Day 5: Fear & Self Loathing in Oklahoma

6:30am - I awoke this morning feeling a bit unsettled. It was one of those moments we’ve all had in waking abruptly and thinking you’re settled comfortably in your own bed, but the reality of a foreign setting gives that odd sense of bewilderment. It’s a feeling for me that didn’t quite leave.

Today’s itinerary was to employ two very different forms of motorsport. The first at Hallet Raceway was the familiar road course with the afternoon taking us 60miles away to Tulsa Dragway where we’d collectively experience bracket racing. Explanation of the morning’s event is hardly necessary as intuition simply says that going faster is better, but with bracket racing as its known, a baseline time is set and even if you beat someone down the quarter mile strip, you’ll lose if you beat your previously determined baseline; counterintuitive at best and something that a few uninitiated didn’t quite understand, but bracket racing evens the playing field a bit as $20k Honda Civics could quite realistically beat out $120k Porsche 911’s.

8:00am – Hallet Raceway is beautiful in its setting among dense. lush, and aromatic forest made only better by the morning’s bluebird skies and the blended smells of burnt fuel, brakes, & clutches…….a car guy’s utopia of sorts. Sebastian had the morning session and walking the track prior to his run must have flipped a switch in his head as he set a blistering pace of 4:47:76 that cracked the top thirty for the first time placing him in 26^th ahead of some heady machinery like the turbocharged-460hp Cayman S and a pair of super-charged, pavement ripping Mustangs. Impressive, especially considering the very challenging track that offered up many blind and off camber problems. Walking that very same track this very same morning, unfortunately did not flip the same switch for me as I meandered around the track never quite getting in the groove and wishing the morning’s sense of bewilderment would leave me. No such luck as I finished a middling 43^th with a 4:53:81. Lucky for Team Skittle’s placing amongst Evergreen 1 Lappers, Ric had a bit of misfortune in that a Corvette spun in front of him slowing him down by a fistful of valuable seconds resulting in a 5:01:67. Loye followed up in the afternoon session with a 5:06:55 probably thinking that if he died, Heaven wouldn’t be ready and Hell wouldn’t take him knowing he’d take over.

5:30pm – We’re at Tulsa Dragway and we made the decision to have Sebastian run the session. With my poor showing at the dragstrip in the 2009 1 Lap and also with the fact that I was in the midst of a day-long funk, I thought it best to relinquish the remainder of the driving for the day. Good thing as Sebastian’s clean living finally showed its worth in getting the best reaction time of the event at .047 seconds…..a machine could hardly do better. Setting the bar at 14.18 seconds, he won his second run with a 14.20, before “bracketing out” with a 13.98 on the third run. Ric ran the drag for Team Merlot Magik and made it to the 4^th round before being knocked out by a silver bullet of a BMW. Ric’s times were consistently 14.5’s as Merlot Magik and its new heart of aluminum did them proud.

The end of the day left Team Little Skittle in 31^st overall and Team Merlot Magik within striking distance at 43^rd. 6 days remain and much remains on the line but we may have jumped the gun a bit by getting their new mantlepieces already. Suffice it to say that we saw these gems in the proverbial window and they simply begged to be purchased.

10:30pm – Sebastian is getting hangry, evidenced by his growing road rage; I think it’s time to go feed the monster. We have 200 more miles to St. Louis and hopefully we don’t get shot on the way as Sebastian drives with his middle finger out the window. If you don’t see a blog update tomorrow, check the news and please contact our loved ones……well my loved ones anyway. I don’t think he has any.