Great fun at the SCCA Palm Tree Majors Tour event this weekend

January 09, 2018

Great fun at the SCCA Palm Tree Majors Tour event this weekend

As many of you know, Tom and I became members of the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) last January and have been having a ball volunteering to work at races. We spent this past weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway. As usual, the nice folks made us feel welcome.

We got all settled in on Thursday night and were up bright and early to don our whites and head to the Flagging and Communications (F & C) meeting on Friday morning. We were the first ones there so I had time to take a selfie or two in pit lane and to take a pic of the sun coming up.

They needed help on the Grid, so I left Tom. He headed to work corner #6 with another Tom. My job on the Grid is to get the cars into lines ready to go out onto the track. On Friday, which was practice and then qualifying laps, the cars just line up on a first-come, first-inline basis. There are 7 groups of cars that may contain many classes. On Saturday and Sunday we must get the cars to park in the order in which they will go on the track. The cars from the front have been the faster cars during practice. They are ranked from times from that weekend's practice, qualifying and races in myriad of combinations. It can get kind of hectic when 53 Spec Miatas are coming to park in a 20 minute time span, but we had a great team and got the job done.

Each of the people on the Grid has a paper in their hand that has two columns of numbers. The first column has the car number and the second column has their place. One person stands out at the entrance to the grid and indicates which row the car should go to. The other member of the team are spread out on the grid and they wave the car over and then wave them up until they are in place. Most of the drivers are great to work with, but many of them had to test to see how close I would let them get before I moved. Mom would be proud, I didn't move unless they touched me with the car.

On Saturday and Sunday, the cars are lined up based on different combinations of time. They get another qualifying run on Sat and then a race. Sunday is all racing.
Here is a pic of cars lined up on the grid and one of Tom on Turn #6.

We had a great day and although we were tired, looked forward to heading out again the next day. Once again, Tom was assigned to Turn #6 and I went to the Grid.

The food truck showed up on Saturday. WHooeee! Cuban food. I had a Media Noche sandwich for lunch. They are toasted and contain pork, ham, cheese, pickle, and mustard. They are so yummy. (No, I didn't eat the bun.)

The sunset that night was beautiful!

Saturday night is our volunteer appreciation dinner. We were treated to a Cuban feast in the Champions Club. It was fun to go to a place that we never would be able to afford during a Cup race.

There was a mirror on the elevator ceiling so I had to take a photo. The man in the bottom right in this photo is Jim Downing, a 5-time IMSA champion and one of the inventors of the HANS device. We got a nice welcome as we stepped off the elevator.

The view of the infield from the Champions Club is amazing. We all had a great time snapping pics and pointing out where we had worked and where our trailers or RVs were.

We were early, so we were able to see all of the food as the nice caterers put it out. Tossed salad; black beans and rice with pickled onions; yucca; and whole, roasted pigs.

For dessert we had Tom had a mini flan and I had a mini Key Lime cheesecake.

Thanks to the folks from Florida Region SCCA for such a nice dinner.

My view of Tom as I rode in the pace car for the start of the Group 4 race on Sunday afternoon. It was so amazing to go up onto and then down off of the banking in NASCAR turns 3 & 4.