"Get out of my way, knuckle-head!"

Too bad there were a couple of slow drivers during our Lunchtime Touring sessions Monday and Tuesday that I had to brake everytime I came into the #1 and #2 turns at Pocono. It could have been way cool to see how the '89 740tic would handle the 100-110MPH speeds going in.

As it was, I settled to moderate braking and 85MPH through the 23-degree banked turn 1. It was thrill enough during these 20 minutes of pace-car'd fun laps, as we corner flag workers got our own wee taste of driving the "big track".

On my second lap Tuesday, I tapped the brakes ever so lightly as I followed my buddy, Phil, in his 4 x 4 pick up into a dive from the wall to the inside of turn 1,

and my rear end started to come loose!

It was enough to remind me of a few simple facts of life:

1. I don't know what I am doing
2. I don't know the correct line through turn #1
3. My wife doesn't know where I have filed the life insurance policy
4. Better to live to race another day.

The B230FT automatic punched up briskly through all gears down the front strait, winding way out before hitting overdrive about 3/4 the way along. The back stretch was more fun as we were already at 85 coming out of turn 1, compared to 60 leaving the infield road cousre of this 2.5 mile circuit. 110 MPH was the best I could get it going due to traffic ahead.

Accelerating isn't the only task the sedan did well. It tamed the six tricky, off-camber, double apex turns of the infield road course pretty well for a big, heavy, lumbering sedan. Would've been faster with something other than my Nokian Hakka Q snow tires and, again, the "knukle-head".

The event was private gathering of Ferarri, DeTomaso, Pantera, Covette clubs and owners where we volunteers and friends of the Blue Mountain Ski Patrol, acting independent of the patrol and the ski area we serve, traded our pay in the newly-formed Blue Mountain Racing Association for a chance to direct the sessions for the two days. (We donated our BMRA pay to the ski patrol)

We had full event reaponsibility the pit-out, start/finish, and all flagging: green, black, yellow, blue/yellow (you're being passed), checkered, etc.

Event organizer and DeTomaso nut, Joe "MoJO" Moore of MooreHaus Racing praised our efforts, as did the driver's (who threw $300 into a hat for us) and Pocono.

We may be hired back to work a Ferarri event in October.

Wish I could give you more on the kinds of cars running, but I'm just not enamored by these Ferarri, etc. exotics. Just to give you an idea, though, there was a single-cockpit Ferarri and a Pantera turning lap times of

1.31 and 1.33 respectively.

on a 2.5 mile track!

My personal thrill was a ride in a different (and slower) Pantera where "Doug" was hitting about 160 in the straghts. But the 360-degree spinout in turn #7 only wetted my appetite for this sort of car-handling.

Hope to make it to the All-Ford Nationals this week-end at Carlisle. Gotta see what my daughter's perky Contour feels like on their track.

Ciao!