SUMMIT SERIES
Q: How many Hoefers does it take to change a light bulb?
A : I have no idea. There’s so many of them I can’t do the math.

I’m calling for a congressional investigation. I want to know how many Hoefers there are currently, and how fast are they multiplying? I want to see charts and graphs.

Kenny’s been yelling at me lately to forget about the other lane. “Drive your car and run your own race”. Good advice. It was my custom to introduce myself to unknown opponents and chat a bit. Now it’s “what lane do you want and good luck”. So fifth round I had no idea who I was racing. Later Hugo asked me who? I said it was the Buick Apollo. He said the red one?. “Yes”. “That’s Willy Hoefer” he said, and he went on to lay out Willy’s pedigree and assure me that there was no shame loosing to that guy.

It was probably the best race I’ve ever been in. I knew my light was good and I figured I was golden. But my 0.512 light was bested by Willy’s 0.506, and the more experience driver, champion of this and that, bested me at the stripe with a double breakout MOV of 12/10,000ths of a second. Thrilling.

LAST YEAR REVIEW
I prepared for Sunday by digging out all my Summit Series records to check for trends and see what I could learn. What stood out the most, in all the data, was that I really and truly sucked. My lights were pathetic and I couldn’t hit a the dial in for beans. And yet I finished tied for fourth! How the hell did that happen?

7.50 TUNE UP
Working just fine thank you. Hits the tires hard and dies on top. Six more weeks until I have to go slow again. This carburetor is going into a Seal a Meal in the freezer so it won’t spoil.


HIGH POINT
The high point of the race was I got to race Matt Miyashiro, the young hot shoe with the growing target on his back. As I saw the field thinning out I noticed Matt was going rounds and I was hoping for a finals match up. Bitter sweet the ending though. Not so much fun putting friends on the trailer early. And Matt is a good friend – he doesn’t seem to care or notice that I’m younger than he is. Gotta respect the young man, what he has accomplished and respect for all his mentors too.


Cheers,
Slide Rule Tim