I want to thank Mike M. and Todd Harris for the controlled starts both days. From the back of the pack it was nice not to be WOT before the flag just trying to catch up after turn 15.
How about some reports. What happened at the rear and front of the pack after the last race restart?

Well I just finished my first "real" Double National. Fortunately some MBI guys came up from Cal Club and a bunch of racers from Oregon showed up as well, for a total of 21 entries. We are lucky they came, because for some reason (not sure why yet), we only had 6? SFR region racers enter - a race in our own region! Seems like everybody had an excuse not to run this last weekend. Thay all missed a great driving demo by Mike Miserendino, he showed everyone how to really drive a SRF - being a half to a full second faster than the next fastest SRF pretty much all weekend. Pretty amazing feat considering he said he had not driven up here in 5 or 6 years.

I got to meet all the guys from Oregon, including the Flat Out crew. One of the coolest guys was Denny Wright, he is 70+ years old, started racing a few years ago -and he said he was having fun the whole time. He reminded me of why I race, to have fun! (Hope I never forget). I am north of 50, so hopefully I will have many more years to race. They are all a great bunch, and I am looking forward to heading up to Oregon this summer for the Rose Cup. Apparently there used to be 40,000 to 50,000 in the spectator stands back in the day, now they say there are only 10,000 or 20,000 now (the spectator count varied wildly with the number of beers they had recently consumed). I said at Thunderhill Raceway we are lucky to get 10 or 20 spectators total! (well maybe not that few, but not that many either). Dan Halloran has set up the format for a West Coast Bragging Rights SRF series between SFR and Ore for this summer. Points will be awarded based on finishes and prizes will given to the top points winners. I will try to get his announcement run in The Wheel. Thanks Dan for setting up all the logistics. I personally am looking forward to running in the series and hope that a lot of us from SFR can make the trek to Laguna then up to Portland to participate.

As a person who tends to be closer to the back of the pack than the front, I don't have too many interesting race incident adventure to report - still early in my SRF racing career for that (see Racer X's TWS report for a real race report example, complete with video highlights). I did install one of those new shiny intake tubes (Oooooh, Coool!) , it seemed to be good for half a second (at least for me) and is starting allowing me to run with people that I only dreamed of running with last year. The other big thing I learned (in the first race) was the difference between 3rd and 5th gear - from what I can tell it is worth about 3 or 4 positions at the green. Someone else in the other row (name not to be mentioned), had a mis-shift at the green flag going from 2nd and ended up in 5th gear - slowed down the entire inside column (thanks!) allowing the outside column (including me) to take much advanced positions early on in the race (thanks again). I spent the rest of the race fending off those faster guys, after they recovered from the start - as much as possible, until they passed me and took their rightful place ahead of me in the conga line.

On Sunday - (another SRF driving demo by Mike M), there was supposed to be some rain. I was kind of hoping it would rain, because I was one of the few guys who had ordered their rain tires early on. If it had rained a bunch of guys were just not going to be able to run because they had not ordered their rains in time and so by default I might have got a top 10 finish. (Cheap, but hey a top 10 finish is a top 10 finish - LOL!) As it turned out we only had a California rain, and light one at that (in other words, it BARELY sprinkled) - not like one of those TWS biblical deluges where one would expect to see Noah's Ark in the paddock. Soooo disappointed - oh well, I guess I will have to earn a top 10 finish the old fashioned way - by practicing my racingcraft! Hope to see everybody at the Double regional in a few weeks.