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See ya at the track... |
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2007 Summary Since BK Racing (and www.B-K-Racing.com) first became an official entity during the construction of the “Corvette Formerly Known as Lucifer” back in 2000 we’ve gone through the following phases: 2000 - “Start-up” 2001 - “Learning” 2002 - “Discovery” 2003 - “Rebuilding” 2004 - “Wonder” (or maybe “Wander”) 2005 - “Transition” 2006 was “The Championship Year” because we finally won that elusive SARRC title that I’ve been chasing since 1984, and although we were successful in defending that title in 2007 it wasn’t very pretty. As a result, I’ll have to say 2007 is: “The UGLY Year!” A major part of winning (or defending) a championship is knowing the rules. In the case of the South Atlantic Road Racing Championships (SARRC), the series counts your best six finishes during the season, then the SARRC Invitation Challenge at the end of the year counts double points. If one carries at least four wins and two seconds into the SIC, then s/he is in control of her/his own destiny in the finale’. We ran five weekends in 2007 and managed to collect points for five wins and one second among our best six, so we were right where we needed to be. As before, you can read the individual race reports for more detail, but there were six people with a mathematical chance of taking the title going into the SIC. With a third place finish we’d sew up the title regardless of what anyone else did, so we were feeling pretty confident after qualifying third in GTA with a fairly conservative qualifying run at Roebling Road. That all went out the window when the car failed to come up to speed on the warm-up lap for the race, but (to dust off yet another sports bromide) winners never quit and quitters never win! Even with a VERY bad sounding engine (ends up the #8 exhaust rocker had backed off, which kills that cylinder and ruins the fuel/air mixture to the other seven as well) we completed enough laps to finish seventh in GTA and win the title by five (5) points over Wayne Quick’s Pontiac. Ugly, ugly, UGLY! Things got even worse at the season-ending American Road Race of Champions presented by Grassroots Motorsports. The 2007 edition of this annual event at Road Atlanta featured the largest contingent of GTA ever assembled in one place (24) and we were looking forward to a great weekend competing against the best drivers this class has to offer. A freak accident during qualifying tore the rear end off the car, however, so we never even got to see the green flag that weekend, much less the checkers. U-G-L-Y!!! I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating that winning races is NOT a one-man operation. A lot of people have contributed to our success over the years, but the major players in 2007 were Mike Eakin, Dennis McClintock, and of course Harriett. So far I haven’t been successful in my efforts to run any of them off, and Dennis STILL thanks me for letting him work on the car each time he leaves the shop. Harriett also came into her own as far as timing laps and keeping track of the competition this season, plus she got a taste of “what it’s like out there” when she did the Corvette driving school at Roebling the week before the SIC. Quite simply, we work well together. While we’ll certainly take a shot at a three-peat in 2008, I expect to spend more time on the administrative end of things than actually driving. The GTA class is growing quickly throughout the nation and helping keep that movement on track (so to speak) is the number one priority for this year. Rest assured, however, if we don’t win it all again the eventual champion will have to pass us at some point during the season. See y’all at the track… |
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