It could only last so long. Our weather luck broke Saturday night. We exited the museum into a squalling rainstorm. Wade, Larry and I rolled our Cobras back to the hotel in heavy highway traffic on slicks in the rain. I just happened to be in sunglasses. It was hairier than the bouncer's underarms at the Lilith Fair. It was a great comfort to make it back to our usual table at the bar that night. Everyone was beat so it was a short one. Andy Thomas, who missed the Long Course due to work, the curse of the drinking class, was there to join in. We quickly burned through my auction spoils, the $25 gift card. I watched Mike Moran’s in-car video and despaired. Soon it was time to sleep.
Sunday morning, I peered through the vinyl blackout curtains and saw a rain-slicked lot and dismal gray sky, but nothing falling from it. Back at the airport, someone checked radar on their phone and we saw a menacing band of green blotched with yellow orange and red stretching for a couple hundred miles to West, and bearing down just North of the red pin that marked the airport’s location. Great. We breakfasted at the Airport Inn, and then walked the course.
All the while the sky boiled and the wind freshened, the wet scent of not too distant ozone and rain carried on it. It was only a question of when, and it seemed doubtful it would hold until the third heat.
The course was short, simple and fairly open, repeating with slight variations many elements of the previous day’s longer circuit. All the features were familiar from past Cumberland courses, so I won’t waste many words on a description. It did promise fast-paced action. As long as it was dry.
The cool Beach returned. Also appearing on grid were a pair of “then and now” Minis: one neat as pin little green with chequereboard roof original Morris Mini, and a 2008 Mini Cooper.
Minis Then and Now
First Heat Grid -- Hurry Up!
Moran Brothers Up to No Good
Becker Chompin' At the Bit The caprice of the weather gods seemed to be reflected in a changing roster. Karwan was gone, and Becker would run in the first heat. At the driver’s meeting, it was still dry, but the clouds gathered low, heavy and dark over Cumberland town. After a prefunctory driver’s meeting, we hurriedly took to our corner to work the first heat. Five runs was the call.
Conditions deteriorated throughout the first heat. By the fourth runs, rain began to spatter the pavement, and a howling South wind blew over the announcer’s tent. First heat standouts were Jason Becker, who got while the getting was good, laying down a 49 second lap on his first, pushing that down hard through fast but dirty second and third, logging his best, at 48.6 clean, on his fourth. By the fifth run, wet pavement had become a factor, and flashes of lightning were seen over the rim of the surrounding mountains. Andy Thomas, in Paul P.’s castoff Beemer 318ti, tore it up with a best pass of 52.3, before things went to shit. Dan Dazzo peaking on the third run, posted a 53.4 in his Boxter.
Just as the heat ended and we returned to the paddock the heavy stuff began. Thunder. Lightning. Rain and wind. While I was out at Corner 2, Herb Smith, ever the Samaritan, chased down the Coupe’s cover after the wind front blew it away, using his personal bungie cords to secure it. Doug Smith, dashing Jen Moran’s hope of driving the Yellow Peril Superformance in anger, packed it up in the trailer and vamooskied, taking Czar Smith, Uncle Sandy and spouse with him. Of the Smith tribe, only brother Craig and son, and his lovely companion Stephanie (who rocked in the Saleen on both days) stuck it out. Bully.
They called a rain delay. We sat it out on a circular bench in the humid gazebo in raingear, as if huddling before a non-existent campfire, exchanging idle banter, and peering at radar signatures on iPhones, trying to interpreting their hieroglyphic mysteries. Eventually, less than a mile away, while the airport sat under a damp dripping blanket of weeping clouds, fluffy white clouds and patches of blue appeared over the town, and slowly, so slowly, seemed to start spreading. Unable to delay further, they started up second heat while the drizzle still fell.
Of course, the vagaries of the weather are part of the competitive variables of the autocross game. But still, pity the poor drivers who drew the short stick of the second heat. The fickle good weather fairy picked their heat to take five. There was standing water at the start, at the terminal turnabout, and slick wet pavement everywhere else. Every Jack and Jill driver was surely cursing under their breath as they gamely saddled up. There would be no sub 50 second runs in the Sloppy Second.
Second Heat Grid
A Soggy Start
It Keeps ComingAmong the rollcall of the hosed were Jake Moran, who was quick for the heat with a best of 55.3, laid down on his last run, when things were only beginning to dry off. Mustang Boy shared his dashed hopes with a 55.4.
But as the Thundering Third approached, the blue sky spread and the sun peeked out and instantly pumped heat into the pavement, which quickly started drying in the breezy unsettled air. Could it be? After the threat of storms for the past two days and a 21/2 hour thunderstorm, was it possible that our heat would get a dry, warm track? Yep. It was. By the second or third of the five runs of the third, the rain was no longer a factor. Its always a strange feeling to see someone else catch bad luck that just misses you, sympathy mixed with relief and a mercenary better him than me sense.
Once again, Duncan’s and Hughes’ Loti set the pace. Duncan matched Becker’s 49s from the first two passes, and beat that down to a 48.3. Hughes reptilian green Snot Rocket, imbued with the angry souls of thousands of tortured tree frogs pitilessly snatched from this world, pulled an incredible 47.7 clean last run, dropping the FTD crown in the Mudhen’s lap at heat’s end, if he could but hang on to it. Mr. Personality, Wade and Fast Freddie all laid down runs in the 48s, Wade’s best a 48.8 and Fred a 48.9. But the Lare Bear did them one better, knocking out a 47.9 on his third. This held for a while as FTD until the Loti had their final say, and topped XP class for the moment, with Mike Moran yet to run. Craig Smith was glad he stayed, running his times down to a solid 50.2. Unflappable Smooth Jim Harris got the job done with a 50 flat, which would cement his ASP double class win for the weekend, tenth overall, and 5th in PAX, if one cares about such things.
As the sunshine increased , it was clear that the fourth heat was truly the place to be. Conspicuously absent from the rain risky second and third heats were the Reynards of Felten the younger and Honeycutt, who usually did their business in those run groups, respectively. We are not privy whether a heat switch was made, but one wonders whether this was strictly the twist of fate or something else. In any event, both of the open wheel cars, and Mike Moran (who customarily lies in wait in the fourth heat) were poised to spoil Chipper’s frog boil.
There was weird sluggish quality to the coursework in the fourth heat I cannot fully explain. They moved as if in slow motion and at times seemed bewildered. Mike Moran got two reruns because of workers standing like statues in mid-course, and used them to log a series of runs in the 48s and 49s, finally finishing with a 49.2. The all CACC XP podium of Larry, Wade and Fred would hold.
Honeycutt zipped his formula car around the now bone dry course logging 49s and 48s, culminating in swift best lap of 47.9. And quiet man Felten let his Reynard do the talking, edging out Chipper’s best time by the third run with a 47.2, and securing FTD then and there. He eventually ran to a 46.0 his last lap, but we are informed that he knocked the stuffing out of a cone on the last element of the course, that a worker even ran out to replace it, but it does not seem to have been scored. Hmmm. No matter, because it would not change the outcome, but still, another example of the strange sombulescent fog that seems to have descended on the courseworkers during the last heat. Once again, Rob Robeson shone with the sun on Sunday, using the dry pavement of his chosen heat to continue his march to a double C stock class win, locking that down and finishing third in PAX to the likes of Becker and Casey, with a furious 50.7.
In a final weird bounce, after the results were posted, it was pointed out that the index for SSM was off, and PAX standings were adjusted. Becker, who had a double PAX win until then, changed slots, elevating Larry’s FFR to No. 1 in PAX on top of the Bear’s XP class win, and putting upstart Robeson second in PAX, bumping Jason to third for Sunday. Hughes, Casey, Wade and Fred all posted top ten raw times.
The good weather fairy was back at her post during the tire change and the drive home.
After the StormLarry and I roared past our fellow drivers, giving them the finger (a thumb actually), as they trundled their rides home in trailers under bright sunny skies and fluffy white clouds. Another eventful and exciting Cumberland race day was behind us, and I could only look forward to the next one.
