Sunday May 1 Summit Point, WV

Well, we had a long night the day before, very long 550 miles beginning at 3 pm and ending at 1 am with our arrival in Winchester.  The last 100 miles were over some difficult 2 lane roads through the Maryland, and West Virginia panhandles trying to get from Morganton, WV to Winchester, VA all in the black of night and always looking for deer and small-town police radar.  In rout we saw 2 other one lappers pulled over.  Dave and I have vowed to not fall victim.

Even after a long trip and all we wanted to do was fall into bed we learned that our confirmed reservation was gone.  Apparently, with the Apple Blossom Festival, rooms were very scarce and what they considered to be well past late arrival, our room was gone.  Anyway while we were discovering our predicament, we witness the ladies of the evening being escorted to their next bookings at the same time Dave jumped on the cell phone and lined us up a room at the Windham.  So in the address went into the GPS and off we went across town.  Turned out to be a wonderful hotel, the best we’ll stay at this whole trip.  But we lost some important sleep time as we really did not doze off until 2.

We requested a 6 am wakeup call, which never came.  Somehow we awoke at 6:30, both showered, dressed packed checked out and eat at the hotel’s free buffet and in the car at 7:00.  30 minutes is all we needed?  Wow, we’re good.  A 30 minute ride to the track, off loaded the car, and setup a seating and table area under Woody and Robin’s pop-up canopy.   

In addition to our normal One Lap activities, we had many visitors over the course of the day.  Greg’s wife Debbie, oldest daughter Amanda, son-in-law Brian and the grandbaby, Madeline, second daughter Shannon and her longtime boyfriend Tyler all came up with a grill and food to feed 40 One Lappers and friends.  The National Capital Chapter Instructor Corps was also holding a skid pad day.  So many of our dearest Club Instructors came to visit and encourage us.  Anyway it was great to see all and it really meant a lot.

Greg ran in the morning’s run and Dave in the afternoon.  Both of us know Summit Point Main track extremely well.  Of any of the tracks we will run during the one lap race, this track will be our best shot to show our stuff.  Even though we were seeded 39^th, after the skid pad and autocross events we ended up 39^th overall.  Our frrist session today we finished 39^th.  So one could say we are meeting the expectations of the One Lap organizers that considered our car and experience.  But in the event , we can all ready see that most of the cars have way more horsepower and much better electronics than do we, our 12-year old car.

So we again packed up, said our warm goodbyes to all our family and friends and headed down the road.  Remember time is lost sleep.  So we’re tooling down interstate 81 and see that dinnertime will put us at Blacksburg, we called Dave’s youngest son Bret, Greg’s youngest daughter, Marianne and her boyfriend Andy and Scott Donaldson, fellow Tarheel BMW Instructor and Greg’s very long time closest friend and we all met at Ruby Tuesday’s near the exit.  Both Dave and I and our wives will be back in Blacksburg in less than 2 weeks for Bret’s and Marianne’s Graduation from Virginia Tech.  So again we said our goodbyes and once again headed on down the road because time is lost sleep.  Looks like we’ll be at the hotel by 10 pm tonight.  So it’ll be an easy trip in comparison.  Tomorrow we need to be at the track by 7am so we can walk (scooter, yes we have kid’s scooters with us) the track to learn as much as we can before we have to race it for our time and points.