Saw the accident, then the helicopter. Bill Bader said to me personally he was OK. (The show goes on) I hope it is not true and he did not die. My prayers are with him and his family.
Steve The guy that wrecked the Mustang has raced at Quaker before, his name is Karl Mendenhall from Uniontown, Ohio. He runs his car in that UMTR stick shift class that runs sometimes.
Ok with Doug being taken care of. :spank: John Jr, John Sr and I left the hotel parking lot at 8:08am and headed to the track.. There was almost no traffic until Akron Rd turned into Woodward. About a half mile from Rt 20 on Rt 18 we stopped in line. Probably 1 1/2 miles from the track.. We finally get into Linder's lot and are handed a card with the number 200 on it. There we are directed into long lines of cars and trucks. I think we were in row 9 of about 25. It is now 8:51am.. :Brow: At 11:00am they announce we are all suppose to go up to the white tent in front.. Thinking they set up a big tent for the amount of people there are, we head on up.. As we get past the last trucks and look, they have a K-Mart special 8x8 shade tent with 3 ladies under it. They couldn't even spring for the big one. :rant: :laugh: So they are trying to take people in order of the numbers they handed out when you entered. No PA.. Not even a bullhorn.. Total chaos ensues for the next 4 hours. And its 90+ degrees out!! :af: There has to be 1000 plus people standing around this little tent with just 3 people signing you in and giving you your credentials. The only saving grace was they had the kids driving back and forth to the track filling Gatorade buckets with ice water and had a couple cases of cups set up around the tent.:beers2: Now at about 2pm we get our stuff and head over to the truck.. A little chicanery went on with us because they gave 145 to Gary Paine in his car. He gave that to Doug Paine who in turn gave us his 165 number. We jumped 35 spots up. Finally at 2:30pm we pull into our pit box and start to set up our stuff.. We are now in the 129 spot We were 200 to begin with so obviously the idiot handed out the cards gave 71 of them before us to non racers. I think around 3:30pm they called 100-149 to tech and of course Jr gets the stickler inspector. Everyone else is just pulling through without even opening their hoods and this guy is crawling over the car like a spider. So an hour or so later we head on back and eat. ray: The first run was a little after that in the heat with Jr cutting a 131 light with an 9.08@152 The next pass was about 8pm with John just killing the tree with an .026 and running an 8.91@154 in the cooler temp.. The next morning his sponsor told him to redlight on the first qualifier and he did hammering it with an -.011 and running the same 8.91 The next qualifier was the first arm drop and John killed em again even getting A thumbs up from Christensen as he blew past him. :TU:
John Sr and I moved the PINKS lighting and opened the gate by the staging lanes to let the Ambulance in. Then did it again to let them out when the helicopter left. ou: There was no one from the track there. Everyone else was just staring at it like what do we do.. Sr started yelling to move the cars and we opened the gate.. :TU: John is quick in a panic!! :beers2:
I wasn't trying to be witty.. I was explaining to the folks about my day at the track. Now for my witty retort: "Hi This is my friend Jack **** and you don't know him."
Boy......reading about that kind of a fiasco is making me have second thoughts on going and I am only 15 minutes from Englishtown when they come in at the end of July. Englishtown has never been known to speed things thru and with 450 car and or trailers I am fearing it right now with 6 weeks to go.
I can't believe the tri-staters will put up with BS these PINKS chuckleheads made us go through.. These guys running this clusterf*ck will be in for a rude awakening when they get a taste of New Jersey hospitality. :grin: Or should I say hostility. :spank: :blast: :laugh: :laugh:
