September 17-18 was a Midwestern Council driver's school / race weekend at Blackhawk Farms Raceway. Since the Tiga's oil pressure was solidly in the "iffy" range, I decided against running as a chase car for the school on Saturday. The MC points chase was almost decided. All I needed was to finish in front of Pete Wood to clinch the CFF championship. Pete was looking strong, so I relied again on strategy.
I had my crew monitor Pete's qualifying times while I watched my own times on my in-car timer. Such an invention! Back in the day (last year), your crew had to use a stopwatch and put numbers on a pit board, which they showed you as you raced past them. But they couldn't show you the time for the lap you just completed -- it was always the lap before. By then, it was old news! Now I can see my lap time right on the steering wheel, as well as lap number, total time in the session, and whether that lap was faster or slower than my best. When Pete did a 1:22, I turned up the wick and did a 1:21. When Pete recorded a 1:20.8, I pulled out all the stops and scraped out a 1:20.2. As I rounded corner 1, I saw Pete's car sitting in the grass next to the corner station.
After the session, Pete explained that he downshifted for corner 1, but when he got back on the throttle, the car didn't accelerate. The engine revved happily, but it wasn't connected to the transmission. He suspected a broken input shaft, like I had at Road America in August, but it sounded to me like a stripped clutch disc. I tried to persuade him to fix it for the race, but his Crossle chassis is a different design than the Tiga. He would have to support the engine with a hoist to get the clutch out. His day was done.
At that point, I could have also packed up and I still would have clinched the championship. (If Pete could win the last two events, and if I didn't show to either one, we would have tied for points, but I had more wins.) But I didn't come out just to pack up when it got too easy. I decided to try to have a race with Scott Reif, the third place CFF qualifier.
I looked for Scott in my mirrors on the first lap, expecting to just race leisurely with him. But as we came out of corner 5, a sports racer spun in corner 6, blocking the right side of the track. Scott was trying to pass the sports racer gridded between us, but he had gone to the right side and almost had to come to a full stop to avoid the stalled car. I think Scott lost about four or five positions and at least 15 seconds because of it. I was too far ahead to catch, so I ran alone for the rest of the race. Scott finished second (in a '76 Tiga), Mike Schindlbeck finished third, Bob Fleming was fourth, and Larry Noble rounded out the CFF field in a third Tiga.
The CFF points after this race:
- John Haydon - 200
- Pete Wood - 126
- Michael Schindlbeck - 85
- Scott Reif - 53
- Denis Downs - 33
- Larry Noble - 27
- Bob Fleming - 21
- Jon Borkowski - 16
- Paul Schindlbeck - 16
- Dick Plank - 13
With only two races remaining and only 50 points up for grabs, my lead was solid. Time to pop the champagne!
Next time: SCCA Fall Sprints at BFR. I promise this one will take me less than a month to write!
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