 Old people shouldn't be up past their bed time
After a day of off and on rain we went to the track for the Friday night street races. There was a light rain falling when we got there, but it soon stopped and after about an hour of track drying time it was announced that racing for the night would be limited to 1/8 mile due to safety concerns. We always run 1/4, but I figured it couldn't be that different. I wasn't sure what to dial since we only got two time trials but I had a fair idea what my 1/8 mile splits are when running the full quarter.
These Friday night races are a little rough on me since I'm an old guy who gets up at 5:00 AM Friday for work then have to rush to load up and trailer the car two hours to the track after work. Add in the fact that eliminations don't start till 9:00 PM and it makes for a long day. Hell, most work nights I go to bed at 9:00 PM.
So that's my excuse for the senior moment, brain fart, short nap, whatever you want to call it, that I had in the very first round of eliminations. I don't know what to say, I've never had such a total loss of concentration before.
I had the car dialed at 7.81 (remember we were only running 1/8 mile) and the youngster in the other lane was dialed at 9.50. I thought to myself that if I was going to overcome an almost two second head start within 1/8 mile, I better be up on the tree.
So we staged the cars, his lights came down and I almost launched at the same time. I must have woke up at the last fraction of a second and caught myself, as I didn't actually launch, but I rolled the car forward enough to light the old red eye. I must have thought it was still time trials or something. I was embarrassed to make such a stupid mistake, but when I came around to the pits afterwards my wife told me that the announcer had said that "Mike's foot must have slipped off the clutch", which sounds better than "the old man had a brain fart".
When I got the time slip I saw that the kid in the other lane had cut a blistering .575 light, so I could have taken a short nap before launching and still caught him.
Oh well I think I've already covered all three ways to lose this season, as I've been beaten to the stripe, got there first but broke out, and red lighted. Now I don't need to do any of those things anymore!
The bright side was that if I was going to do something stupid like that I picked the right night. As soon as the second round ended the rains came back and the remainder of the racing was canceled, so I didn't take as bad a hit on the points as I would have if they'd run the full eliminations.
Wait, what was I saying? I think I dozed off for a bit there.
__________________ OFR - old fart racing
We're not the fastest car at the track but we might be having the most fun.
If you're not having fun, then you're taking this stuff too seriously! | 
