Kind of an odd, not to mention abbreviated, season, but with one very strong positive.
Looking back at 2010
As an independent consultant who gets paid by the hour, when the economy tanked, so did my race budget. I ended 2008 early and had to skip 2009. Back in 2008, I had the feeling that 2010 would get skipped, too, and it continued to look that way when 2010 rolled around, so I jumped all over the chance to race in the GPDA-sponsored karting enduro in January. I don’t like indoor kart tracks and gas-powered karts indoors are just as smelly and produce as much carbon monoxide (and headaches!) as you might expect, but we all had a lot of fun and raised a decent amount of money for the Worker’s Fund.
A few months later, the “semi-usual” enduro crew got together to run the 6-hour race in Seattle, only this time our fuel guy Scott Norton would be one of the drivers and we’d be doing the event in his M3-styled E36 325. Because we weren’t going to be competing for an overall win, I think Eric Krause, Mike McAleenan, and I just viewed the event as an opportunity to play a little and enjoy the day. Scott, as both car owner and first-time enduro driver, had a slightly different take on things. 🙂 We had a great event, overall, but things got interesting when the skies opened in a big way. Scott went off—way off—coming down the hill to 3A and destroyed most of the car forward of the radiator. The crew was able to get things squared away enough that we were able to finish the race second in class.
Finally, I was able to scrape things together enough to get my car back on track for the last race of the season. I was about a second off my previous pace and well out of contention in both classes, but I had accomplished my only goal for the year: Get out there and run a race in the inaugural season of ST.
Looking forward to 2011
It took better than two years, but things financial got turned around enough that 2011 is shaping up pretty positively. First goal, of course, is to get back into this whole “racing” thing. Second goal is to get used to racing again. 🙂 In fact, if the rumors about race week-ends pan out (maybe a triple in Spokane!), there’s a decent chance I’ll end up doing more races next season than I’ve ever done, which would definitely help with the “getting back into racing” goal. In towing news, I’m really not enjoying borrowing my wife’s truck all the time, so I’m thinking about buying some sort of cheap-ish tow vehicle and, who knows, maybe even an enclosed trailer. Yes, the economy really has improved!