Quarter Midgets: Hvy. B and the Grands

I've mentioned that my last year in quarter midgets, I raced Hvy. 160 and Hvy. B. I left out that my brother raced Hvy. B and Hvy. A that year.

My poor dad.

You know that part in the movie promotion I posted in my first quarter midget post where the dad is yelling something about working together? Yeah. I've had that talk when I tried to go for a pass that wasn't totally there, ended up taking my brother out that race. Or when he pulled a dumbass move and spun us both out (odd how he got the short stick both times). At least we had a family friend to help my dad out that year.

Racing Hvy. B in CA in 2003 was like racing Sr. Honda in 2001, but with more power and more seat time. It was easily the most fun I've had racing. Of course, that fun came from not just racing friends, but racing enemies. You see, 3 of the top 5 racers in that class that year were from my club. And two of those three were my brother and I. Versus a kid whose father had a big, rude mouth. The club races became less about winning and more about blocking. Whichever sibling was ahead made sure the "enemy" was delayed as much as possible. Or if he was in between...well, we played our fun games. J says she only vaguely remembers this rivalry when she went to the track, but I remember this person's dad coming up to us after the main and offering me his hand saying something to the tune of good job blocking, next time try racing. It got kind of out of hand.

We crashed so much. Surprisingly, not so much at the club races, but everywhere else it was pure mayhem. I remember this one time at an event in Sacramento, before the race even started 3 people flipped their cars, including two of my group. We were sitting there for half an hour while they repaired the wall (it was just plywood sheets with old tires between, so they sometimes broke). Sometimes out of the 10 cars that got to start the main race, only 4 finished.

Oh yes, we had fun.

But nothing was more fun than the 2003 Western Grands. I've mentioned the Grands briefly before. There are three week long Grand National events each year, during the summer - one in the western half, one in the eastern half, and one on any of the dirt tracks. Because of these races I have been to Florida without going to Orlando or the beach. I have been to Pennsylvania without doing anything historical. I've raced on the parking lot on the inside of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. I've been to Colorado without seeing the Rockies. I went to Canada and Washington and Oregon and even stayed somewhat close to home at Madera. Any family vacation was a Grands.

(I spy with my little eye a young me!) And for the kids they were vacations. We practiced one day, qualified the next, and depending on how we qualified, raced a few times (or maybe even just once if you qualified in the top 5!) during the week. The rest of the time we were free at the track. See, that's the nice thing about being a parent at these events - your kids generally aren't old enough to drive, so you don't worry about them going too far. And if your kid has a cell phone, they're just a text away. I guess there is a bit of cause for worry though, since at the Grands it seemed all of a sudden acceptable to rent a golf cart for a week. And, you know, since all these kids race cars, why not let them drive them here and there? I've jumped on and off of golf carts going full speed. I've been thrown off a few times when taking sharp turns. I know the places to stand/sit/hold on to so that won't happen. We've had at least 10 kids in a golf cart at once. I'm not entirely sure how, but the thing still moved. Shoving people off to make the golf cart go faster was fun though.

That's the thing. Mixed this thing intense national competition, it was just a big party! Everyday, you hung out with people you knew, you made friends with people in your class, you just did all this crazy stuff kids do! And everyday, you remembered your friends were your competition. You stayed away from their trailers, their cars, their parents, and they stayed away from yours.

My parents decided the 2003 Western Grands would be our last Grands. There was some big debacle over which B motor which kid got. I let my brother choose because my focus was Hvy. 160. At that time, I was leading all series I ran in Hvy. 160. I was top 5 in Hvy. B, maybe top 3, but I wasn't leading any of them. I think my brother regrets his decision to this day.

In case you can't read that, it says I qualified 3rd in Hvy. B, straight into the main event. It also meant that I would start 3rd (top 5 qualifiers were inverted for the main event). And, the most important number, in the last column. 2. I finished 2nd, the closest my brother or I came to winning the only championship that eluded our family, a Grands. I was the only girl in the top 10. I lost to the boy who holds the record for the most Grands won. You won't find any records of these sort of things online.

And, okay, so going from 3rd to 2nd isn't much of an accomplishment, right? But consider this. At the green flag, two rows back, someone rammed the person ahead of them, who ran up on the back of my car, knocking a part called the tailcone loose. That's not allowed to come off, otherwise I'm disqualified. My dad motioned for me to pull into the pit area, they reattached it and I ran from 10th to 2nd.

The results never show the stories behind the race. You wouldn't know that the guy who won came up to me before the race and shook my hand and talked to me for a few minutes to help me calm my nerves. You wouldn't know that my hands shook as I put on my gloves and neck brace. You wouldn't know that it was my good friend who ran into my tailcone, that I was so mad I almost punched him after the race. You wouldn't know that my dad promised if my brother and I finished top 5 we'd go to another Grands. You wouldn't know at the awards ceremony, half of the people up there for Hvy. B were from CA and you wouldn't know all the silly poses we did as a group. You wouldn't know that they played Allstar by Smashmouth as they introduced us or that I sat between my two guy friends and one of them joked that he was giving my brother and I 5 laps to either crash each other out or be 1-2. You wouldn't know that I overheard fans of a competitor from another state say to him, "At least you know the girl won't give you any problems."

I've avoided talking about it, for the most part, but it's what I promised with the start of this so that is how we shall close this exploration. I am a girl who spent most of her developing years in a man's sport. I only like talking about the benefits I got from racing. But that ignores the things I went through to get there.