60s and Steeltown Corvette Club member, a fixture and chronicler of the original races at Cumberland Airport back in the day.
As part of my discovery of the history of racing at Cumberland, I hoped to record for a second generation of Cumberland airport racers some of her first hand memories. But fate intervened and took her away earlier this month. I learned a few things in preparing to meet someone I never knew; feeling a scribe’s kinship reading her coverage of the original Cumberland National Sports Car races which she ran as hard as anybody, seeing accounts of her outlaw Cannonball cross country run, and a few scattered biographical references. But I really did not grasp who she was until I witnessed the tributes of her Steeltown Corvette clubmates with whom she shared her life’s passion. In hearing others celebrate her life most well lived, it occurred to me that the dark is coming, yes, but not before another revel of speed. Not before one more rendezvous of hardware, drivers and destiny, one more chance to make memories that will sustain us when the light fades, and one or the other of us passes on.
Drifting dangerously toward the maudlin and ready for a drink, I arrived early Friday afternoon. Rain was coming, and I covered and tucked in the coupe for the night. Left to my somewhat morose reveries, I waited in the empty hotel bar for rest of the gang to arrive, and learned too much about the inner workings of a local pub readying for a prime weekend night. Meanwhile, Al Schmidt rolled up to the airport to drop his trailered Lone Star, where he saw defending CACC Cobra Cup champ Wade Chamberlain all alone in the empty paddock, cooly leaning against his tire trailer, roadster all buttoned up, beer in hand, supremely confident that someone would come along eventually and ferry him to the hotel.
Eventually, we met for a pleasant dinner, and, afterward repaired to Henny’s. Where they served popcorn in little wicker baskets. Proving that nearly any common household item can be made into an improvised implement of torturing Chipper, the Weasel carefully but covertly selected an unpopped kernel of the precise caliber of a soda straw, loaded it tightly into the breech, pointy end toward the muzzle. Patiently and silently waiting, Wade stalked after Gary when he finally meandered off to the men’s room. There, Wade administered a pitiless full metal jacket spitball kill shot, execution style, to the back of Gary’s neck as he stood in the stall, his junk still in hand. Chipper returned from this indignity to the watery comforts of his cold Coor’s Light, only to come up sputtering and spitting out the bits of the sodden popcorn which had been surreptitiously stuffed into his drink. These clung to his lips like flecks of foam as he tried to work them free with his tongue, a look of pained disbelief on his face. Our lithesome server, Autumn, rushed to the Mudhen’s defense, declaring we all were mean, and sweetly asking if Daddy wanted another beer. But through it all, Gary gives lessons in gentlemanly savoir faire, tolerating such adolescent cruelty and guile with Cary Grant-like nonchalance and good humor. The Fluffer and Kate, and later Jenn and Mike Moran, and then Mustang Boy, also wandered in from the dark and stormy night to join in the fun, and we enjoyed their company.
I awoke Saturday morning at 0600, peering out the window into the blackness just long enough to see endless rings of thick raindrops splattering the surface of the tarmac reflected in the streetlights. No weatherman could lose on the 100% chance prediction of rain for Saturday. Wade and Chipper and Al hurriedly jumped into their SUVs and headed for the airport, leaving me strapped in, and warming up the carbuerator-equipped coupe until it would run on its own, windscreen and rear hatch hopelessly fogged up, and dripping car cover stuffed into a hefty bag on the passenger floorboards.
At the airport, as dawn broke, a light field of die hards waited out the pouring rain, even as the NRA crew set up the course. Answering the bell for CACC were Wade, Al, Chipper, Fred (who surprised us by leaving his warm bed, but unsurprisingly couldn’t convince protégé Brian Karwan to leave his), Larry, the Smiths pere et fils, et Sandy, Wayne O., Dave T., and your humble scribe. Everyone with an I-phone or Blackberry became an amateur meteorologist, arguing noisily over animated radar displays and competing weather sites, but it truly did appear that the massive ugly blot of rain over CBE was soon to pass.
And so it did. The steady rain tapered to a light drizzle, and a moody sky sulked overhead as we did the coursewalk. For the first day of the last hurrah of 2009, Boggs served up a kind of smorgasbord of features familiar from past courses with an emphasis on crossovers. The start by the taxiway closest to the Airport Café, with deeply offset gates forming a two cone slalom right off the line, feeding into a damnably tight snaky ess, then across to a straight down the opposite side of the terminal, feeding into a right hand crossover into the terminal 180, back through the cross over, a fast three gate slalom feeding into a straight, then into the kink, then another long straight, followed by a left hander which led to another slalom down the hanger end, into a sharp narrow right hand sweeper to the finish.
After another brief drizzle, at about 10:30, the rain stopped altogether, for good, and the driver’s meeting proceeded. After congratulating and thanking everyone for another epic season, Dave turned the floor over to Eric Dean, Donna Mae’s long time friend and executor of her will. He started by telling us that Donna wanted any commemoration of her passing to be a celebration, not a funeral. Then he read from her will, which expressed things in a direct and irreverent way that captured the soul of Cumberland racing. There was lump in many a throat and fog in many an eye when he said that, when offered the possibility that some her ashes might be scattered here, Donna spoke of Cumberland Airport as “holy ground.”
And so to celebrate Donna Mae’s life, between second and third heats, an honor guard of Cobras and Corvettes would line up along the last remnant of the old road course, and Doc Mike and Eric would fly by in Mike’s 1957 white fuelie Vette vert, depositing some of Donna Mae’s ashes, thereby forever hallowing that ground if it wasn’t before. Hats in her signature pink, bearing her permanent SCCA number 23, spotted the heads of the crowd like so many polka dots. Miraculously, fittingly, as the first cars of the first heat went off, the clouds began lifting over the Fall kissed mountains, and it shaped up to be a classic Cumberland race day. As a reward to the faithful, the hardy and loyal few who braved the rain would get six runs.
Traction was hard to come by on the still rain soaked track in the first heat. Young Michael Bain took out a cone wall sideways on his first run in the badass Bane Fox body Mustang, and Rob Robeson in his RX 8 was loose as a goose. Unsurprisingly, first heat honors went to an AWD Audi S4 capably driven by Pennsylvanian Dave Kraig.
Conditions improved as temperatures climbed and a fresh breeze dried the track in the second heat. Jenn Moran topped the heat and crushed the Audi like a bug and everything else with her 49.8 in the diabolical Moran family Suxass Subie.
We think Donna Mae looked down on her Cumberland sendoff and laughed her butt off. After a solemn procession from the grid area, and line up on the tarmac of alternating Cobras and Corvettes, at the signal, Doc Mike wound up his immaculate snow white 1957 fuelie vert and tore down the tarmac, a large checkered flag streaming out behind. As they passed the column, we saluted, and Eric dumped the container of Donna’s ashes out the back with great ceremony. Most of them got caught in a visible swirling vortex and rolled right back into the cockpit, coating Doc, Eric, the rear deck and the cockpit with a fine layer of Donna Mae. The boys were slapping Donna off their clothes and spitting her out of their mouths as they rolled to a stop. It was a precious moment, both achingly poignant and really pretty funny. We at CACC are very honored and grateful to have been invited to participate in that moment, and we thank Eric and the Steeltown folks for the privilege.
By the time the Thunderous Third started, conditions were perfect. The track was dry, and the sun was out, and our guys were spoiling for a fight. While the season points distribution already pretty much clinched the Cobra Cup for Wade, he still was looking for a clean Cup sweep, and for payback from having FTD snatched away twice by Reynards at the Harvest Moon. Also ready to rumble was 2009 phenom Doug Smith, who had spanky new A6s to replace the meats he corded at the Moon. Weasel rang the bell from the first run, sinking FTD down to a 45.8 on his first pass. Jeff Duncan in his Ultralite answered on his second with a 45.7. Both held John Felton’s Reynard’s 47.1 at bay. They set the pace for the blisteringly fast heat. By the fourth runs, Wad had dropped the bar again to a 44.707. Doug Smith had logged a 45.9 clean, Larry was chasing with a 46.2, Fred also in the 46s but dirty, while Jake Moran ran the Suxass to a 46.4. Chipper, too, was in the 46s, having marred a couple of 45 second passes with off course spins. Al Paca, having one hell of a day booked a 47.9, his best and good for 7th in Xp and 14rth overall, Herb a 48.1 (also his best; good for 8th in class and 17th overall), and I was running in the low 50s, but having my ass chewed by rookie Dave Thompson, who had a 49.2 by his fourth run. Duncan fell just short of slapping the FTD crown away from Wade on his sixth run, but was shy a hundredth, with his 44.717, which earned him second overall for the day. Felton tried gamely with solid times in the 45s, but could not catch Wade or Jeff. Larry settled down and laid down a 45.5 on his last run, edging out Doug Smith, landing Larry in second in XP and third overall, and Doug in third in class and fourth overall. Just behind was Fast Fred with a 46 flat, good for 5th in XP and 8th overall. Jake Moran had a 46.2 fifth pass, good for 6th in XP and 10th overall. Motivated by Dave T’s breakout, I beat my times down to a 48.8 on my last pass, good for 10th in class and 22d overall. Dave stood on his 49.2, and earned 11th in class and 24th, his first top 25 Cumberland finish. He needs to be watched closely next season. Steeltown Corvette Cup champ Smooth Jim Harris, who also runs in the third heat , displayed the consistency that makes him great, logging a 46 flat for yet another SS class win and 9th overall, clinching another Steeltown club championship Cup for him. Bowtier Ronn Dotts again registered a solid performance, booking a 47.3, for a decisive A Stock class win and 12th overall.
So going into the fourth and final heat, with Mike Moran and nemesis Honeycutt yet to run, Wade’s 44.707 stood as XP class winner and FTD. The fates smiled on the young farmboy, as a cold air mass, ushered in by the morning’s deluge, settled over the vale, dropping the ambient and pavement temperatures noticeably. Honeycutt could get no satisfaction, as he struggled without success to make it out of the 46s,while Moran turned in a solid 46 flat for 4th in the hotly contested XP class and 7th overall, again putting both Moran brothers in the top ten for the day, but out of contention for FTD. Paul the Fluffer pushed his four lunger Beemer hard to a respectable 51.9, not enough to take the STX class win, which went to the 48.9 of an Eagle Talon of all things. Perhaps unused to the unaccustomed bite of a new limited slip diff, Paul went deeply off into the grass after the kink, plowing up huge furrows of rain soaked loam in what fellow Ziptier Rich Biancone dubbed Paul's Polish Victory Garden.
In the end Wade did the expected, another Cobra Cub championship, but also proved he was the man to beat at Cumberland, coming back from defeats last race with a vengeance, to take FTD with on the edge, barrier shattering runs. CACC also showed the depth of its mettle once again. Of the top ten drivers, four were CACCers, and of the top twenty five, nine were our club mates.
The coolness intensified at Doc Mike’s picnic. We warmed ourselves by the fire, the smell of Fall leaves and woodsmoke in the air, well after dark. As the restless clouds scudded across the twilight sky, hiding a cold distant moon, I was struck with a pang of regret at the realization that tomorrow would be the end of another eventful season. So many reminders that life is fleeting. Thankfully we still had at least tomorrow's race to run. Just as hard and fast as we ever we can.
Godspeed, Donna Mae.
