While I was disappointed that I was not competing in the DRY 25 hour this year, knowing that this meant that next year's 25 hour would be horrendously wet, I did have fun working behind the scenes.
Big bonus was that I had a great view and was warm.
I ended up working for 23 hours of the race. I napped from 2:30am to 4:30am - only because the race was so boring after midnight that I was lulled to sleep. ;)
My main job was to make sure that teams completed the body contact forms if/when they were involved in any contact, and then dole out the punishment, if any.
The stories/excuses I heard were sometimes quite amusing. But most teams were really good about getting their stories straight and turning their reports in, as I only had to chase down 2 or 3 teams during the entire race. There was a fair amount of contact, but most of it was pretty minor (nose to tail stuff), that we wrote off as 'racing incidents'.
I was surprised at how little contact there was during the darkness. But as soon as it was light, the contact started up again.
There was only one serious incident, IMO. And I don't know
why it happened - the #10 Honda rolled in turn 10 around 7:30am on Sunday. There were supposedly no other cars involved.
Anyone
got the scoop on that one?
Supposedly crazy Bob "Bobcat" Bradfield drove 23 of the 25 hours, driving the first 16 straight through, resting for 2 hours and then driving the remaining 7. He told me that one of his bike shop employees challenged him to do it after the employee completed a 24 hour bike endurance race. Anyone know what those 24 hour bike enduros entail?
The view alone was worth it. It was interesting every time a yellow flag was thrown, especially the full course yellows, because we'd fan out and watch different turns to make sure that no passes under yellow occurred. It was entertaining to have drivers protest that they did not pass under yellow when a bunch of us (race directors) saw it happen, and we weren't just relying on the flaggers calling them in.
I think the most excitement in the room occurred when the lead car f**ked up and passed the pace car on one of the double yellows. Supposedly the driver was not one of the team's pro drivers, but a 'club racer'. But, I think most of us club racers know you don't pass a pace car unless the pace car points you by. This driver tried to pass the 2nd pace car that was sent out, too, but the 2nd pace car managed to block him by literally driving back and forth across the track and putting his hand out the window in a "stop" sign. I was amused even if Jerry wasn't.
I was surprised at the number of 'tattlers' we had in our midst. "So and so team did X" but if we didn't see it or couldn't corraborate (sp?) it with calls from flaggers, we couldn't do much about it. In particular there was one team (I'm not naming names, so don't ask) that kept calling in complaints about another team. It only took us a nanosecond to realize that not only were both teams in the same class, they were battling for the same position. After a few occurrences of this, we had to tell the one team to 'knock it off', and they did.
Also, getting the permission and setting up the logistics for the flyover is impressive. I didn't realize how much work was involved to make that happen. It made me appreciate how cool it was even more.
Still, as I told Jerry, as much fun as I had being in the tower, I would still have rather been out there racing, even if it was 30 degrees out. ;)
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