FLYING PIG RACING: ANRA SUMMER NATIONALS- Flying Pig Goes To School and There Is More To Life Than Drag Racing

The Flying Pig Racing team spent the weekend of September 26th and 27th at the ANRA Summer Nationals held at Famoso Raceway. We rolled into the patch with the points lead in Hot Rod and high expectations of continuing the mini streak. (coming into this event I had won the last 3 ANRA races in which I competed) Of course we all know that "prior performance is not an indication of future success" or something like that! Isn't that what they say when you look at the historical performance of your favorite mutual fund?!

So let's just get this part of the story out of the way.

I got schooled in round one. Period. I mean jeeez. The guy in the other lane cuts a near perfect .002 light to my .044. Then he runs me down, covers me at about 1250 feet, backs up to my bumper and we both go wide open across the stripe and he takes the win by .004. Unfortunately I wasn't familiar with the car and never caught up with the driver afterwards so I can't give him props by name. But he schooled me good.

So let's talk about the great food, great friends, and the many stories shared around the pits. And this- the highlight of my weekend. I had the opportunity to meet a lady named Cindy Crenshaw-Martin. Cindy was the guest of Dave (the wrench) Lee, his wife Jann and Aunt Gail. Cindy was a bit of a motor head dating back to her high school days when her first car was a hot Camaro. Sounds like it was the real deal and she fended off a lot of proposals from dudes that wanted to drive her car! Well Cindy ended up joining the Air Force after high school and was stationed in Germany. While in Germany she lost both of her legs in the 1980 terrorist bombing at the Munich Octoberfest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oktoberfest_bombing

So we were chatting about driving with hand controls, different types of controls, etc. and Cindy asked if she could sit in the race car. Of course I said yes and then I one-upped her and asked if she wanted to fire it up. After a quick instructional she held the ignition button and I thought she was gonna go through the roof when that thing fired up! I wish I had it on video because it was one of the best moments ever!! It made my day to see her excitement when she whacked the throttle a couple times!

There is, indeed, more to life than drag racing...

Cindy taking the wheel

So while we were short on racing success we were long on great times with great people! We had Woollybear and Frankster with the Nova running HR and D Gas and then Zac got to make 3 passes in his crazy Topolino altered with a new alcohol injected motor completed at Woollybear's shop. Zack was being wisely cautious by soft rolling it off the line using the footbrake not the trans brake as he gets comfortable with the speed and down track handling. I think the last pass was a quick 10.05. I suspect when he let's his hair down that thing should run 9.50s or better.

The pit was colorful at night with lot's of visitors and story telling. Met some great folks in the pit next door who hauled in from Salt Lake City to get some run time on their NE1 dragster. Super nice folks. Anzalone showed up and told some great stories and Jim Data did a lot of data downloading. Talk about a lifetime of knowledge and experience!