Last night I dreamt I was at a test, not trying to run things from Race Control, but from a folding table in the middle of the pit lane, sitting alongside only Tony Cotman. I could turn around and see the local communicator up in Race Control, and he had one person on every corner, but they were speaking a language over the land line that I could not understand. Then I became aware that Mario Dominguez (of all people) had crashed and the car had very neatly and cleanly broken in two right behind the driver, and I was trying to convince Tony that we oughta go red for this… Tony? Tony…?
So with this blog from 2006 as yet unfinished, rest assured that all of you and what we do remain in the back of mind always, tugging on the coat sleeve of my cerebrum. And that I am not all the way through the season yet is bothering me!
So where were we in October? Oh right, Australia…
AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE!
Once again, for my 16th consecutive go, we endured the refreshing 14 hour flight from LAX to BNE. Every year it has seemed a little shorter, and now it really only seems to take about 12 hours and 53 minutes. Each year we are greeted with a tremendous, very enthusiastic turnout of “Flaggies,” “Trackies,” “Fireys,” and “Comms.” (Wonder why they don’t call ‘em Commies?) See the picture to get an idea of what each morning’s briefing feels like with about 400 people listening in.
Morning breakast lineup. Please note number of sausages.
Thanks once again to all who turned out for their generous support and hospitality, especially Event Chairman John Jones and his wife Margo, who was this year Asst. Clerk as well as my backup comm and translator. Thanks also to Flag Chief Marty Smith and his Assistant Aden “Bastard Man” Zealley – don’t ask. With a home grown Aussie on the pole, enthusiasm on race day was the highest it’s ever been. The Australians have a sporting battle cry that goes: “Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi Oi Oi!!!” that they use for international contests in Rugby, Football, Cricket and such, which is very effective. You know that I do not shy away from playing to the crowd, so after Will Power delighted everyone by taking pole, I organized this same cheer over the land line as a way of signing off on Saturday. Breathtaking, and something I have always wanted to try. Remember there are 30+ comm points on this track, and when they all keyed up to answer “Oi, Oi, Oi!” it overmodulated and shook the land line just the right amount! Unfortunately, Mr Power was knocked around a bit by some of his peers and did not win, which would have brought the house down like Ribiero did when he won in Brazil.
BINGO
Every year, I understand my communicators a bit better, and vice versa. But SOME of them must brush up on their bingo-playing skills. As we did in Houston with the overnightly-installed chicane that generated countless shortcuts, I put together “Champ Car Short Cut Bingo” cards for the chicane posts 1, 2, 6 and 7.2 and asked these posts to let us know when their respective cards full of random Champ Car numbers generated a “Bingo.” I did get some suspicious looks as I handed them out, and heard nothing back about them on Friday. Hmmm. There were plenty of short cuts! Oh Well.
Turn to the end of the Saturday Morning Practice, and as the checker was coming out, this very exciting call from turn 6: CONTROL FROM POINT SIX!!!! Car three on a short cut AND WE HAVE BINGO!!!!! There was such an intensity in the young man’s voice that to a person, everyone on the landline either in RC or out on the posts were convinced he was going to tell us that Mr. Tracy was on his way upside down into the Pacific Ocean. Cracklin’ good communication there! Remember how much you can communicate with your tone… good on ya, Mr. 6!
So we get things calmed down everywhere, and to make it an official bingo, he reads the car numbers back to me so we can verify it. He gave us back only four numbers (as he utilized the Jimmy Vasser #12 memorial free space at the center of every card) and Rod, our recorder, recognized it as a legitimate bingo. Great. Thence there comes a mournful call out of turn one: “Oh, I’m sorry control, I thought we had to fill the whole card! We would have had five bingos yesterday!” Arrrrrgh! Turns out our pal at one (a great comm, by the way) is a self confessed ex-“Pommie” (that’s Brit to you and me) and wasn’t sure about Aussie Rules Bingo! (It's the bingo you play in a sleeveless jersey, I think.) So on Sunday morning, in honor of all those bingos, I rewarded the entire post One with an equally useless prize, an soon-to-be-worthless 2006 Champ Car Rule Book.
TC ON THE LL
One of the advantages my good friend JD Wilbur has on the Start Stand is someone who has done the job before in his ear, which I never had back when I did it. I try to give JD a detailed idea of what the front row is doing, as I am usually looking from a different (and often better) angle. A few hours before the race, Tony Cotman took me aside and shared a plan with me for what he had in mind based on the discussions/pledges he had heard in the drivers meeting, and that he wanted to do the start on the land line with JD, which was a first, and certainly a thrill for all those listening.
I guess Tony got our brave boys to promise that they would line up a car length in between rows from front all the way to back. Suuuuure, they can. There a couple guys in our field (not naming names here!) that lag back week in and week out on the start, holding every one up behind them, but we were lucky enough this time to have one of them on the front row - so maybe he could hold everyone up and it would work… but Tony wanted to leave the front rows to JD and make the decision about the rest himself, and be able to pull the plug in an instant. Which he rightfully did when we were presented with about 3.5 stunningly lined-up rows with an embarassingly long distance to the next guy. At that point, Tony decided if you can’t do it right the first time, we’ll make it simpler, and called for a single-file start. Brilliant. Resulting in absolutely none of the first corner Angst and slugfest that is the yearly hallmark of this racetrack. 18 cars through without a scratch. I can’t wait for standing starts!
MERRY CHRISTMAS
So, we are through the solstice and each day is about 10 seconds longer right now that the next. At last! “Halfway to Portland.” I will polish off what we did in Mexico, sometime next week, I HOPE. Please remember that in dreams and in waking, I am thinking about all of you. Happy Christmas, Feliz Navidad, Happy Holidays to you and all whom you love and hold dear.
See you at the track!
JHS
