The following are my adventures starting with the trip to Pocono on Thursday afternoon. My son Dan with his Corvette, and I were to meet my friend Dave (owner of a Masarti Biturbo) at the New Baltimore reststop on the Thruway (I87) at 1:30 PM. As I slowed to make the turn into the truck parking area of the reststop the brake pedal went to the floor so I went straight ahead to the car parking area and slowly stopped with just the rear truck brakes as a front steel line had burst from too much rust attack over the years. I didn't have another line with me and Dave didn't think he did either so Dan went to get one (back to Albany NY, about 15 miles). While he was gone I removed the old line and dave found he did have one in his trailer. I installed the line and then waited another 20 minutes for Dan to get back so we could be on our way. The rest of the trip was uneventful.

Friday morning at the track we had to wait an hour or more for the fog to burn off so we started late. When our group went out to practice I lined up behind Rick Stansbury as we always enjoy "playing together" during practice. When the green waved after a couple of laps Rick took off as if possesed and I found out I still needed to warm up my brakes and feel more comfortable with the track so I dropped back or rather he forged ahead without me, so much for our play time. I finally started to get it together and move out when what do I see when coming down the straight but Rick's car into the barrier on the outside of the turn off the straight, not a pretty sight. I'll let him describe the damage. That ended that practice session. During a later practice session during which time I had found the groove and gotten the rhythem of the track I saw my son Dan a couple cars back so I decided to see if I could hold off his Corvette ( a 2002 Z06 with a Vortech supercharger and well set up suspension) which I knew could eat me alive on the straight but he was running performance street tires so I might be able to gain some back on the twistier parts. We ran several laps and though we both passed several cars we still had a couple cars between us. It turns out maybe he tried too hard because he later found he had aparently blown a headgasket.

I lined up for the timed runs early in the group as the car was still warm and I sometimes have trouble getting the oil up to temp before the timed laps if I let it cool too long. This year my timed laps were uneventful compared to last year when I spun on the first corner of the first lap. I thought I had posted a good time as the runs felt good with no obvious (to me) errors. When the times were posted I was surprised that I had taken a bit over 2 seconds off last years time. I turns out I posted the FTD for the Corvairs for the second year in a row. I believe the time was 1:14.98 compared to a 1:17 last year. Last year it was about 30 or 40 deg F colder than this year. I don't have the times for others but they are on the NECC website.

With Dan's blown headgasket we put the Corvette in Dave's trailer and Dan drove the Biturbo home Friday night while Dave and I went on down to Harrisburg for the sports compact show on Saturday. It is always handy to travel with friends as usually something can be worked out to get everything home again. In this case there were 5 of us from this area of upstate NY and two of the trailered cars were lisenced.

It was a great weekend, now I have to get back to the real world tomorrow.

Bruce C