A few good happenings, and a few bad. That describes our participation in the 4th running of this well organized event in the small south-eastern Indiana town.

With F2 and F3 boats utilizing city streets for a pit area, the congested pit area leads to a tightness amongst race teams and is ideal for spectators. APR pit manager Dave Black has his work cut out for him, but excelled again.

With back- to-back heats on saturday, there was incentive was to avoid the last chance qualifier on sunday. With the disappointment of the Sudbury weekend fresh in our minds, a more relaxed weekend would be a bonus. We had a long drive on friday, and an equally long drive on sunday that would extend into monday. When one’s origin and destination are inversed, the length of trip is of course equal. The point is, I’m only allotted so many holidays in a year, and that number must be insufficient, as I normally need to return to work on monday. However, this monday, I would be flying from Toronto with a connecting flight from Cincinnati, Ohio to Norfolk, Virginia to vacation with friends on the Outer Banks in North Carolina. The stupid part of the trip included passing the Cincinnati airport at 7pm after the race, and flying to that airport in just over 12 hours. But, that’s an example of how accommodating the airline industry is. For info, the airliner’s name is the fourth letter in the Greek alphabet.

The passage of time between the event and this writing, comes forgotten events. I don’t recall much of saturday. We must have done well enough to qualify 6th for the final. I can recall testing. I had to be towed in when the engine would not ignite for a mock start. I thought the disastrous weekend of 2001 would be repeated. Rainer went to work as usual, and quickly determined the problem was starter related. Fortunately, competitor David Choate was present and willingly allowed us to borrow a spare starter.

Watching the last-chance qualifier is an eye opener. You’re thinking, I’m usually out there. It’s pretty wild on the race course. It’s sort of scary to watch, yet at the same time, you can see the good moves and mistakes the other drivers make. My biased eye determines my boat is much faster than any out there, and these guys are making a lot of driving mistakes that I never do.

Starting fifth in the final was long-time APR driver and repeat champion Brian Rogerson. He has planned for it to be his last in a tunnel boat. I was aligned beside him. It may have been a bit emotional for Jim Rogerson, watching two boats he built set off side by side for the final time. All of that was forgotten as we neared the commitment pin. Brian was 8’ ahead of me, Choate was behind, and Dean Bowes came from 8th to slice across. Perhaps he could see that we were past the pin. I certainly didn’t think so, nor could I see it. When I stopped swallowing water that was rapidly being thrust at me, and I could see a bit of air, I started to turn for the corner. From there, I chased Bowes. Lap after lap seemed to consume most of the race. Then, I either got on a bit of Bowes’ wake, or the steering problem that had loosened in qualifying recurred, and I hit a buoy. It was my first time hitting a buoy in a final. What to do? Well it’s not bothering my visibility, so it’s not a big deal. The popping sound may still be ringing in my ears, or is that Rainer informing me I’d hit the buoy. Gilles Villeneuve continued driving with 3 wheels on his car, and A.J. Foyt won a race with a broken gear shift lever, so a bit of orange vinyl wasn’t going to warrant stopping. Then my mind tried to decide if I should stop at the dock to remove it. No; maybe next lap if it becomes a problem I mused. Turning the next corner, I would learn something. I now knew where the wind was coming from. As quickly as a tunnel boat switched direction, so did the buoy. No longer was it hanging from my mirror, it engulfed my cockpit. Visibility was nil. I threw my arm into the air and was able to see. More pushing removed the buoy from my cockpit. It briefly hung from my mirror, before resting on the water. Now my mirror was pointing down, but one mirror was still facing me. I lost less than one second during this adventure. Some may say it was just driver error. The driver won’t. I finished the race 8th behind Michael Floyd, but was relegated to 13th when enacting the one lap penalty for moving the buoy. I could try to claim it wasn’t me, that it was just some loose orange paint from the boat. APR officials are too proficient to mistake that.

It would be Kevin’s last race as crew member for this year. School beckons. He doesn’t hear it, but his parents do. We will miss him for the final two races.