November 2003

Donnie Henson and Bill Griffin decided to each purchase a car for a little weekend fun.  This  weekend was Bill and Donnie's inaugural race. Unfortunately, Bill was  regulated to run the entry level class because his driving suit had not arrived by race weekend. The entry level class did not permit the drivers to pass other cars anywhere but on the straightaway. The other classes could pass anywhere on the course. The road course uses Firebird's 1/4 mile dragstrip as the straightaway and then winds down through out the pit area coming back to the dragstrips staging lanes. Classes go out and run for a 20 minute qualifying heat and then a 20 minute race.

(click on the thumbnails for a larger picture)

The interior with race seat, rollbar, race harness. Engine is an essentially stock 5.0 V-8.

Bill making his first rounds through the course. The Z06 Corvette was dancing with Bill fort a couple of laps.

Donnie doing his qualifying laps.

This little Ford Focus kept being a pest on the twisties! Soon as Donnie hit the straight though, it was bye bye!

There were about 8 "Bondostangs" on the property, but only 3 could actually race each other for one reason or another. Donnie qualified second and took the lead right after the drop of the green flag. Unfortunately, Donnie's aggressive driving style compared with some first race jitters came back to haunt him. He was leading coming to the first turn but put the car in to the turn a little too deep. He felt the car start to come around and before he knew it, the back was swapping position with the rear! The second car jumped ahead as Donnie started his asphalt pirouette, while the third car decided the spin looked like fun and followed Donnie's lead. Actually the driver just spun his car trying to avoid Donnie! Luckily the only damage both cars suffered was no more then some extra dust on the sheet metal and a sizable distance behind the now hastily fading lead car :(   Donnie was working against a 21 second deficit that was between the leader and himself. By the end of the race Donnie had cut that margin down to 12 seconds. Not enough, but a valiant effort. He did have the satisfaction of garnering the fastest lap time of the race at 1 minute 18.2 seconds. These cars hit about 110 mph at the end of the strip before they're hard on the brakes for a change in direction.

Donnie filled his Dad and Bill in on the specifics of his race. He also told us how beat he was after driving that hard for 20 minutes. It's amazing how much it'll take out of you, especially when it's 80 degrees out and you're wearing a 2-layer fire suit, head sock, helmet and racing gloves! Anyone who say's a racecar driver isn't an athlete, has never driven a racecar!

There was a good variety of cars from dwarf cars to Mazdas, full on race Camaros, older Cameros and a little of eveything else.