Another interesting Friday

[s_wilwerding]

I wrote last Friday about the VP at work that gave me a ride in and let me drive his 997 GT3.

This Friday was also pretty interesting. I decided to take the afternoon off of work and take the Boxster down to MidAmerica Motorplex for open track. It was a great day, and everything was working well, but the most interesting part was when, at 5:00, the three K-Pax racing trailers showed up.

It turns out that they were on their way to Mosport for next weekend's Speed GT race, and MAM was on the way, so they decided to stop and do some testing. Not only were both 997 GT3 Cup cars there, but the drivers, Randy Pobst and Michael Galati, were as well.

I talked with Randy for a few minutes, and told him that I enjoy watching him on TV, and that it's great that he's leading the championship. We talked a little about the car - he said they have to make significant changes to a "stock" Cup car for this series - lots of suspension tuning, etc. He also said that the 997 GT3 is a much better car than the 996 GT3 - I would have assumed they were pretty similar, but he said they were very different cars.

In any case, he and Michael finally got on the track and we watched them for awhile. It was funny because they had never been to MAM, and their crew chief told them that they had 2 laps to learn the track, then they would start timing them. They learned the track pretty well in two laps!

I wanted to get one more run in, and talked to the crew chief about getting out while Randy and Michael were on the track, and he said, "Sure, go out - they'll find a way to get out around if you're slower."

Of course, my Boxster was significantly slower, and you could hear Randy coming from about three corners back. I just got off line and gave him plenty of room to pass. I don't think I'll ever "point by" a better driver than I did yesterday.

Anyway, Randy was a great guy, and it's another memory to put in the scrapbook. Unfortunately, I didn't have a camera, but here's a pic of Randy (with some grid girls) from the web:

[widgeon13]

fun afternoon!

they certainly are two fine looking specimens