My day started at 4:00am and after I was showered, shaved & caffinated, I was on the road to Pocono by 5:00am. The morning's fog and traffic slowed my arrival to the track and all the way up I kept thinking, this is not good. What if we have fog at the track?

Upon arriving at the track I could see we were again faced with a "fogged in" condition. The drivers meeting was complete and the cars were assembled at pit out waiting for the fog to lift. We offered parade laps to the novice class, just so they "could see" the track for their first time. Shortly after the track tour, the fog started to lift.
(editors note: these are not poor quality photos, this is how it looked at track side before 10:00am)

By 10:30am conditions improved and the track was opened for practice by group. After all the groups had run in class, the track was open for free practice on a first come, first served basis. By mid afternoon we started the time trial portion of the event with drivers getting 3 timed laps in which to post their fastest lap time.

Corvair FTD for the second year in a row, went to the red #71 of Bruce Carlton. Bruce bettered his last years time by 3 seconds and just missed overall FTD by a scant 23/100 of a second to the 2.3L 1988 BMW M3 of James Pettinato. Both of these cars were almost 3 seconds faster than the rest of the field!

Lets hear it for the old cars. John Ross in his 1970 350 Camaro, clocked in 5th fastest overall. The Camaro looked great coming off the last turn just before the start-finish line. Not to be out done with spectacular finishes, Terry Stafford in his 1964 Spyder Coupe put 2 wheels in the dirt on his way to 10th quick. Well done John & Terry. Which only goes to prove what I have always said, "I don't care what you drive, show me you know how to drive it."

In working an event the thing I dislike most is not making time to say hello to old friends and meet new drivers. One new driver I was able to meet was Tom Knorr (AH Sprite) because Tom worked the start-finish line with me during one session. I have always loved Sprites and his racecar Sprite was definately my pick of the cars to watch. Sprites are just fun cars and Tom did have fun at the event.

To read more about the event, see the following links. All comments are from the FastVairs list;

• Al Lacki - Timing & Scoring.
• Bruce Carlton #71 - The Corvair FTD Driver.
• Rick Stansbury #5 - Driver.
• More Photos - See more photos of the event courtesy of Bill Hughes.
• Lap Times by Class - Or see lap times by overall standing below.

And as always send any comments, rebuttals, corrections etc., to Roy Buckridge
See you at the next Pocono event, Bayshore At Pocono, September 4, 2004