VIR Spring Fling Race
Just a smudge on the decal. That was the only thing you could
see where
a Camaro lightly touched the Gimmal Cobra's right rear fender, but it
was enough to send to the car into the wall. Traveling at over 100MPH,
the Camaro tried to inch his nose into a high speed corner on the first
lap of qualifying and the result send Dan head-first hard into the wall
at the start-finish line.
Before the wreck the weekend had been decidedly mixed: Dan returned to
the top the winner's circle for career win #20 and Harry drove very well
on both days to some hard fought finishes. Engine woes meant that
Bobbie ended up with three cylinders filled with water and unable to
finish her race. On the Friday practice day, Harry and Mike Morris
unloaded the white Cobra where it promptly made three laps before
destroying a brand new engine. Mike made a Herculean effort to take the
car back to Richmond, build a new engine, and install it before
returning to the track at 2:00AM.
A similar effort took place to get the wrecked car back on the track on
Sunday. With just about an hour until it was time to line up on the
grid, a bunch of people pitched in and used bolts, bailing wire, and a
whole lot of racer's tape to put the car back together again just in
time to make the race. With no time to get rain tires and starting from
the back, a third place finish was probably more than Dan deserved.
Harry drove very well in the rain and not only finished ahead of Dan,
but ahead of all the other Cobras in the field. Ralph & Barb Lyons came
to visit from Washington state and played key roles over the weekend and
Ashley and Thomas came out to visit as well.
The VIR Spring Fling certainly gave no meaning to the phrase "hard
fought win"
