| Author | Message | ||
     Slaughter |
I hate to admit but it's kind of relaxing not racing this month and having time to work on the machines... or put off working on them! Time to ponder... I was uploading my old phone directory to my new phone and there's Pancho Spain. It has been four years and I can't delete his number from my directory - it's just too final an act. We would laugh about not seeing each other for nearly 4 decades until meeting at Willow Springs as fellow road racers. We had promised to meet for dinner "some day" after the season in 2009. We reminisced about junior High School orchestra - he playing second violin, me one of two violas and ONE OF US teaching the other about shooting rubber bands off the bows into the back of the girls' chorus in front of us (and never getting caught) but it was 6th and 7th grade, 1966, 1967. We were young, immortal. The Real World was still somebody else's problem. Funny how it all works out or doesn't. We never did make that dinner after the racing season. Don't know why the hell I thought it made sense to wait til the end of the race season. I remember seeing the dust in Turn 8 ahead of me (damn but you were FAST!) - dust in turn 8 is NEVER good. We have another season behind us now. We all know what this sport can represent to those of us who participate and yet, we put our heads down and race... but I find that I still can't bring myself to clear my old cell phone's memory. http://www.roadracingworld.com/news/rip-wsmc-racer -pancho-spain/ | ||
| Rodrob |
I hear ya brother. I did not know Pancho, but when I started racing in WSMC and went to use my birth year as my number, I was told 53 was retired. I then I learned of Pancho and was very taken by how much respect, admiration and reverence his name invoked. It was a huge loss. Just the other night Stacy and I were driving home in silence and she looked at me and said "What ya thinkin about?". "The entry of turn 8 on the big track at willow" I replied. In the last F-50 race before my crash, I was pushin the front pretty good, tryin to get around Mantel. It was the first time I had the thought that I didn't need to win that bad. It gives you pause. Keep the number. Se ya out there. |
