WERA Sportsman Series, Talladega Grand Prix Raceway, Sunday, June 19. Race direction: counter-clockwise.
"Third and final call". When I heard those words I was sitting on pit road waiting to go out for my race. I eased up next to Ronnie Erwin, an expert racer, and asked him if he still gets nervous cause I was plenty nervous. Ronnie said, "just go out there and relax and have some fun." That sounded like a good plan to me.
I was gridded in novice wave 2 one row back of my buddy Gill Cutchen. Gill can run 1:07's at Tally so I knew my only hope of keeping up with him for even 1/2 lap was to get a good start. The Expert wave was away and the revs came up and off we go. I cought a little wheelie at the start but got a good jump, not far behind Gill. Some guy on a big ass thumper came by me into one so I settled in behind him and a shirt for lap one.
Headed into the bowl the shirt went down and came up holding his leg. I learned later it was broken. Red flag and a restart was in order. My second start wasn't as good as the first. The thumper and another guy got by so I settled in and ran as hard as I could.
I was pleased that I kept up with 2 guys till we got to the 90's so I'm improving a little but I was still way off this weekend. Maybe my head was screwed up from Saturday's near miss. In any case it was a lonely race for me. The only excitement I had was when the experts came by to lap me. They go by so freaking fast that it can startle you. Their corner speed must be so much higher than mine to give them that kind of a run down the straight.
I was hoping not to get lapped by the Novice leaders this time but damn if that $&#*@(# JB Layman didn't go flying by. You can't miss him with that yellow helmet. We love to hate JB even though we don't even know him. He's just so damn fast. It will be fun to see how he does in expert next year.
After the race I learned that Gill had finished 3rd in Novice, his first podium. Congratulations to him and to all who ran at Talladega this weekend.
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