Viper Days T-hill

[David Jenkins]

Anyone got the results from Viper Days at Thunderhill?

 

[Bill Pemberton Woodhouse]

The weather on Saturday was overcast, but the rains held back and we had a super race even though we only had 6 cars. A.J. Laredo brought out a SuperCup Porsche that had campaigned in Europe and he held the qualifying pole over Rob Foster. They were closely followed by Dan Crotty, Johnny Weigel, Dan Downs, and Jim McCann ( driving Skip Thomas's Autoform RT-10 ). There was only 33 thousandths of a second seperating A.J. and Foster and with the phenomenal brakes of the Porsche, Foster was looking for a strong start to snare the lead going in to turn one. Laredo had a great leap forward, but 488 cubed inches of Snake slithered by the SuperCup car as they all screamed down the straight. Foster advances his lead for 3 laps, with a great battle for third occurring between Wiegel, Crotty and Downs, after Laredo pulls a late braking move on Johnny at turn two and vaults back to second. By lap four A.J. is glued to the back end of Foster's Viper and he continues to fill his mirrors going into the downhill straight that preceeds turn 10. With Downs spinning in turn 11 Weigel and Crotty take off in pursuit of the two leaders.
Downs pulls in behind Jim McCann and he starts his march back through the pack. While the Porsche and Snake grapple through the 15 turns of Thunderhill, Weigel and Crotty are sneaking up on the leaders. On the back side of the course, Laredo dives deep into the downhill slope of turn 10 and ***** underneath the Yellow serpent of Rob Foster, but Rob has an umbilical cord attached between the two cars as they rip through turn 15 and enter the front straight. This time Foster takes the inside line, powers on earlier and drafts down the straight ,grabbing the trophy position again prior to turn one. The Teutonic harasser captures all of the reflective glass in Foster's Yellow beast and he makes a very bold move to catch Rob on the uphill sweeper of turn eight. Without risk there is no reward, and A.J. gambled and lost, spinning wildly into the rock strewn pasture bordering the uphill sweeper of turn 8. The off-course did minor damage to the SuperCup Challenger, and Laredo parked in the hot-pit,his day over. Johnny Yuma ( Weigel ) and Crotty were reeling in Foster, and Downs had spirited by McCann to pull into fourth. As the laps wound down it looked like 72 yr old Weigel was rejuvenated, as Foster was filling up his windshield not too far ahead. Crotty hung onto Johnny's bumper until an eruption of smoke billowed from the back end of his Silver Bullet, and a Black Flag pulled him into the pits with a lap to go. Yuma needed more time , but he kept Rob pedaling hard and Downs came back from the spin to garner the last trophy spot. McCann secured the 4th spot with a steady drive in a borrowed car, and Crotty came back out to finish the race with a 5th place showing,after a strong race all the way up until the end when mechanical woes struck. Great race for only a few cars, and Buttonwillow should be really exciting , as they are anticipating over 3 times as many Wheel to Wheel Racers for that event later in the month.

Congratulations to Stock II winner Jon Scott, Super Stock Winner
Tom Glenn, Prepared winner Paul Schley, and my apology for not catching all the other winners.