Lisa Devlin's Racing Diary

In the Interim

by Lisa Devlin

I know it's been a while, so I thought I'd update you on the progress of the DSR. This year has kind of turned into a year off. Mostly, I've been traveling back to Illinois for the past four months to take courses leading to a certification in animal chiropractic.

This has been fun! It's a 150 hour course open to chiropractors and veterinarians and my last class in the basic course is in August. To further that end, I'm looking for leads for veterinarians in the area, since I only work on animals by vet referral. So that's what's happened to the time and racing budget for 1998.

This isn't to say I don't have a car I could race. I still haven't sold the Mazda. It's getting very frustrating. I've gotten few phone calls and only two people have come to look at it. The first said he was interested in it, if he liked the class. He was going to rent an RX7 for an upcoming race and if he liked the class he'd buy the car.

Well, I never heard from him again, but then I haven't seen his name entered in any RX7 races either, so I can kind of deduce what happened there. The second guy came by to look at it while I was in Illinois. He gave Ted an offer and left a number for me to call him when I got back, but he never returned my calls.

Taking it to the track hasn't helped much either. The car's even priced below any others I've seen for sale, so I'm confused. The bottom line is that I still have a car, so if anyone wants to sponsor me, I'm ready to race.

On to fun stuff. Mark, Ted and I took Ted's DSR out to Thunderhill with the Shelby Club last May to play around as kind of a crew appreciation thing. Saturday morning was the Shelby Club's driver's school. Ted and I had volunteered to instruct and this was going to be the first time we'd driven the new section of track which made for fun instructing.

I was telling the students very confidently where the line was while thinking to myself "I wonder what's next." I couldn't have been too far off, though, since all my students did really well, and one tracked me down on Sunday to thank me and say he was driving smoother and faster.

While Ted and I instructed, Mark got the car ready for tech and unloaded the trailer. Then promptly loaded it again when the onslaught hit. Then unloaded it again when it dried out. Then loaded it again... well, you get the picture.

Saturday early morning was wet, then dry, then wet. Usually it was wet when we were on the track and dry when we weren't. My first session in the DSR started out dry then started sprinkling, then raining, then downpouring.

I learned first-hand the disadvantage of an open car and wished I'd at least have put a couple tear-offs on my visor. But, I was out there, dammit! And the only way I was getting out of the car was if they pried me out.

Who needs to see anyway? I should have the track memorized by now - I'd taken several passenger laps as an instructor and I'd already driven a couple of laps before the rain hit.

In the end it wasn't the visibility that got me to pull in, it was the car getting slideways on the straight. I guess slicks really weren't the tire of choice.

Sunday was much better as it was dry for the entire driving day, and I got some good laps in. I'm still getting used to the car and was dropping one to two seconds per lap by the last session when we finally got a clock on me.

I'm still trying to get Ted to let me race the D. I think I finally have the right combination of cute faces that will wear him down. Pout won't work; sad doesn't do a thing; and pathetic is right out. Cute seems to do the trick, so we'll see.

So why not wait to race my car? Why isn't my car done? Besides the monetary issues, A-Mac is building a car for a real person, so my car went on hold till that's done.

The bad side is that my car's on hold. The good side is that everything we're doing for that car, we're doing in duplicate, so several pieces are done already.

We saw this special on PBS the other day about a guy who's building an airplane to fly in 30 days. It was absolutely hysterical (it wasn't supposed to be - I don't think) because the guy was such a jerk, and he threw temper tantrums when things went wrong. The airplane thing didn't work (well it did, but on his second attempt with a kit), but I think we could build a car (my car) to race in 30 days.

If any of you know producers for PBS who want to do a TV show about this, let me know. We promise not to turn into jerks like that airplane dude did.

Anyway, that's about all for now. I'll keep you informed as the project progresses.

To send a letter to Lisa, email to devlin@thunval.com

Check out the Distant Thunder archives for previous entries from Lisa Devlin's racing diary