Another Mumford story... I don't know the writer.....but what a guy Paul must have been!
We went to Mumford's funeral service, buzzing up in the F-cars to the Victorville area. About 200+ people were there. The eulogies for Mumford were very touching, as racers, business partners, and employees told their stories about how Mumford played such a positive influence in their lives. One of the more touching stories was the guy that stood up and said at one time, he was a down-on-his-luck sales person until he met Mumford. The guy said his life was going downhill, he was bankrupt, his business failed, he sucked as a sales person, and then he met Mumford. Mumford was apparently hiring people for his insurance office, and took this guy under his wing, helped the guy, and he eventually became one of Paul's best sales people. Other people told stories about how when they were kids, Paul would do stuff like get sleeping bags and turn them into toys for racing, and they would put the sleeping bags at the top of the stairs, get in them, and race down the stairs, sliding down in the sleeping bags. Another person said that Paul was at a business meeting in Hawaii, and when he heard that there was a big slide contest, he practiced for hours on the hotel slide, complete with someone timing how long it took him to traverse the slide, so he could maximize his "line" through the slide. And yes, he won the event!After the burial, Wayne and I were among the last people to leave, as it takes about 10 minutes to take the top off the F355 and put it back behind the seats, and for me to change into my short pants and tank top. Mumford is buried closed to a big tree, and Wayne pulls up and stops in the street parallel to Mumford's grave, and signals me to wait. What the hell? I then hear Wayne rev the 360 Modena to 8000 RPMs, and he dumps the clutch, leaving a 50 foot long burn out. Wayne calls me on the two-way radio, and says, "Paul would have liked that!".Brett and BP stopped by the house after the funeral, and Brett had one of the best racing stories that I heard about Mumford. It had to do with the Sport Compact Car Ultimate Street Car Challenge. It goes like this:Last year, one of the Brembo guys was telling me that the editors of Sport Compact Car were looking for entries for the Ultimate Street Car Challenge. For those of you who do not read the magazine, it is geared more toward high performance import cars that go in a straight line. Anyways, the Brembo guy heard about the event from people at the magazine, and they mentioned they got a Viper driver entered to mix it up with the import guys. The Brembo guy asked, "Oh yeah, who did you get?". When the magazine guy replied, "Some guy named Mumford", the Brembo guy started cracking up laughing, implying, "You morons, if you want an "import car" to win your "import" event, you can't let MUMFORD enter in the event! He's gonna whup on everyone!". Anyways, we thought that would be the end of that, and they would boot Mumford out of the event, but apparently they are pretty sporting over there at Sport Compact Car, and decided to let Mumford run his Viper ACR street car that he has been whupping ass with on the race track. I guess maybe they thought it was a "dinosaur" car with a old-style, non-VTEC pushrod engine.Sport Compact Car Magazine had a bunch of different categories to score the cars on, (some of them *****) like price, skid pad, braking, burnouts, quarter mile, how comfortable the car is, and the all important lap time. For laptime, they used a variation of the "short course" at California Speedway, meaning no high banked turns, they just used the infield section.So Mumford's phone conversation with his friend Brett went something like this right after the California Speedway track event:===========Brett: How's it going so far?PMUM: It's hot as hell and everybody is taking a break after one hot lap.Brett: That *****. How did you do?PMUM: Well, before anybody went out for a run this guy that is driving the Skyline comes over for a little chat about the Viper. He tells me he's an IMSA driver, or used to be, and they hired him to drive the car. I told him "That doesn't seem fair". He said, �you could have hired me to drive your car". I told him "nah, I've done a couple weekend events, lucked out and won a trophy or two and just like to drive my own car". He said, "Well, good luck", and walked away.Brett: (laughing) I know where this is going. PMUM: Oh yeah, game on! So the Supra and this IMSA guy in the Skyline are going at it pretty hard. They keep exchanging fastest lap times until the Skyline comes in with a time that's about a tenth of a second faster than the Supra at about a 1:22 flat or just a shade under, AND it was his last run. I swear Brett, it looked like they had just won the Indianapolis 500. They were high-fivin', jumping all around. Now keep in mind, I haven't even put a wheel on the track yet.Brett: This is getting better by the minute, so what did you lay on them?PMUM: Well if that guy put down a lap time really close to 1:22 flat, like 1:21.9 what do I need to run to make a point? So everybody says, "OK, that guy really gave us a beat down".Brett: Uh.....well if the Skyline guy laid down a smidge under 1:22, I would say a good "Mumford beat down" would be about a 1:19.5. That's usually what you do to the next fastest guy, 2 to 2.5 seconds. That would be the "end of story, thanks for playing."PMUM: Ya' know, that's exactly the number I had in mind. A high 1:19 would pretty much let them know who's boss.Brett: OK Mumford, what did you lay on them?PMUM: Try a 1:16 flat on for size.Brett: You ran a 1:16 flat? Holy ****! That's ****ing hilarious! What was the mood in the Indy pit after that?PMUM: OH, I'm not done, it gets better. I finish my ONE lap and I'm living the RV lifestyle, because it's so damn hot outside, and I hear a knock on the door. One of the USCC guys tells me that they think they have a timing issue.Brett: What? That's jacked up! PMUM: You'll like this. I asked him, "What was my lap time?" He told me they had two watches on me at a 1:16. I told "Them that sounds about right", knowing that is exactly what I ran. He said, "Paul, that's over 5 seconds faster than the second place guy, and he's no slouch." Brett: He is now�PMUM: Yeah right, but apparently they needed more than one lap and two watches. So I said to the guy, "Do you want me to go back out there and do it again, despite the fact that it's now 110 out there instead of 100?" He told me that I didn't have to if I didn't want to because it was so hot, and he didn't want me to have to beat-up my car any more. I told him, "No. I get the feeling you want me to run again". So I did. I told them to get the stop watches ready, and by this time everybody that owns a watch is waiting for me to run again.Brett: (laughing) OK, I'm sitting down now.PMUM: I laid the wood them with a little 1:15.6. Thank you very much.Brett: That a boy! The import world knows who you are now, huh? Was that all the car had?PMUM: Oh yeah, I could have run the rest of the day and probably not squeezed any more out of it, BUT as I pulled into the pit I told them I wanted to go once more because I thought I had another half second in there somewhere. They said, "That's enough Mumford. Park your car, it's over"=======
Now THAT is a classic story, and just another reason why Mumford is our hero. He did a little sandbagging up front, and then ends up hitting them with a stick so hard and so big that they don't know what the hell happened to them! A couple more links about the event is at:Sport Compact Car Magazine - USCC II- Road Course ResultsSport Compact Car Magazine - Profile: 2001 Dodge Viper ACRSport Compact Car Magazine - The Winner, Paul Mumford
