Behind the eight ball
once again

6/8/05

Jeff Burk Photo

oy, this one completely caught me by surprise. And I know it's because I refused to look at a calendar this past month. I'm talking about my DRO column deadline. I usually start to get nervous about a week before deadline and get after it when Caitlin sends her always courteous reminder that "deadline for your column is in ____ days, I look forward to reading it!" this time Caitlin was on vacation and Kay emailed and wrote "Your story is due tomorrow." Tomorrow is 6 hours away. The 6 hours that I was supposed to use to sleep so I can go to work in the morning.

So, in breaking with what I was told early were the boundaries for this gig, i.e. "don't just write about yourself," I'm going to just write about myself. Hey, as far as I am concerned, I am as good as anything going on in nostalgia right now anyway.

How did I get so screwed up? Not enough hours in the day? Not enough days in a week? Children? A Funny Car? Well, not just a Funny Car but a full-time job, a family (my 5 year-old had LICE yikes!), a band, and a holiday weekend that was no holiday for us, believe me. OK I'm whining. I'll stop.

Here's what's going on in my sorry existence as of now. Gaynor's car (for those who are new here, is a nostalgia nitro funny car that I drive) is going to Indy, Columbus, and Dallas,

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Georgia and who knows where else in just a matter of days.

No problem, says you. Big problem, says we. The car has seen the starting line seven times this year and has made it under power to the other end once. Every lap had a mechanical issue that screwed us, yes, even the cone run at Sonoma, and Gaynor is done with it.

Done with the problems, that is. No more mechanical problems! Big changes have been made to the car and along with that, Dale Pulde has come onboard. Dale needs no introduction and as a driver I couldn't be happier knowing that if I'm not doing my job, I'll be able to learn from the best. Gaynor and Pulde are good friends and friends like to help friends. But, my lovely wife, Pammy says, "Pulde likes to pick up strays." Thanks dear.

So, we are starting over. Last year, under the guidance of Mike Demarest, we had a solid 6.50 race car. When the class was conceived, that was a good number to be able to run. We had a stellar season last year. We went to three races out of the four held and had two runner-ups in the VRA series, finishing number 4. Well, our class started to grow and evolve. That Pulde guy with Dan Horan Jr. started to put some teens up on the board. And Horan has seen an .05 as of late. Larry Pettit ran an .11, Dennis Lacharite ran an .09, Savage, Adams, Walls, ran some .30's and Bugg, who has actually had worse luck than us this year, has been in the .20s. Our best last year was a mid .40, so Gaynor made a move to step up.