I wanted to wait a couple days before I penned this one so that I could try to process everything a little better and make sure I'm in the right frame of mind here. That hasn't happened yet. 😒 Let me start from the beginning, seems like a good place to start from.
We got to the track 15 minutes after the scheduled gate opening time. Interestingly enough, the pits were already mostly full. The great thing about South Sound Speedway is, when they say the gate opens at 1pm, they really mean that when you show up at 1pm the pits are already mostly full. They generally start loading in before the scheduled gate opening time. I will say, it's much better than the days of sitting in line trying to get in the pit gate at other tracks, seeing the gate open at the scheduled time and knowing you're probably an hour deep in the line while practice starts in 15 minutes. So good on them for seeing a line at the gate and loading them in, rather than waiting until exactly the scheduled time.
Being 15 minutes late meant pit stalls were already mostly taken, so we just found one where we could get. We never have a specific stall we want to be in, we don't rent a stall, we don't really even have an area we want to be in. We just take what we can get and work with it. Are there better stalls? Yes. There are power poles with electrical outlets along pit road, so if you can pit next to a power pole you don't need your generator. We have learned to just bring a VERY long extension cord and a splitter and just drag that thing as far as we have to. This time wasn't bad, I think we were only 2 stalls away from a pole. That works! We were, however, way down pit road from the tech pad, so it's a long shove to go to tech. Or you just drive it, which I'm not fond of doing, but making my guys push the car that far isn't a good option either. There's definitely a group of individuals who always seem to be there first and always take the stalls closest to tech. I don't know how they are always there first, maybe they show up at 8am for that 1pm gate opening, I don't know. I just know I've literally never beat them there, even when we show up an hour early. 🤷♀️
Tech went fine, the car was checked and given approval. Honestly, it's the same car we had last year so they should know what they are looking at by now. We started getting ready for practice, which was slowed by a short rain shower. Once the rain passed by we got in some laps, the car was okay. Not great, but okay. For some reason it was really sliding the nose right in the middle of the corner and would chatter really bad. Almost like you were driving on a washboard. Other than the chatter and push in the middle, it was good. The chart showed we were fast, in the top 5 for sure. With 13 cars there that day, that's a good accomplishment for a setup we completely changed over the winter. We ended up losing one car in practice. I don't remember what exactly happened to him, but he loaded up and left after coming in on the hook during the final practice.
Qualifying is group style, so everyone gets to go out at once and make as many laps as you want. You can come in and make adjustments, then go back out as well. You get a given amount of time and you all go nuts. It can be tough to find space to lay down a clean lap. Some of these guys are in full on race mode all day, even in practice. They just will NOT let you go by them, blocking like crazy, even in practice. Luckily I found some open space and got a few good laps in. Even after our adjustment, the mid corner chatter and push had not gone away. It seemed like everything we did to the car was only affecting corner entry and exit, the center was still the same chatter. But regardless, we ended up 4th on the chart after qualifying, of 12 cars. That's pretty solid, I'll take it. At this point I was in pretty good spirits, the day was going okay. Not great, but okay enough to be proud of it. Then all hell started to unravel.
It was shortly after qualifying that the tech man came marching over to my car very sternly and started demanding that I jack the rear of my car up. He was extremely confrontational in his demeanor and very stern with his demands. It's hard to explain, but it was just like you knew this was not going to go well. You ever been in a bar fight? It felt like that moment right before you take a punch, like you know it's coming but you're just not sure from where or when. He demanded that I jack up one said of the car, so I did. He was checking my rear end to see if I had a locker in it, which we did. Apparently I overlooked that rule and lockers are not legal. For those asking "what's a locker?" Good question. Inside the rear end you have a set of gears that distribute the power from the driveshaft to the wheels. In a typical street car, that power is distributed to one tire only. Some cars come with "posi-traction" which will send power to both tires. In our racecar, a locker will send power to both tires under acceleration but only one tire the rest of the time. The advantage to a locker is, it's easier to push the car around in the pits and you don't have to be as perfectly exact on your stagger. outside of that, there's basically no advantage on the racing surface, because out there, you are on the gas. Now, a lot of people are gonna comment on this and say "You're an idiot, a locker is a huge advantage going in the corner because you are not on the gas there." Again, that's where you don't have to be as exact on your stagger. You can be a half an inch off and the locker will make up for it. It's not like it's some game changing advantage. It's certainly not the reason we were 4th quick, I can tell you that. Because that rear end has been in this car since the day I built it, which means it was also in it when we qualified 11th out of 12 cars. See, I literally built this car out of leftover stuff laying around the shop. When it came time to put a rear end in it, Tommy said "There's an old one laying over there, grab that one." So we did, and I didn't even think about looking at the rules regarding lockers. Because the rules are very similar to the late model rules so I didn't expect it to be illegal.
Now, that being said, we're illegal. I'm fine with that. I made a mistake and didn't read every line of the rules, it's my fault for being illegal. I'm willing to accept that. Typically, in these cases the offending team/car/driver is told "We'll let this slide today, but don't bring it back." That's not really what happened with me. The tech man immediately jumped on me the instant he found the locker, telling me "You can't have that, you're illegal. If you finish in the top 4 you WILL be disqualified." Okay, so no grace period then? He replied "Absolutely not, DO NOT FINISH IN THE TOP 4 or you will be DQ'd."
Okay, that's cool. Maybe I'm not one of the chosen ones who get a grace period. I'm not surprised. Maybe he feels that allowing me to finish 5th is my grace period. I don't know. What I do know is, you could see every other team coming by my car looking at the rear of it. You could see them walking away whispering about it. And every single one of them would not even look at me when they came by my car. It was almost like I was a pariah, an outcast that should be stoned. It's hard to describe the feeling, but it was clear that I was not welcomed there.
Whatever, let's try to focus on the evening and simply pull up short at the end. 5th would be fine for our first night, I'd take that. We lined up for the Trophy Dash, starting on the pole. For the new fans, the Trophy Dash is the fastest 4 cars from qualifying, lined up with in a complete invert so the fast guy is last and so on, and they are given 4 laps to settle it, winner take all. Starting on the pole isn't a bad thing, usually you can get a decent start and just hold your line for four laps and look all handsome. Things started off weird from the get-go. I was lined up next to Fulmer in the 75 car. He's known as the "Grandfather of Vintage Modifieds" at South Sound Speedway. Fulmer Chassis builds a lot of these cars, he has worked very hard to build the class and he's generally a very nice man, has even helped me fix my car in the pits before, even to the point of running to his house to find parts. Fulmer is one of the old school guys who will help anyone. But man, on the track he's different. We scrubbed our tires on the pace laps and then on the final pace lap we come off turn two and he's just shoving me down, literally banging into the side of my car to the point that one time his cleft side tires came off the ground. I'm not talking a little shoving here, I'm talking literally dented my right side nerf bars he hit me so hard in an effort to force me very low on the track. At that point on the track there was a solid two lanes above him, so we're not talking moving me over a little, we're talking literally moving me down off the racing surface into the marbles. Whatever dude, when the green flag dropped I gassed it up and got away from him. My spotter cleared me by the time I got to turn one so I started to settle in. A yellow flag flew almost immediately, I knew they didn't like the start. In cases where the leader goes too soon, or the outside car jumped the start, they will do this. So I knew they weren't happy with me. I looked at my GoPro footage the next morning and I can tell you this. When I went at the green the outside car's front tire was perfectly in line with the back of my front tire. So I was only 1 "tire length" ahead of him when I picked up the throttle. I have video evidence to prove it. But they didn't like the start, and I don't call the shots. So, re-rack 'em. 😒
On the "restart" I again lined up inside the 75 car, but this time I decided it was clearly not worth trying to battle him for room down the back straight, we'll just sort it out in turn 3. He can only shove me so low there anyways. Interestingly enough, they threw the yellow as I was coming off turn 4 so we started relining the field. I assumed they would give us one lap to get re-lined but they threw the green immediately on that same lap. So we took the yellow, went through 1 and 2, down the back straight and into turn 3 and they threw the green, that fast. It kind of caught me by surprise, so I jumped on the gas too hard and spun the tires. But so did Fulmer, so I was able to clear him by turn 2 and start running for my life. The chatter in the middle was still there and I was struggling to protect the bottom. Fulmer got under me on the final lap coming off turn 2 and drove by me on the inside going into 3. He outdrove me that day and I watched him take the win in the final corner of the race. So in the end, the speedway got the outcome they wanted. It was becoming clear that I wasn't gonna be given a fair shake anyways. It's fine, I'm okay with it. At this point I'm still fairly happy with the car and I told my guys "We're gonna get one this year, it'll happen."
We were in the second heat race, lined up inside second row. So starting 3rd of 6 cars. Again, lined up next to the 75. And again, shoved clear down in the marbles on the back straight. Whatever dude, I'm really not interested in battling over this for a heat race. There's another race later that I care more about, let's just protect the car for 8 laps and keep moving forward. When the green flag came out I got on the gas and having been forced into the marbles on the back straight, my tires were dirty and they spun really bad. It's a solid tactic to force the guy on the inside to keep his tires dirty, but I really don't care at this point. I did my best to gather it up without spinning out AND without wiping out the rest of the field. I just kind of kept it out of line to the inside and let everyone go, took an easy entry into turn 1 and when my spotter said the 18 was outside I eased up and just let him go by. The start was my mistake, I'll just settle in to last and log some laps, see how the car feels and we'll go to the main. I really don't feel like tearing shit up at this point in the day, so whatever. Once I settled in the car started getting better as the tire pressures came up. I was quite a ways back at this point, clearly last, but I could also tell that the gap to the cars in front of me was shrinking. Not huge, but you could visually see it getting smaller, I was catching them, I don't care what anyone says. You can see it on the GoPro footage too, that gap was shrinking. But, 8 laps isn't really enough to make it matter so I had no intentions of finishing anywhere but where I was. Then it happened. I came off turn 2 and saw the 18 car up against the wall. I was busy trying to battle my mid-corner problem when he went to the wall, so I wasn't looking directly at him when that happened and subsequently I didn't catch the full thing playing out. What I saw when I looked up was the 18 against the wall, and to me he looked like he was barely moving. I assumed he had broken something and was headed to the pits, because that's what they do at South Sound Speedway with the pit lane being off the end of the back straight at turn 3 like it is. So I came off turn 2 a groove lower than you normally would and gassed it up to move on by him.
As I went by him I got blasted in the right rear and it sent me straight at the end of the pit wall. I'm telling you, from the driver's seat I was pointed directly at the end of that wall and I was seeing me impacting it right in the driver's door. In your mind you start going through a lot of different scenarios in a situation like this. I've seen guys go into the end of that wall before and generally speaking they cut them out of their car, it's never good. So your brain starts doing things out of reflex and I pointed it away from that wall. What I failed to calculate was the Yuke tire on the opposite side, and the car whipped into that giant tire. For those who don't know, Yuke tires are those giant tires you see on the giant earth movers in mines. Tracks use old worn out Yuke tires as a sort of "soft barrier" in key location around the track. They are not soft by any means. The amount of damage done by that tire is nothing short of catastrophic -
The first glance shows that the entire rear clip (the frame) is bent. We'll have to cut it completely off the car and rebuild the back half. The rear end has a bent axle tube, which probably means a bent axle as well. It ripped both trailing arm mounts off the rear end, I couldn't tell if they were bent or not. It ripped both shocks completely off the car, one never came back, all we found was the top shock eye. It ripped one weight jack out of the car, so I'm assuming both weight jacks are bent and junk. The body and interior tin work is a complete mess. the rear bumper nerf bars are both destroyed. I'm sure we'll find more problems once we dig into it. I haven't unloaded it yet, it's still sitting in the trailer.
What really has me twisted up is everything that happened after the wreck. Apparently as soon as I got hit, one of the 18 crew (who was in the spotter area) yelled "spotter failure, what a fucking idiot!" He happened to be standing right next to my spotter, who didn't take too kindly to that statement. From what I heard, a lot of things were said in the spotter area while I was still trying to figure out if I was okay or not. My father, who is in his 70s, was called an "old mother fucker" and threatened to a fight, being told "Let's settle this right here old man!" My brother was called "four eyes" because he wears glasses. We were called a lot of names, yelled at very viciously and accused of causing the entire accident. They made it very clear that it was 100% my fault. I was told that I was "the worst car on the track and had no business even trying to pass him". During this entire situation, almost the entire pits came down to stare at the damage on my car. But not a single person asked if I was okay or if they could help at all. There was absolutely zero regard for me as a person. Just this crew of people yelling obscenities at us and a bunch of people pointing and giggling. To top it off, my crew was sent a photo from victory lane by the 18 team after they went on to win that night and the message read "P1 after ya'll ran us over". 😒
I feel like the culture at South Sound Speedway has been like this for a very long time. I raced her back in 2008 and 2009 and I left because of it then. I was called a crybaby and a whiner, so I left. I race here now because frankly there's not a lot of options, and here we are again, neck dep in this rancid, toxic culture where if you aren't in the clique you get treated like a pariah. I haven't reached a very good space in my head yet either, so at this point I really don't care if it ever gets unloaded. I have not been able to sleep for the last couple of nights, every time I lay down I start going over everything that happened and replaying events, things that were said and playing out what might transpire the next time I show up at the track, my blood pressure goes through the roof and I can't sleep at all. Hopefully I'll be in a better place by this weekend, but right now I'm just not there. Right now I just have zero desire to return to that toxic environment, even if there isn't anywhere else to race.
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