We pitted with the guys from the Illinois Lightning Sprints. Austin Archdale, Brent Burrows, Chaz and Brendan Gregory, and Shane Morgan were there. It was nice of those guys to let me pit with them, it gave us somebody to talk to and other people to help watch our stuff.
TULSA
SHOOTOUT PITS
Thursday was practice day. They broke each class up into groups of 14 or so and allowed us 2 hot lap sessions of 4 or 5 laps. There were 54 groups to hot lap, we were in group 14 and then again later in group 94. They started from the bottom with group 1, then reversed the order in the afternoon. At least our order of go wasn't as bad as some.
TULSA SHOOTOUT STAGING
Friday was heat race day, They split the 40 mini sprints into 5 heats of 8 cars. Using a passing points system they selected the 14 highest point cars to go the A feature, everybody else to go to one of 2 B mains. I started outside second row in my heat. The guy in front of me pitched his car into turn 1 after taking the green on the first lap and lost it! Of course I ran over him and knocked the front axle out of my car. I didn't even make a quarter lap under green. Spent the rest of the day straightening tie rod and drag link and replacing radius rods.
Of the Illinois group, only Brent Burrows and Shane Morgan managed to qualify for the feature from the heats. The rest of us had to try to make it from the B mains.
Saturday… B mains in the morning, then the features in the evening. I had to start last in the second 13-car B main. I knew I had to get to third to qualify for the feature. I was pretty bummed. I figured there was no way to go from last to third. It seemed pretty much like all those hard luck stories you read about the Chili Bowl.
While sitting in my car in staging, I watched Austin spin twice in the same spot on consecutive laps and get hauled away on the hook. As I rolled out on the track I figured I'd just race around and see how it went. It was bizarre!
TULSA SHOOTOUT TRACK
So there you have it. I found Tulsa exciting, boring, heartbreaking, frustrating, and rewarding kinda all rolled together. It's the coolest mini sprint race I've ever been to in 13 years of doing this. Would I go again? You bet! In fact we were planning next years trip while on the way home from this one. You guys ought to think about giving it a try.
Oh yeah, the door handle story. Since we didn't leave Tulsa until about noon on Sunday, we stopped for the night in Springfield on the way home. The first set of key cards the hotel gave us wouldn't work, so Glenda went up to the desk and they gave her different ones, for a different room. We went in and went to sleep. In the morning, I woke up early, got dressed and popped out of the room for a smoke. As I was standing there, smoking in the parking lot, I realized I didn't know which room I'd come out of. I had a key card, but there was no number on it, and all the rooms looked exactly the same from the outside. I mean I could narrow it down to three or four but… so I went up to the front desk, told the desk lady who I was, what I'd done, showed her my room key, and asked her which room I was in. She told me my room number and then she said "Next time just hold onto the door handle".
Hope you enjoyed the story.
Randy Reed
