And It Finished The Race Looking Just As Good

Something I realized in a conversation yesterday: MSR Houston is, like, totally cursed for me. I've run four races there and never finished higher than 31st. In fact, this was the first time that my team du jour even managed to see the checkered flag. Put it another way: my average finishing position in professional races is much, much, much better than my average finishing spot at MSR Houston LeMons races.

The Busted Racers crew turned out to be a bunch of really nice guys who were focused on having fun and enjoying the weekend. This was a great source of stress for me as I pride myself on never enjoying any part of a race weekend whatsoever. I kept coming up with strategies to get us higher in the order, only to have them shot down.

"We could run three hour stints in fifth gear only, saving us two laps in the course of the day."

"Um, no thanks."

"Alright, we could drill extra holes in the fuel jugs and do fill-only stops of 90 seconds, but we need to run at 100% at all times."

"We'd like everybody to get a shot at driving today."

"Okay, but why don't we stagger the stint times by a multiplier of differential from TBL."

"You know, you should just take a breath and enjoy the weekend."

Of course, the team's attitude was the right one to have: with twenty penalty laps to start and three black flags on Saturday, a top ten finish was never going to happen. But I wanted top twenty. Or top thirty, if possible. Or something. So I paced around the paddock until it was time to get into the car and then I unlapped us against the leaders four times in 85 minutes and accidentally set the second-fastest lap of any car in the race period and generally spat blood into my helmet microphone and so on. Meanwhile everybody else on the team enjoyed the weekend and had fun with their friends and family.

Still, in the end everybody was happy. Jim and his crew showed they could make a Porsche Turbo run reliably for 17 hours over the course of two days. I got to live a childhood dream of racing in a red 944 Turbo and I got to absolutely put my foot on the neck of some people who think they're pretty good drivers in pretty fast cars. Like the Model T-GT, which has been the bane of my existence when racing Neons on the West Coast but which proved to be utterly trivial for the Turbo to lap twice during the course of an hour, in mixed-rain conditions.

I went to Guitar Center and looked at a bunch of over-$30,000 vintage stuff like a '56 Les Paul Custom and a Strat from the same year. There really is some money in Houston. It's interesting to compare the GC Platinum Room in Hollywood, which is full of Trussarts and PRS Private Stocks, with the vintage-heavy inventory in Texas.

I snagged a room at the Royal Sonesta for my final night and acquired this Texas-shaped waffle, which I think cost me twenty bucks. Last but certainly not least, I was able to hang out with the world-famous Becky Chesshir on Friday and my old boss at S:S:L, Zerin Dube, at his castle-like new domicile on Saturday night.

It's too early to say, but I think my string of bad luck in Houston might be coming to a close. Now, to talk to Jim about those quick-fill fuel jug modifications...