I don't think I can compete with Certified, Clifton, or Lou but I had my time on a track.
After taking delivery of my TCS in '75, I went on a road trip with a college buddy. The real reason for the trip was for me to take Bob Bondurant racing school. It was a great school back at what was then Sears Point outside of San Francisco. The next season, I drove an Opel Sedan in Showroom Stock B and actually won a race!
After that I bought an F Production Spridget. It was a good car. I won several regional races but for some reason, I kept falling off the track in nationals. I know now that the starter got so hot that even with the big Die Hard battery I used, it would never restart. I raced that car for two years. One race was particularly interesting. For some reason I had opened the clutch and brake systems and had to bleed them at the track. I didn't have a bottle with a tube so I just had my crew pump the brakes and I opened the bleed valve. That worked for a while but after a few laps in the race, it was obvious that they were not bled very well at all. The race was at an airport track and on the way into a turn at the end of the front straight, there was a repair in the concrete that went across the entire track. The repair wasn't flat and there was a small dip in it in my braking zone - there was no way I could brake later. Well, as I say, after a few laps, I was pumping the clutch and brakes to bring them up going into the turns. I hit that repaired area and maybe because of my pumping or something, it flipped my car over. I looked up and saw the track. It all happened so slowly that I had no problem grabbing my shoulder belts to keep my arms from flailing around. I ended upside down in the grass on the inside of the track. I don't know how many times my car flipped over but it was far enough away from where the flip started I suspect it could have been 1 1/2 times but that's purely a guess. The funny thing - and fortunate thing - was that the car had fiberglass flares for all for wheels - when the tow truck turned my car over on it's wheels, there was no damage to the flares! Of course that was one of the races my girlfriend went with me to.
Then I bought a Lola T492 Sports 2000 car. My dream was always to race a sports racer (Jim Hall and the Chaparrals were my inspiration). I did race it Road Atlanta once - the old Road Atlanta. I was never able to do the bridge turn at all. For those who had never seen the old track, the back straights goes downhill a bit just before it bends to the left and goes uphill, bends a bit to the right, crests at the apex and goes quickly downhill to the last turn. It really was a dangerous feature of the track because it was totally blind and if you did it right, you were going pretty fast out of that turn to the downhill part of the track. My problem with that turn wasn't the danger - I was too stupid for that - my problem was braking. Your brakes work REALLY well going uphill and by the time I got to the apex of the turn at the top of the hell, I was crawling. Every lap I tried to screw in the courage to brake later. I well understood what I was doing wrong but I just couldn't bring myself to brake late enough to take that turn right. I raced that car for two years but not as much as the previous two years. I was finally motivated to finish college and then I got married and racing took somewhat of a back seat. I sold it to an IMSA racer who was planning on making it into a coupe for endurance races. He sent me a picture of it but I think he gave up on it long before it ever got built.
Over those five years, I raced at:
Sears Point (Bob Bondurant racing school)
Road America (drivers school)
Mid America (near St. Louis, I don't think it's there any more)
Ponca City, OK (a showroom stock enduro street race in a park - Le Mans start!)
Baton Rouge, LA (street race in the pouring rain)
Lake Charles, LA (airport track)
Texas World Speedway (in College Station, TX. my "home track" as I probably raced there more than anywhere else)
Dallas, TX (airport track across the highway from DFW airport. It's where I flipped my car. It's long gone)
Road Atlanta (great track, loved to see the Runoffs there!)
It was pretty tough because the closest race, where they were regularly held (Baton Rouge was a one-off) was Lake Charles and it was about a five hour tow from where I lived in New Orleans.
I was able to dig up a few pictures - unfortunately not the Lola so far. The last picture was taken at the end of a race I was in. For some reason, I don't remember how I did in it!
Edit: forgot Clifton had posted earlier and fixed a typo or two.
