ARSE-FREEZE-APALOOZA Day 1, Pt. 2

The Silliness begins:

Once again the cars lined up and paraded out to the track. Slowly they circled waiting for the random green flag to drop. There were many familiar paint jobs, and a bunch of new ones as well. In all there must have been nearly 100 cars out there. The track itself was much more sprawled out and lent itself to much higher speeds.

The green flag dropped and they were off! This time it had a more conservative vibe than the last. More organized and paced for the long haul. The atmosphere had a legitimate endurance race feel, you just knew you were going to be here a while.

To keep things at a reasonable pace they strategically placed chicanes on the track, and strictly enforced the “NO CONTACT” rule that was ignored at Altamont. Any contact would result in a black flag and lengthy time penalty. Rack up a couple of black flags and the team will bee kicked off the track for the weekend. They were serious.

The race went on, and I unloaded the smart-car from it’s tiny trailer . I got a “Don’t you dare” look from my don’t-you-dare-spouse as the thought of racing her smart crossed my mind. I’m not sure how she does it, but I’m convinced she is psycocic. She is always planting crazy ideas in my head with her woman voodooo (“Pinky, are you thinking what I’m thinking?”) and then admonishing me for my OWN ideas before I can voice or act on them.

“But I didn't do it!! I say.

“You were thinking it!” she says.

“You don’t know what I was thinking…”

And then she tells me.

How does she ALWAYS know? Because she is Psycocic.

We watched the race progress, and started a pool on when Lou would show up. I wandered around some more while readyourmindspouse sat in the RV and read her book. I volunteered to help at the penalty box, then ran into some old friends from J-Style. Eventually I went to the track store and picked up a few even items, including a LeMons beanie cap for Cute-pop-up-behind-you-spouse, who popped up behind me and said “What you buying?”

Whoa! You scared me. It’s a beanie cap for you.

Oh cool, I was just thinking of getting one of those.

SEE!?!?!?

The day raced on, the shadows got longer, and the cars were brought in for the end of day 1. Towards the end of the day our gracious neighbors invited us to stay and eat BBQ ribs they had been smoking all day. The one impression above all else I had of the folks at Lemons was their friendliness and hospitality. They took us poor wandering souls in as old friends and fed us well with both food and laughter.

Later that evening Lou and Armand showed up towing the Exoskeleton-Jag on a trailer behind a U-Haul truck. The furious packing and long drive had left Lou’s bones aching, and he needed to lay down and rest for a while in Williams. Lou had the same worried look I had seen at Altamont months earlier, only now he seemed even more worn out.

Many small things had conspired to get us to this point, a day late and a dollar short. What had become apparent to me weeks earlier, was that there would be no shortage of small things to conspire against this team. Some problems unforeseen, some unconsciously created perhaps, it was the tale of always getting dressing up, but never quite going to the show.

Armond had done a heroic job playing whack-a-mole with the issues he was faced with, but ended up at the very same preordained problem. It was too late to be contenders.

We sat around that evening carrying on and having a great time in spite of it all. And at times, Lou broke out in Lymrics, completely at random. In spite of everything, for some crazy reason I like Lou and consider him an old friend.

Late into the night we retired to the comfort of our hotel, with it’s hot showers and cool bed, dreaming of racing Brownie the worlds greatest RV in a surreal slow motion LeMons.


Next: Arse-Freeze-Apalooza Day 2 part 1

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From The Begining - The Hook... (Part 1)