My heart was pounding. My palms were sweating. I was so excited and wound up about the March Meet at the Auto Club Famoso Raceway.
I feel it was racing at its best because I was a part of this historic event that happens each year. I was in the Hot Rod class, racing my 1969 Plymouth Barracuda Formula S car, which runs about 12.83 seconds at about 103 mph.
The race is an event that my husband, Wolfgang, and I go to and race our cars. My husband has raced at several March Meet events, and this was my second time racing at the March Meet.
We went to the track two days before the races started because we wanted to get a good pit area spot and also get our cars and ourselves ready for the three-day event.
The 51st annual March Meet was on March 6-8 with 14 classes: Nostalgia Top Fuel, Nostalgia Funny Car, A/Fuel Eliminator, AA/Gas Charged Eliminator, Jr. Fuel A and B Eliminator, Nostalgia Eliminator I, II and III, Gas Eliminator A, B, C and D, and Hot Rod.
On March 4, we got into the pit area at the track and parked our RV. We unloaded our cars from the trailers and cleaned them off because it had rained earlier in the day. I could not wait to race; I could not sleep because I was extremely keyed up. I had my car ready, and I was psyched for the big nostalgia race.
The pit area at the track is about a mile and a half long and about two miles wide with a quarter-mile drag strip in the midst of it.
There were many people already set up in the pit area. The one way to get a good spot is to get to the track early.
On March 5, I got up and started my car so I could warm it up and drive it to the tech line.
Tech is where the officials check out your vehicle to make sure it is in tiptop shape to race.Tech took place in the staging lanes, which are 12 lanes where racers can line up to run down the track when their class is summoned to run. After I got my car checked out, I parked it and relaxed for the rest of the day.
On March 6, I got up, got my car warmed up and waited to be summoned to the staging lanes. The first run of the day took place at 8 a.m., and the weather was cold. I believe I got a great burnout when I got in the water box; my front brakes were held on my car, and the rear tires were spinning to burn some rubber and warm up the tires and get them sticky. The better the burnout, the better traction the car will have.
I moved up to the starting line and staged, which showed the starter that I was ready. I was determined to get a great reaction time, which is how fast I react to the lights.
My reaction time was .045 tenths of a second, and my run was 12.92 seconds at 102 mph. I was so pleased that I got an impressive run. Later in the day, my reaction time was .012 tenths of a second, and my run was 12.86 seconds at 103 mph.
On March 7, I did the same things I had done the previous day.
My burnout was good, my reaction time was .086 tenths of a second, and my run was 12.96 seconds at 101 mph. The rest of the day, I watched the other classes run. My husband and I relaxed and enjoyed the races.
The runs that I did on March 6 and 7 were time runs, which are runs that are done for qualifying, and on March 8, the elimination runs started. With elimination rounds, I get very nervous, and my heart starts to pound, and my palms start to sweat. I can’t stop myself from getting so wound up when my adrenaline is flowing through my veins.
Eliminations are so nerve wracking that I kind of go into a trance, and all I think about is trying to win. In eliminations, I had to put a dial-in, which is what I think my car will run.
The first three rounds I got wins.
It went from a 152-car field to a 15-car field in the fourth round because there were winners, losers and racers with broken-down cars. In the fourth round, I won with a .061 reaction time and ran 12.83 on a 12.84 dial-in. In the fifth round, I won with a .139 reaction time and ran 12.94 on a 12.90 dial-in.
In the sixth round, I won with a .104 reaction time and ran a 13.05 on a 12.85 dial-in. In the final round, I lost with a .165 reaction time and ran 13.05 on a 12.90 dial-in with the winner getting a better reaction time.
With each round, I got more and more nervous, but when I got to the final round, I was so excited that I had made it, and I knew I was “in the money.” I had a fantastic time at the races, and I can’t wait to race again.