There are certain things in life which one most experience first hand as opposed to just watching. This list includes (but is certainly not limited to) eating steak dinners, skiing, drinking single-malt scotches, lap dances, trap shooting, and driving fast. So it was only natural that I politely refused when asked to be a “pit crew of one” for my friend Doug at an upcoming club race at the Glen. I also politely refused the second time he asked me. And the third time as well. By the fifteenth request I was worn down like the parent of a persistent, badgering child: “Are we there yet, Are we there yet, Are we there yet…….”!
It must have been the beer, it could have been a moment of temporary benevolence, but I finally relented and agreed to join him for three days at the track. “It’ll be fun”, he continuously chanted. Fun, my ass! Now I consider myself to be a good friend, but the thought of spending three days at a track without actually driving just flat out redefines the term unconscionable. Remember when we were kids how we would move a fork full of food up and down, then right to left in front of the family dog? Remember how his head followed your every move, eyes gleaming in anticipation? And at the last minute we would actually eat the food ourselves? Well, I did that as a child a lot, and was now about to be punished for those sins of the past. Well, I have paid my debt back to the canine society. Their gods have been appeased!
It was a grey, rainy morning as Doug and I departed for Watkins Glen. He came by in his Range Rover which was absolutely dwarfed by the enclosed trailer he was towing. We looked like two of Steinbeck’s Oakies fleeing the dust bowls of Oklahoma on highway 66, albeit wealthier ones. In fact, I’ll bet those folks heading for the “rich California valleys” would have been a heck of a lot more comfortable had they been towing all their earthly possessions behind a Range Rover. Pain, suffering, and depravity are more easily suffered while ensconced within Connoly hides, Wilton wool, and endangered rain forest veneers. Needless to say, our four hour ride to the Glen was quite uneventful excepting the occasional “trailer-sway” brought on by the turbulence generated by passing eighteen-wheelers. A veritable case of “the tail wagging the dog”. (sorry for all the dog references, but we may have a theme going here).
The tone for the weekend was set the minute we arrived at the “Guest House”. On one side of the coin a Bed and Breakfast could be considered to be a quaint, charming experience steeped in the absorption of local history and culture. On the other side of the coin, the bed and breakfast experience could be described as a succession of horrors ranging from total non-smoking through forced socialization at breakfast. “Oh the humanity”. Needless to say, my first night in the “guest house” was a real nail-biter. I woke up at about three in the morning with a monster nicotine fit. I really wanted a cigarette(yes I know they will kill me, thank you for your concern!). Now here was the dilemma. Do I sneak outside like a sixteen-year old? Do I need to put on clothes, or would my boxers suffice? Will the opening of the front door awake everyone in the house? The anxiety brought on by these complex logistics just made me want to smoke all the more, so I threw on a pair of shorts and a fleece and made a run for it. What an ordeal! I’ll stay for three days in Attica before I ever visit a B&B again.
So we get to the track and begin the task of setting up the pit area. Once this was completed we got the car out of the trailer and immediately began to put in new brake pads. Next up was brake bleeding and window cleaning. Boy was this fun! All the tasks I hate to do for myself! And we get to repeat them for the next three days. At one point I was asked if I would help take some tire temp readings and responded by laughing uncontrollably. I’m a “run what you brung” kinda guy, so all this prep work seemed pretty excessive.
At least we had some interesting neighbors in the pits. One guy in particular was a real gem. He was this chubby, bearded guy that looked like he would have been a junior member of the ambulance squad in high school, or a member of the AV team at the least. At Happy Hour one evening he regaled us with some fascinating tales of his model car hobby, as well as his favorite play-station games. From that point on I treated him with kid gloves, lest he emerge from his trailer dressed in his little Captain Kirk uniform, poised to stun me with his official Star Trek replica phaser gun.
Despite all these distractions, we had Doug’s car ready for the Saturday sprint races. The weather cooperated, and Doug ran an excellent race, ultimately taking second in his class. An excellent performance. To celebrate, we retired to the “guest house” for a few beers on the patio. It was at this point that the weekend went from mildly disturbing to intensely surreal. The scene begins with a battered old Ford Econoline van with a World of Outlaw sprint car wing affixed to the roof pulling up to the house. From this engineering masterpiece emerges one of the guests staying across the hall from us. He readily informs us that he and his wife came to town to participate in a “dance gathering over at the RV park”. “What kind of dancing?”, one of us asks. “Oh, square dancing, line dancing, round dancing, we do it all”. Next he tells us that he is just stopping back to pick up another outfit for his wife, as “the scene was really heating up” over at the RV park, because “the dance floor is really good”. We explained to him that we were in town for the races to which he replied: “that sounds like a real hoot”. He then went inside, later emerging with a tastefully embroidered denim outfit for his wife. What a trip. Like a time warp. Maybe there is some validity to the teachings of Max Plank, the father of quantum physics.
On Sunday, we had an enduro race, which mandated one five minute pit stop per car. Since his tank could hold enough fuel for the entire race, it was agreed that Doug would come in if there was a yellow flag, and sit for five minutes. As luck would have it(at least from our perspective) the track went to yellow within the first half hour. Doug pulled in, we checked his wheels, he drank some water, and returned to the track. Since the car seemed fine, I decided to hit the men’s room for a “pit stop” of my own and to call my father to wish him a happy father’s day. This took about fifteen minutes, and I returned to the hot pit area only to find Doug getting back into his car, stomping mad. It turns out that his car had developed a miss at about 5000 RPM. Earlier in the weekend he had encountered a loose wire that powered the fuel pump. If that was the case he just needed the wire put back in place. Now I really felt guilty for leaving the pits. He returned to the track, and then disappeared. When the race was finished we returned to the pits, yet still no Doug. Finally he returned, on the back of a tow-rope. It turned out that the problem was unrelated to the prior fuel pump snafu. My guilt began to subside. The shame of it was that Doug was in second place overall when his car quit. Once he gets his car sorted, he will be very competitive.
And so ended my first and last stint as a pit crew member. Needless to say, there will be no calls from Junior Johnson. Darn, I thought I would be a natural. So, to all of you club racers, I salute you. Yet at the same time, please refrain from ever asking me to pit crew again, I am unworthy!
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Author:
Starting with a $99 “American Auto” minibike at age 9, Christopher Mahalick has spent the past 30 years frittering away his hard earned cash feeding a completely irrational car and motorcycle obsession. He currently writes a monthly column for “Der Gasser”, a monthly publication produced by the Porsche Club of America’s Riesentoter Region. In addition to a monthly column, he is also active in Drivers Ed as a participant, as well as being the region’s track registrar.
His style could be best described as “car articles that even chicks read”. Employing equal doses of humor and practicality, his mission is to bring “speed to the masses” by dispelling the myth that the car/motorcycle hobby is restricted only to the ultra-rich. Mr. Mahalick’s current “fleet” includes the following: a 1984 911 Targa, a 1971 914, a 1977 Yamaha RD-400 café bike, and “Thrashy”, a 1988, $150 Volkswagen Jetta beater.
Copyright (c) 2003 by Christopher Mahalick. All Rights Reserved
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