[lust4speed]

Maybe a little different perspective here. Our four California guys were Tim Rankin, Bill Baker, my son Mark Batson, and myself. Mark and I risked life and limb with our family by skipping the Christmas party scheduled at the same time. Only thing that saved our hides was we announced many months ago that we were going despite the event being the weekend before Christmas, and for the family to set a different date. They didn't and we loaded up our trailers almost guilt free.

Then there was the weather - raining cats and dogs when leaving Southern California, and saner people would have tossed in the towel. Fought the rain and wind until the far side of Palm Springs where we were finally rewarded with mostly clear skies. So now Pontiac Heaven had the time and the weather stacked against it.

Arrived at the Best Western Plus hotel right across the freeway from the track, and the place is spanking new, only $79 a night, and they didn't mind that we took a half dozen spaces with our rigs. There were a few sprinkles as we pulled in the hotel parking lot, so we cancelled going to the Friday night races. Heard the next day that they were able to run the complete night without rain. We had a very nice dinner at one of the local restaurants and back to the hotel early after the long day.

Saturday definitely was crowded. Quite a few Pontiac's that day racing that disappeared that night and were not seen on Sunday? We are used to racing with other brands since we run the local Summit Series, but many of these guys were squirrels. I apologize to Jim since he also had an oil down, but the only time we see as many oil downs at an event is at the street drags when all the ricers blow their stuff up. Many of the oil downs were at half track and the racers stayed in the groove really making a mess of things. Much of the day was spent waiting for the track to be cleaned up. Seemed like most of the people there with other brands had an attitude, and that was racers and spectators. All-in-all rather a strange day, but we were racing and that is always the silver lining. Tim Rankin in our group came in 2nd on Saturday.

Sunday was a beautiful day. We got to the gates a little after nine and found there was no line. Drove inside and found that only a handful of cars were there. Now for a racer this is truly a Pontiac Heaven - hot lapping and no Chevy's or ricers. Then the announcement came on the speaker that they might cancel the event. Not good news for our crew that was on the road 7 hours and had spent the money on fuel and rooms. I'm sure the lone racer from Indiana that made the trip solo across the country was wondering what was up with the situation. Shortly, the announcement came over the speaker that we would be racing, but all money classes would be combined. Not good news for us sheltered non-electronic cars, but at least we weren't being ushered out the gate. Grand total of all cars going down the track in all classes was closer to 42 cars. Think about this, you are in a first class facility and almost no one is there. It was like a turnstyle, and we suited up in the pits because there wasn't any stopping in the staging lanes - just waved right out on the track all day.

Our money class had 22 cars in the program. Half way through with six cars left, we had two electronic cars, two non-electronic, and our four guys from California -- Tim, Bill, Mark, and myself (we felt pretty good about that). The track finally posted a ladder for the next round and as luck would have it, I was against my son Mark and one of us was going on the trailer. He's good on the lights, so I tried to shave my start, and ended up with a -.048 red giving him the win. Mark ended up taking 2nd on our Sunday racing.

Was it fun - HELL YEAH! Will we be back - of course.

Next year should be at a better time of year. I know it's hard and expensive to get the optimum race dates, and Steve doesn't have an unlimited budget. Think he said next year he was booking the second week in November.

Only had my cell phone with me for photos, and just grabbed a shot when I thought about it.