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him telling me about some crazy basturds from Jersey who tried to kill him at VIR.
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Dats funny as hell.........Hey, Dick was a pretty crazy guy himself on track,(although you already knew that),he was a pretty fearless driver that drove #198 like it was the last lap in the most important race of the year...to him #198 was a "race car",meant to be raced and I respected him for that...
The practice session before his "off road excursion",he and I were on track at the same time, a couple of laps into the session I saw Dick a ways behind me,coming up on me at a good rate. When I came out of the last turn before the looooonnnnngggggg front straight, I glanced in the mirror and figured he would catch and pass me on the straight. When I exited the last turn I had just shifted to 4th gear (100mph), right foot firmly planted on the floor, up ahead was a super slow 67/68 Shelby Mustang right in the middle of the track, so I eased over to the left side of the track to pass him,he was doing maybe 70mph,I was doing about 120 mph and accelerating,at the same time Dick comes up on the Shelby's right side screaming by, we both passed the poor guy, one on either side and the same time!!!!!I stayed all the way in the left lane,Dick and I were side by side and he kept "drifting" to me till he could have reached out and touched my door handle,I stayed in the gas as long as I could,Dick never backed off at the dogleg,then I tucked in behind him...it didn't take him long to get out of my sight......
After that session,we're sitting in our "compound" with a 1/2 dozen race cars and 15 or so folks and Dick comes strolling up and points to my car and says:"Who was driving the red car this last session??" Thinking I was in for a butt chewing, I kept my mouth shut and put my head down and tried to hide, but all my good buddies without hesitation pointed me out.... I stood up and said "Me sir" and he stuck out his right hand to shake my hand and told me I had a fast car and he wanted to look it over...imagine that,Dick Smith wanting to look at my POS car, we chatted for a few minutes and he told me he enjoyed running with me and hoped to do it again soon..... Class act fellow from the word go........
David