Photo: Wes Duenkel
Just last Sunday concluded the 2011 SCCA Runoffs at beautiful Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. This was the 48th running of the championship runoffs and it crowned 28 of the county’s best drivers. This event brings drivers from all corners of the country and is invitation only; making it something pretty special if you are able to beat out all the others for the gold medal.
I was in attendance with my team, Wilmot racing, driving our 1984 American Sedan Mustang against 22 of the country’s best. We had a pretty rough start to our week with a crash on the first day of qualifying in the rain. I caught a concrete wall with the front left of the car at about 40-50 mph. It bent the frame in about 3 inches and left us in serious doubt about getting back on track at all for the rest of the week.
Luckily we had a lot of help from friends of other crews and work began on the car immediately when we got it back to the paddock spot. Using our F-250, a logging chain, and a come-along we were able to pull the frame back out about 2 inches, just enough to make the car drivable. We were back on track the next day with a duct taped front end that was an inch higher and shorter on the left side than the right.
Unfortunately the rest of the week I only got 11 total laps on the track before the race came on Sunday and we were only qualified 13th. To make matters even worse, the forecast called for rain on the morning of our race. And sure enough, the rain came just as we woke up that morning and it hung around all day long.
The main goal for us was to keep our nose clean and just finish our first Runoffs race with no incidents. The first lap was an absolute mess with crashes and spins and we were almost taken out in turn 7 by a car coming back on track backwards. Fortunately we got by and the rest of the race was pretty uneventful. I had one off in Canada Corner due to a mental blockage that dropped us from 7th to 13th. We worked our way back up to 11th and crossed the finish line door handle to door handle with the 10th place driver and took the position from him.
The race was broadcast live on speedcasttv.com and we got a lot of air time which will hopefully be helpful for us when looking for sponsorship this coming year. To watch the replay of the race you can follow this link: http://speedcasttv.com/#/races/260 Skip to the 70 minute mark to watch the American Sedan race. To watch the in-car video from my race car follow this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q37Tns5CXc8
-Pat Wilmot
A Karter's Perspektive 