It's their victory

It may often seem like racing cars is an individual sport. One-on-one with steeds of steel. But it’s not.

Last year I was headed over to a race in Portland, pulling the trailer up a long grade toward Madras and wanting to get by a semi before I ran out of passing lane. A whistle and “KABLOW!” and I had no power. I figured, correctly, that I had blown a hose off the turbo diesel, and limped into Madras.

Even though they were short handed and their diesel mechanic was buried, the guys at Miller Ford in Madras put a new hose on the Excursion and I was on my way in little more than an hour. Cost me $100 with the truck still under warranty.

I went on to win the race that weekend. I always meant to send Ford Motor Company and Miller Ford a copy of the results sheet with a thank you note. I would not have been there except for that hour they took out of their schedule.

Last week Portland was a little warm in the afternoon, but pretty nice weather. I qualified second to a Corvette driven by Steve MacDonald of Seattle, and took second in the heat race on Saturday after chasing MacDonald for 20 miles of “two feet away” racing.

If he went wide, I went close, if he went close, I went wide. I tried to get by him on the straight, inside corners, braking into corners. He was too tough, and never gave me an opening, even though a simple half-second bobble on his part was all I needed.

Behind us, cars were spinning and fighting on what one driver called “a track littered with drama.”

In practice on Sunday, morning, I’d done about three laps when all of a sudden my transmission gave up. It was certainly driver abuse, either accidental compression braking (only twice, I swear!), overly enthusiastic power shifts ( I never...!) or a missed downshift from fourth to third or to second. At 11 a.m. I had a case full of pieces where my tranny should have been.

Jon, Rippy, Mike and Mark went to work. In less than three hours, they had the broken tranny out and on the ground, a new transmission and new clutch back in. I looked for parts, oil and alignment tools and bought lunch; in other words, I didn’t do much, except to line up to race at 4:10 p.m.

My biggest contribution was getting them some cheeseburgers.

The green flag came down and we ran for the first turn. The track was greasy that late on a hot July day. During the race, an original midyear Z06 Corvette spun and got hit in the chicane, a vintage Cobra got T-boned by a Porsche and collected a Mustang GT350, others were off the track and on again.

I took second to MacDonald, again. Though I turned the best lap of anyone in the group that day, he was smart and backed off to save his tires when he could. In trying to catch him, I went faster for a short while but used up my tires and fell further behind.

But we raced, because of what those guys were able and willing to do. Others in the paddock around us were impressed with our crew of irregulars. “That’s the best part of racing,” said the driver of a vintage 50s race Corvette next to us. He had seen a lot in his years at the track, he had the alignment tool we needed, was impressed we had a transmission.

I wish I’d won the race that afternoon, but the fact that the car was out there at all should have made those guys proud. That by itself was a victory, all theirs.