This weekend I got my Crossle 40f out to the track for the first time since I purchased it a couple months ago. Buttonwillow Raceway was having an open test the day before the SCCA Pacific Coast Road Racing Championships, so I took advantage of it and got in seven good sessions. All the prep work paid off as the test went quite well, considering I was getting used to a completely different car, on completely different tires, with the track running backwards making it a completely different track, phew! Yep, I was toast by Friday night ;-)
I’m usually a one-man team at the track, just occasionally having a buddy come along to help out. But this Friday and Saturday I paid to have a crew member come along with me, and boy was it worth every penny. Paul Moore of The Moore Speed Co., who worked on both the Wagon and Crossle chassis fabrication projects, helped me fix and tune all the little things that need attention on a car’s first trip to the track. Lap times kept coming down every session as the car and I got used to each other, and by race time I was ready to go. The Southern California Region of SCCA (known as Cal Club) also hosted a Saturday night BBQ and Halloween costume contest that was enjoyed by all.
The race Group I ran in was a mix of Formula Fords, Formula Vees, and Spec Racer Fords, quite the interesting mix necessitated by the small turnout. We only had about a dozen cars in the group, but the lack of heavy traffic was quite welcome with so much else on my platter this weekend. The fast FFs are a few seconds a lap faster than the fast SRFs, so that put me right in the mix of a swarming pack of SRFs who were obviously quite used to running close to one another. As I pre-gridded for Sunday’s race, the SCCA grid workers politely pointed out I had forgotten to put on my arm restraints, a required piece of equipment I’m not used to needing in Sedan racing. By the time I got back to grid, the warm-up lap had already started so I gave up my 5th place qualifying position and started at the back (which luckily was only 12th). The race start was quite exciting, and I had a great flag-to-flag battle with a SRF driver who said he enjoyed the race as much as I did. We’ll just call this one a successful first outing!
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