In life, they say, timing is everything. That certainly was the case at the Gene Berg VW event at The Auto Club Dragstrip in Fontana last Sunday. The Dalcorp race team was ready to do battle in some very warm conditions with their always cool driver, Wyatt Radke. The three rounds of qualifying went well with the GNP/BG Oil Manx running very consistent times given the conditions. We knew the car would be off by a couple of tenths given the air quality and temperature and it was. The morning session produced a 12.31 e.t. at 105mph followed by a 12.37 and a 12.38 at the same mph. First round would be at about 12:30pm so the team dialed Wyatt in at a conservative 12.37 and felt confident that with Radke doing his job on the starting line there wouldn't be any danger of breaking out, or running too quickly. Spotting our first round opponent a little over a tenth of a second Wyatt left first by .05, caught and passed him by half track. He was well out in front by the 1,000 foot mark so at about 1,200 feet he rolled out of the gas and scrubbed off some speed with the brake (about 5 mph) before the finish line to insure there wasn't any chance of breaking out. Up came the numbers...12.22 @ 100mph!!! The saying also goes, "the numbers don't lie." Well, in this case they did. After looking at all three qualifying runs and the numbers from the first round time slip everything added up to the 1,000 foot mark. The 60, 330, 660 and 1,000 foot numbers were almost identical. After that, some how from 1,000 feet to the finish line with Wyatt off the gas and on the brakes (confirmed by the in car camera) we picked up .15's! After a meeting with the event organizer, Clyde Berg, it was determined that something was definitely wrong. There had also been 2 or 3 other cars in the left lane that also broke out by the same amount. Berg said he would rerun the race if that's what we wanted but we decided to let our opponent make the decision. After a brief discussion with the other driver, Clyde came back and said he didn't want to run the race again; he thought he'd won fair and square. It was a team decision to let the matter go rather than create any turmoil for Clyde and the other organizers of the event. Overall the event was well run and it had been a good day given the conditions. And, as yet another saying goes, "there's a million ways to lose and one way to win." And this loss was one in a million...
Our "Thanks to" shot....
First round qualifying pass; only about 95 degrees.
Shade is good.
"General Pato" directing the action.
Jeff putting Wyatt in the beams.
Hey Radke, this ain't Formula One! What's with
the umbrella girl?
Pat showing Cameron the results of a lot of
hard work at the table.
Belting in for first round...106 degrees.
Wyatt was on the tree and out in front by half
track...but where's the win light?
Win or lose, "Who has more fun than we do?"
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