Nelson Ledges Chaplain’s Notes

 APRIL 2008

 REUNION

Yesterday I received an e mail inviting me to my 41st year Troy High School Reunion. Somehow the 40th was missed so we are going for 41! You know, I really don’t feel that old, but when I saw pictures from our last reunion, (I missed it, it was a race weekend) everyone else looked kind of old.

Racing had a big reunion this spring, although capitulation might be a better term. With the demise of ChampCar, we are now back to one series, the IRL. It certainly seems the former ChampCar teams, or transition teams as they are officially called, will struggle on the short and middle sized ovals. Hopefully, with the added time teams have at Indianapolis, the transition teams will find a way to be competitive. But wasn’t it great at St. Petersburg to see the ChampCar guys not only competitive, but win! Graham Rahal drove like a grizzled veteran under incredibly difficult changing track conditions and survived being hit and spun to become the youngest ever to win an Indy Car race. He’s another successful Ohio boy.

One of the Speed website columnists was complaining about cheering in the press box when Rahal won. I am sure there was some unprofessional partisanship from columnists who supported ChampCar. But I also feel all fans of American open wheel racing should cheer.  We can look forward to a Rahal and an Andretti doing battle with Danica and a cast of imports for the Indy 500 and the series title. Now if we can just get the turbos back and add some more road courses including Cleveland, we can really have an exciting open wheel series. Some of the old ChampCar guys get a reunion this weekend as Jimmy Vasser comes out of retirement to be a part of the Panoz’ last hurrah at the Long Beach Grand Prix while the IRL cars run in Japan.

The reunion I am most looking forward to is this weekend at Nelson Ledges. It is always special to get back together with my racing family at the track. A couple of weeks ago I was out at Nelson doing some final filming for the soon to be released DVD of last year’s Longest Day. A few laps around get you itching to get spring coming and start racing again. I will be working corners in memory of Glenn Miller. May God bless us with an exciting and safe season.

God Bless,

Chaplain Gray   

chapnlrc@aol.com