Round 2 –
It’s
“Business as Usual” as the “Senile Old Fart” Wins 2 of 3 Races
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Every
year Kevin SAKALUK tries to play mind games and tell the Chevette racers he is
going to miss the start of the season or he is going to miss a certain weekend.
All this psycho-babble is intended to make the rest of us BELIEVE that we have
a chance to win the championship. All along, he intends to race EVERY race.
Kevin has threatened us for 5 years and for 5 years he has raced every race.
The best scam was around the year 2000 when he
said that he had NO CAR. In fact he really had no car – until 48 hours before
racing began! He built one Friday-Saturday and raced it on Sunday. He came to
the track complaining that his car was ill-tuned and sounded like a can of
bolts. He pointed out that the carb was the WRONG one
(not the good mechanical ones we hot shot racers prefer…). He whined about his
car not being tuned-up and the fact that it was from the junk yard and hadn’t
been driven in several decades. The brakes were inferior, not adjusted
partially rusted inoperable. On he went, whine complain, sniff and snivel. THEN
came Race #1 of the season. He went out and WON it. He
did so in a VERY competitive field of around 20 cars. That’s it. The rest of us
may as well hang up the gloves. If an ill-tuned bag of bolts can be driven to
race victory, what does that say for the other 19 drivers with their TUNED,
TESTED and TRIED Chevettes? That season SAKALUK ended
up second in the championship, if only by a hair to the GREAT GOUGREAU (the
engine builder). Seems when you stuff your car into too many snow banks, that
has a BAD effect on championship points.
So here we are in 2004, Kevin is the reigning
Chevette Champion from 2003. He once again has threatened us with NO CAR, BUT
shows up for race event #1 with car 55.
Car 55 is a relic from around 1979 (its owner is arguably a relic too,
but that another story…). Car 55 has won a couple of races back in 1997 or 1998
and more recently is a notorious mid-pack finisher. Car 55 is tired. Car 55
doesn’t handle quite right. Car 55 is down on power cuz
Car 55 has a wrecker engine with negative compression. Car 55 just ain’t
got what it takes. So we thought. Kevin jumps into Car 55 and has won 3 of the
6 races so far this year. Two races from Round 2. But
for a BLACK FLAG, he had another win in the bag. So now what? Should the rest
of us go and install a wrecker engine that burns more oil than gas? Is THAT the
secret? Smoke out the competition so they can’t see! It seems that Kevin’s
racing success hinges on (i) a car that runs
reasonably well up to 6000 RPM, and (ii) about 250 to 300 pounds of ballast
carefully placed in the mid-rear region, and (iii) drive it like you stole
it! A tune-up and critically placed ballast
is all that was added to Car 55 before the 2004 Championship started.
So look for Car 55, the one with “”Driven by a
Blind, Senile Old Fart” written on the rear window. Now THAT’S the way to
drive. And check out the “Hard-Charger” statistics to see that Car 55 has
already won a race this year from starting dead last.
The next race is scheduled for Sat & Sunday
Feb 7 and 8. And guess what? Kevin says
he might have to miss the race. Business
as usual I say! / COI.