Thanks...OCC...one and all...!

[Flyin_Freddie]

Whew...and I DO mean WHEW! I've been home since Monday night, and I'm just now getting caught up on my sleep. What a week....like Kumpy said..."It's hard work havin' this much fun!" Man...I gotta start getting more practice in before next year's events.

Jay Nordstrom and I were sitting under one of the trees on a parking lot island during the autocross...I turned to Jay and he was about to nod off to sleep....AND THIS WAS WITH ALL THE EXHAUST AND BURNOUT NOISES GOING ON! Man...we're talkin' worn-plumb-out. I said to Jay...."Y'know, with all the alcohol I drank this week...Mid-Ohio, and now here in Columbus in the parking lot...hell, it's 3:00 PM and I'm startring to get the shakes...I need a drink!"

Remember....do not try this at home...we were on a closed course, and of course, we're professionals....

Now....where's marg mygarita...?

[Flyin_Freddie]

0630 came early for most of us. Those of us from Memphis had been fairly sane the night before...had to...it rained cats-n-dogs just as we made it to the golf course clubhouse on the hill above the Comfort Inn. (By the way...save your money, it wasn't THAT good!) But, there we were...up early and on our way to Mid-Ohio. We parked the trailers and unloaded to have our cars teched. Went to the first session where they split us up into Advanced, Intermediate, and Novice drivers. Novices went off to the skid pad, Intermediates and Advanced drivefrs went off to the track for cornering drills. Very informative...safe, well designed to let you learn the line through a particular set of corners. These were instructor led lines of cars of about 8-10 vehicles...you followed the exact paths of the instructor cars, silver Honda S2000's. If you started to push the instructor, he forced you to slow down and learn the lines better....good choice, we needed it later. I'll let someone from the Novice group comment on their sessions Tuesday.

After lunch, some more cornering drills. Then, due to a previous commitment with Mid-Ohio, we had to stand down from 2:00-6:00 PM while some driver coaching sessions were going on. One of the race teams coming in for the Rolex Sports Car series that weekend had rented the track to help coach one of their drivers on passing and cornering techiques before the race. No problem, as this gave us time to put on our track tires.

At 6:00 PM, we were back on the track for some more high speed instructor led lapping. Each line followed their instructor around trying to stay exactly in the same tires lines as the instructors were laying down. I managed to get some great video from my in-car lipstick camera...sometimes reaching 120+ before I had to back off to avoid the guy in front of me. Suffice it to say, I managed to put about 140 miles on my SPF...ran it almost out of gas, and it was FULL when I unloaded that morning. I was worn out, but major happy...!

So...back to the hotel, and we went to KC Steakhouse for a well deserved steak and salad.

Okay...and maybe a few drinks...you know how we are...

[Flyin_Freddie]

The 0730 driver's meeting again came way too early for most of us. But, there we were ... ready, eager, and hungry for some speed runs. Again we split up, but since I had watched the Doppler radar in the hotel room, I wondered just how much driving we were going to get in...turns out I was more optimistic than was warranted.

We had just spilt out to our run groups, and were on our way back to the garage area when the first lightening bolts lit up the skies....KE-RACCCCK! Man, I thought, that was close. Closer than I realized, as it turned out. Within 20 minutes the skies had turned from grey ominous looking clouds to dark blue skies with bolts of lightening flashing all around us.

And then the rains came.

...and came.

...and came.

...and came.

At one time, the paddock area had at least 20-24 inches of water in it all trying to get down one of the storm sewers....it looked like a geyser...water shooting up from the sewer grate about 3-4 feet in the air. Water...lots of it...Oh, look...here comes some more!

Luckily, I was secure in garage #20, down near the exit from the hot pit area. I had already began to swap back to my street tires when the monsoon season began. One of the Rolex teams had already started to unload into the garage area when the dam burst. I waded out to talk to them...all I needed was about 30-40 minutes and I'd be out of their way. No problem, they replied, take your time, we're not in the garage area officially until 1200 noon. Nice buncha guys... Besides...it was raining cats-n-dogs and coming down so fast they didn't want to be out in it either. So, I was able to change my tires, put my street tires back on, and make sure I was ready for the LCS.

It finally slowed down a bit, so I got my trailer and backed it up to the door of the garage. I was able to load up without taking my SPF out in the rain. Lucky...I know it. Back to the hotel we headed to watch some in-car video I had taken from my lip-stick camera during Tuesday evening's track time sessions...

...maybe have a few drinks...you know how we are....

That evening, we headed off to a local bar-n-grill where we met up with Kumpy and more OCC folks for some bench racing and dinner.

Okay....and maybe have a few drinks....you know how we are....

[Flyin_Freddie]

We left Lexington, Ohio, for the 60 mile, or so, trip down to Columbus at about 0900 local. It was an easy drive, and we got to the Best Value before some of our rooms were ready. But, we got checked in early, and we thought about unloading our cars. But, it was still supposed to rain heavily in the area before the evening was upon us. So, we held an impromptu meeting in the parking lot and decided to take a more prudent course of action.

We unloaded the margarita machine.

Yeah...screw the cars...we can drink in the rooms and watch it rain if worse comes to worse.

It did. Rain...lots of it...came that night. I actually felt sorry for some of the poor schmucks with their cars out in the open without tops or tonneau covers. Well...okay...not THAT sorry. Maybe somewhere between the seventh and ninth margarita I felt sorry. Okay....maybe not for the car owners...for their cars. Wait...who am I kiddin'....? I felt sorry because the margarita machine ran out of mix and we had to stop it to add some more. Yeah...THAT'S what I felt sorry for....

Hey look...here comes Jay....Hey, let's go to Salvi's for dinner. Good idea. Tortellini Gratenelli...Caeser salad...More drinks... Good food, good times, good friends....can it get any better?

...oh, and maybe we had a few more cocktails...you know how we are....

More later..gotta go...it's Happy Hour here....

[rdorman]

Great recap Freddie! Can't wait to read the rest. I know what you are saying about a long week. It took me several days to catch up. Up every morning no later then 7, one morning before the first day at Mid-Ohio, up at 4:30. Down no earlier then 1am every night. To much fun being had at all the tailgating activities. It was hard to turn in every evening. My only wish is that I could go without sleep for a week so the fun would never end! Not as young as I once was!

[Godzila]

Freddie
great storyline..Iwuz runnin on about 4 hours sleep each nite all week, am still trying to catch up, everytime I sit down I fall asleep, but what fun,,,,it's probably good we do this only once a year!...........Hmmmmn?