Typical Ja Day: PROPS AND PISTONS

A large part of my adult life has been attending car races. Everything from NASCAR, Indy Car, Sports Car and local dirt tracks. By far the my favored type of racing is Sports Car Racing and Specifically the 24 Hours of Daytona and The 12 Hours of Sebring.

We have made life long friends over the years and for that I am blessed. I am fortunate to live within one hour of the front gate of Sebring International Raceway located in Highlands County. Every time I pull up the stop sign in front of the track, I get a chill. It is a special place for me.

In addition to the 12 Hour Race held on the third Saturday each March, SCCA (Sports Car Club of America), HSR (Historic Sportscar Racing) and SVRA hold events at the famed track throughout the year. Recently we attended the Props and Pistons event. This is our story. (make the Law and Order sound in your head now).

P-40 Tomahawk with Flying Tigers livery provides the Props

An Oldsmobile V-8 is a piston driven monster

Fellow racing enthusiasts, Larry and JP completed our trio of addicts for this race. We set up camp in the paddock at turn 1space 1. Now understand we are all hard working Americans who make up the middle class in our great nation. Larry is a Commercial Designer, JP has worked for Palm Beach Fire Rescue for 25 years and I am just a dude who teaches people how to do stuff. We don't have motor homes, but we all own tents, Coleman stoves, old fashioned percolators for making coffee (very important by the way) and an ability to deal with the finicky weather changes Central Florida can dish oat. Oh yea, we are masters of trackside cooking and eating. We are beyond just hamburgers and hot dogs.

Our humble trackside abode

L-R JP, Me, Larry

Larry's Gumbo

We even eat "semi" healthy

Now that you know a very little aboat us, onto the cars and other stuff we allegedly did. I truly enjoy attending vintage racing events at Sebring mainly because the crowd is 125,000 less than the 12 Hour event in March. Much more relaxed and easy going is the theme at these events.

There were three occurrences which were memorable for me at the race. The first was seeing a Porsche 906 which to my recollection I have never seen in person. This car was developed in 1966 and went toe to toe with V12 Ferrari and mighty Ford V-8 racers. The 906 was powered by a lightweight 2 Liter, flat 6 producing a modest 220 HP. Some versions were later fitted with V8's.

The second memorable event was the ability to get up close and personal with an Oreca P-1. This car raced at Le Mans and has never raced in America until now. The exciting part of this car is the Judd V-10 power plant. The 10 cylinder Judd has such a unique sound both at idle and under full throttle. The sound is similar to a Jaguar V-12, but better. We also had the privilege of talking with the car owner who brought the car over from France to participate in this event. Our buddy JP has raced many times at Sebring and is very familiar how bumpy the track is and how tricky turn 1 and 17 are. He and the car owner had a nice chat, we wished him luck and continued our paddock wondering.

Moving on to the third memorable event which took place at about 10pm. Let me preface first. We have been run out of a lot of places in the track from not being allowed on pit row after the race because we had shorts on, to team tents which may have included fresh coffee and food and everything in between. I did follow JP into a drivers only meeting at one event which was freaking awesome, but that is a rabbit trail for later.

Just minutes earlier, our band of motor heads had been chased out of the fenced area at the beginning of turn 17 by the corner workers. That was a bummer. As we dejectedly began our sojourn back to camp, I noticed the corner station in the middle of turn 17 was dark and manned by an older guy. Almost on command, we three instantly employed our finely honed ninja skills by blending in with the shadows and slowly and quietly moved closer to the inside wall. Suddenly out of the darkness another corner worker appeared, this one with communication gear used to give up dates to race command. We knew from experience these guys were hard to deal with. Larry used his cunning and instinct to strike up a conversation with this head phoned honcho. To my astonishment, they let us stay. Holy Smokes. The cars were whizzing by within 10 feet of our position. Protected only by 5000 pound barriers, we soaked up every sight, sound and smell with each passing second. Don't have pictures to show you because I did not want to push our luck.

We headed back to our corner of spectator heaven for some more of JP's Lemon Pie while sitting around a nice little fire. We shared stories about racing and life and of course always planning for the upcoming 12 Hour Race just 3 1/2 months away (we start counting days after New Years). The guys went to sleep in their vehicles, I slept on a cot inside the EZ Up.