 I drove up to Goodwood on Friday morning from my apartment in Toronto. Before this race I had even taken my Kart Klinic driving suit to the dry cleaners and had the large bill to prove it. The Whalings had gone up the day before so Marilou could get some additional track time. Gerald reported she had done nice consistent laps and was turning good times. As usual Marilou was running in the Amateur class which had become the largest and most competitive of 2-cycle classes in both the O.K.R.A. and Can-Am series. Everyone in this class uses a Yamaha engine, inexpensive to maintain and usually very reliable. A driver can race Amateur if they are new to 2-cycle racing or if they have not finished in the top three in any major 2-cycle karting events or championships. The race format for the Nationals was different than for the regular O.K.R.A. series races. There was still qualifying for grid positions, but points scored in all three heats would be totalled to determine the winner of the race. Despite the fact I would be racing myself the main focus of my weekend was seeing that the kart was properly prepared so that Marilou would have the best possible chance to obtain a good result. With her race on Saturday, all I would have to do for my race on Sunday was to put on my set of tires, jump in the seat and drive. I was not sure which class I should enter. Originally I signed up for Stock Heavy. This meant I would be putting my Yamaha against the more powerful and volatile foreign engines like the Parillas and Komets. Despite a weight break, it had been a couple of years since a Yamaha had done well in this class. Actually Yamahas had dominated the class for a couple of years not too long ago, but with new engine technology and axle clutches those days had passed. At the final race at Peterborough last year I had to use my 'old reliable' Yamaha after my Parilla melted a hole in the top of its' piston during pre-race practice. I still led for a few laps early in the race before finally ending up in third place for the day, behind a couple of foreigns. At the Nationals this year the Piston Port class was another option. It looked like everyone entering this class was going to run Yamahas. Even though other engines could be used that usually defeated the Yamahas no one had entered with one. This would be an even race. I changed classes just before practice began. Friday was practice and qualifying day for both Saturdays and Sundays classes. Practice for Saturdays classes would start at 10 in the morning. It was a one hour session. Each class went out in turn so Marilou did not do too many laps of the track. Everything seemed to be working fine. Time trials started at 11:15. The top four who qualified today would be locked in and could not lose their positions to those who time trialed on race day. The new tires were on, we had the same basic settings on the kart that had won the week before. Marilou drove two good laps and she set the fourth fastest time. Now it was time for practice and qualifying for Sunday's classes. The pressure was off Marilou for now, and squarely on me. We switched back to our old roles. I was the driver again and she was the mechanic. It had taken us awhile to adjust to this at the beginning of the year. At Marilou's first race at Bingeman Park, she came in after a practice session and we went over to the scale to check the weight of the kart and driver to make sure we were up to the minimum allowed for the Amateur class. We lifted the kart on the scale and then Marilou stood there and looked at it. I was waiting for her to get on the scale for a reading. She was used to me getting on the scale when I was the driver and had not been on the scale herself before. We looked at each other and laughed, then she got on the scale. For practice and qualifying at the Nationals I wanted to leave the kart setup the same as Marilou had it since she had to race it the next day. I did not want to go out for too many practice laps so as to not wear out the engine and the clutch prior to her race as well. I went out for three sessions and then we waited for qualifying to begin. When it was time Marilou took the kart up to the grid and we got in line. As usual Wilma was in charge of the grid and when it was my turn she yelled "56, Start it up". Marilou pressed the starter button and the engine came to life. Since I hadn't practiced too much, all I wanted to do was to drive two good consistent laps that would put me into one of the top four starting positions. As it turned out I would start the race in fourth position, identical to Marilou in her class.  Numbers. They can be very important to racers. Getting your preferred number is very important. Changing your number to some is a little like changing your name. Some people choose a number because their favorite racing driver has the same one. Maybe it's the date of your birthday. Maybe you just like a number for some reason. Often times people outside the sport do not understand what it all means. Certain drivers are forever associated with their number. Some drivers when they sign their name, their number is part of it as well. Richard Petty will always be number 43. Gilles Villeneuve is associated with the number 27 Ferrari, even though he used other numbers at different times during his career. Sarah Somerville is 17. Marilou is 56. My number is 26. Marilou has had 56 as her favorite number for a number of years, long before she started racing herself. When she was my mechanic there was always a small 56 somewhere on the kart to acknowledge that fact. Now that I was her mechanic, there had been a small 26 on the top of the right side pod all season. For the 1991 Canadian Nationals I was going to use her number 56 also. I thought about changing back to 26 but decided not to. It is an interesting quirk with the style of numbers we use, if you turn the five upside down and backwards it becomes a 2. I had designed the numbers myself a few seasons before, and found out that you could make my 2 into a 5 much later. For this race I would use an upside down and backwards 2, and a 6 so it was not that different. |
||