Some of you may have heard the bad news regarding my yellow 67 Satellite a few months back. I’ve done my best to compartmentalize and ignore this issue for the better part of this past summer, but it’s now fall; project time, so I’ll recall the story here, and chronicle the aftermath in this thread.
On May 11th, I was at our 1st Pacific Raceways A-Street Automotive points race of the year. LemonWedge was sporting a fresh 727 equipped with a Cope T-Brake, and loaded with really good parts. I was jazzed for what was going to be a great season!
1st pass was a time-only run that went really well. I was getting used to the “overthrow” adjustable brake button, and feeling confident stepping into round 1. I drew a tough customer that I know well, Chris Young behind the wheel of his very fast and well sorted out ‘71 Chevelle wagon. We were dialed fairly close, my 10.39 which I thought I could cover, to his 10.12. I would leave first.
We rolled into the water box but were then told to shut ‘em down. I looked up track to see a bunch of whitish smoke in my lane. The smoke was coming from Chris Barnes ‘64 Plymouth Wagon Stock Eliminator car that preceded me in the right lane. We had just chatted in the lanes, where he told me that he was excited to be making the first passes with his new Steve Wann built 426 max wedge. I wasn’t sure what the issue was, but I did note that Chris had driven it all the way out, so maybe it wasn’t too bad (??). They backed us out, and we proceeded to wait for at least 45 minutes while the track crew cleaned up whatever had let loose on Chris’ car down at the big end of my lane.
As we waited, I took note that even though dusk was upon us, the humidity and DA seemed to be going up, and the data was telling me I would slow down. With where we were at, I would have to approach my opponent and ask for consent to move my dial. I decided against it, not really believing what I was seeing, and figured I could still get to my number. This would prove to be an error that would be more costly than I ever could have imagined.
Finally, the track crew cleared my lane, and they gave us the “light em up” signal. I quickly went back into “routine-mode”, and didn’t really even think about the track in front of me. Ive raced here for years…. These guys know what they’re doing. (Mistake #2). So out of the water box I roll with LemonWedge eager to feast on some Chevy meat. I let go of the button and felt pretty good about it. He was just off my quarter panel when he sent the front end of the big blue wagon skyward, and the race was on. As we tripped the 1000-ft cone it was unfortunately clear that he was coming around me. I heard a couple of telltale chops of his throttle as he parked the wagon just where he wanted it. I was down, but not out. I pushed him until the last instant, then reached for the brake pedal to cut him loose in hopes he was hot. The hood of the car dipped as I watched Chris react with his brakes as well. He was clearly ready for my move. This is where it all came apart!…. Right at the stripe, at 123 mph.
In an absolute instant, I was staring at the wagons quarter panel out of my windshield! WTF!?!? The car was sideways sliding up track. I was in utter disbelief of what my senses were feeding my brain. Complete confusion is the best way I can describe it. I had been down this track literally 1000 times in my trusty yellow Plymouth. What the hell was THIS?! As I gathered my senses and took in what was transpiring, I tried to steer into the slide, back up track. But there seemed to be no response to my input. Out of pure reaction, my foot was planted firmly on the brake pedal and we were in a full 4-wheel slide. Luckily, the big blue wagon was now clear of my path. I had dodged that bullet. But now the left lane wall was becoming a clear possible landing spot. For an instant I thought I would stop before I got there. It was what seemed like a long ways away. But the car just kept sliding and sliding. Now I was creeping up on the concrete Jersey barrier, and the calculations in my brain urged me to brace myself. I guess I had never gone into full 4-wheel lockup at 120+ before, and how long it was taking to stop was surprising. What had started in an absolute instant, now seemed to be taking forever to transpire. As I’m sure you have anticipated by now, we hit the wall. And we hit it it good. It threw me against the harness, and snapped my head around noticably. But I was ok.
The car jumped off the Jersey barrier and unfortunately pivoted the nose back uptrack. In doing this, the drivers quarter panel tagged the wall just enough to do some damage back there, as if to add insult to the injury at the front of the car.
The car hobbled a few more feet and I finally brought it to a stop along the wall. Looking out over the buckled hood, I felt sick. Neither of the doors would open, jammed by the fenders. So I rolled down the pass. Side window and climbed out. Still in a state of confusion over what had just happened, I walked around to the front of the car and almost broke out in tears over what I saw. My hopes that the car had fared well through the storm were gone in an instant. It was crushed, bent, wrecked….. yuck!
By now the track safety personnel were on me and asking if I was okay. Yes, I was fine was my response. It was then that I looked back down track and my brain finally made some sense of what had just happened. The track was covered in oil-dry powder right at the finish line. You could see my skid marks through drying agent. It became clear…. There was still oil on the track. Questions of what had happened began to shift to anger. How could they have let us go?! The track was clearly not clean!
There was now plenty of people arriving at the scene. The track manager then arrived ran up to me and wrapped his arms around me asking if I was okay. “Yes I’m fine” I responded, “but there’s still oil on the track!” I said pointing back toward the finish line. He looked back, then at me right in my eyes. Right then and there I made the decision to NOT make this about blame. Maybe they made a mistake, but all the anger I could muster wouldn’t change what happened, “I’m fine, Jeremy”. I said again, then just turned and walked away. Looking back at the car, I was now entering “acceptance”. I called my wife and gave her the news. The next hour as we loaded the car up, I was just numb. At my trailer, Chris Barnes approached me and was distraught with the sight of the mangled yellow car. He then told me that his brand new Wann Maxie-426 had thrown a rod through the block and dumped a good share of its life-blood all over the track at about 1200 feet and beyond. The correlation of his story and mine were obvious to piece together.
Back to the mistake I made in not accepting and correctly reacting to the weather data I was seeing: I had an ever so slight advantage at the start. But ended up chasing my number; I was likely on about a 10.42. Had I adjusted accordingly, I would have stayed in it through the stripe, and it’s VERY likely none of this would have happened…. (TO ME). The incident all started with me braking to cut the other car loose.
I put the trailer on the side of the house and did my best to wipe it from my consciousness. We had fun this summer at the lake and with camping trips. Full circle to present day…. I’m now getting started on tearing things apart. I’ve ordered some parts and have a direction forward with this car. I’ll add those details little by little in subsequent posts. Budget will determine the timeframe of this project. It’s likely the resurrection of LemonWedge will take a good long while. But I’m determined. It’ll be back, better than ever.
View attachment 1942157
View attachment 1942173
View attachment 1942174
View attachment 1942175
View attachment 1942176
View attachment 1942177
View attachment 1942178
View attachment 1942179
