First of all, I want to thank all of you that have sent your condolences
and best wishes.  Although the crew took away my belt and kept me away from
any sharp instruments on Friday, they had relaxed their surveilance by
Sunday afternoon.  We can't control events, but we CAN control how we react
to them.

We had made some major changes to Lucifer since the last race(s) at
Savannah in July, so the idea was to run the test day on Friday to get used
to the additional horsepower, freshen my skills at Mid-Ohio, then load the
car in the trailer and wait for the Runoffs week to start on September 15.
Johnny Miller (driver of the AutomationDirect Jag in the Trans-Am series,
builder of my car and arguably one of the top five GT pilots in the
country) was there to also drive the car to provide feedback on my driving
- give me a baseline to compare against to see where we had the most room
for improvement.  The first session was damp but drying, so we used that as
a shakedown session to make sure everything was working correctly.  We left
on the year-old tires for the second session and I was to make five or six
laps, then turn the car over to Johnny to see what he thought.  We would
compare his data traces to mine during lunch, then we'd work on the car
and/or me during the afternoon sessions before finishing up with a "whatcha
got?" session on sticker Goodyears at the end of the day.  We'd then use
those tires for qualifying at the Runoffs.

I started the second session and turned a best lap of 1:34.1 despite
traffic and fluctuating oil pressure.  I brought it into the pits while the
guys checked it for leaks, added two more quarts of oil and Johnny got in.
He made one lap and brought it back in for additional oil, then took off.
His first hot lap (which really was still a familiarization lap) was a
1:31.4 (still on the old tires).  Mike Eakin & I looked up to see a cloud
of smoke as Johnny got to the end of the front straight going into the
left-handed Turn One.  Given the fluctuating oil pressure we'd experienced
earlier, Mike & I both thought the engine had blown when we saw the smoke
from the locked up tires.  Then parts started flying.  I kinda staggered
off the war wagon and headed toward One (Mike had already started that way
at a trot) when Johnny came back on the radio saying the throttle had stuck
and wanted (demanded) to know who had worked on it last (which was me).
Having just hit a tire wall at 120 mph, it's quite understandable that he
was excited.  Quinn & AJ (who were there with Paul Newman but were part of
Miller Racing in 2000 and had a vested interest in Johnny and the car)
asked if Johnny was okay.  I think I kinda nodded yes and related what had
happened.

After getting the car back to the pits, we determined that the rod to the
throttle pedal had flexed sideways and was (still) lodged behind throttle
stop bolted to the firewall.  The data showed that Johnny was running 116
mph and stopped at a peak of 3.9 g's when he hit the tirewall.  As I wrote
before, the tirewall did what it was supposed to do.  At the time I was
stunned that an entire year's work had been snuffed out in seconds.  This
was the year we were gonna take the best car we'd ever had - one that was
capable of running with the big dogs - to the Runoffs.  This was to be the
culmination of a 30-year dream.  To paraphrase from Vin Diesel's character
at the end of "The Fast and the Furious" (as he sat in the trashed Charger
after nailing the semi), "That's not the way I had it planned."

The following is an excerpt of a note that Mike Eakin sent to the team on
Monday:

= = = =

Yes, we are lucky Johnny walked away from it.

I know Butch, Dennis, and I all have thought a million times since noon on
Friday, whether we should have somehow figured out how to prevent it.
Who'd a thunk?  Johnny's guys built the car, and they didn't catch it.
But, believe me there was not a throttle pedal stop at Mid-Ohio that wasn't
checked before noon that day.

Unless you were there on the wall watching it happen, you cannot picture
how sudden and violent it was... and that was just Butch's bank account
going to hell.  Lucifer hitting the wall was even faster and more violent.
Down right scary.  It was really terrifying until Johnny came on the radio
cursing the whole crew.  You can't fathom how sweet that sounded.

The extent of the loss didn't set in for me until Saturday afternoon when I
was watching the big boys qualify.  In the SE we don't get to see that many
top quality GT1 cars put on a show simultaneously.  It is very impressive.
It was while they shook the earth qualifying that it struck me that not
only should we be out there, but that legitimately we had something for
them.  I think that is the biggest loss.

= = = =

It WAS disappointing that we didn't get to show what we could do.  I had
run a 1:34 before turning the car over to Johnny and he ran a 1:31.4 on
what was basically a warm-up lap and said afterwards he thought the car
could do a 1:27 with the setup just like it was.  I may not have been able
to run his times, but I sure could have gotten a lot closer once we
identified where the major differences were.  We were on year-old Goodyear
430's and had planned on doing the last session on sticker 210's to scuff
them in for the Runoffs.  Besides not being able to show that we could have
been on the front row in September, I'm seriously disappointed that I
didn't get the chance to learn from Johnny.  It's always been about getting
better.

The car can be fixed.  The design of the accelerator pedal and/or throttle
stop will be changed.  I've trashed cars before and hopefully I'll have a
chance to trash them again.  Where I made my mistake was allowing so MUCH
ride on this single event (the 2002 Runoffs) and focusing so much of my
life on it.  The racing budget is tight right now, but it doesn't cost
anything to take the car apart.  The economy will eventually recover, Home
Depot stock options will be valuable again, we can always win the lottery,
sponsorship possibilities are out there, etc.  In the future we'll run
events that are FUN regardless of their impact on qualifying for the
Runoffs (Daytona, the June Sprints and VIR immediately come to mind) and if
we make it back to Mid-Ohio then fine.  If not, it'll still have been a fun
year.  Cliff Ebben remains my choice to win it all (he qualified on the
pole with a 1:29+ and won the race on Sunday) and he's running an early
90's Rocketsports chassis with C-5 bodywork.  It's not like Lucifer will be
outdated next year or even in the next five, so hopefully we'll get another
turn.

Monday morning I got a note from my son Pete saying that it (the crash)
sucked.  He then went on to relate some news that helped put things into
perspective.  As some of you may remember, in February of 2001 my
granddaughter Ashley (Pete & Heather's oldest) had been diagnosed with an
inoperable brain tumor.  The doctors in Pensacola told us that there was no
hope and we needed to choose how (then) four-year old Ashley was going to
die.  Refusing to give up, Pete & Heather sought additional opinions and
found a team of doctors in New York that said the folks in P'cola were
wrong.  About the same time Lucifer was meeting the Turn One wall at
Mid-Ohio, Ashley was in surgery having her mediport removed - the last
vestige of the chemotherapy and ordeal that they had been undergoing for a
year and a half.  The removal procedure went well, she was her normal,
bubbly, active self by the afternoon and, contrary to the original
prediction, the doctors are now telling Pete & Heather they need to save
for Ashley's college education and wedding.

I'm done feeling sorry for myself...