Karjala Month

Date: JUNE 17, 2009

Karjala month is exhausting. Not only is the weather historically cranky, but some of the people can be, too -- the Americans I mean.

It's the big race that this series sort of stole in the 80s because the Finns and the American track owners wanted to see American drivers race against the Soviet Touring Car Championship drivers, and since both series had similar technical regulations it was easy to find a happy medium. When it became an official TMMC points race, the Americans kept on winning it and winning it and winning... until Yuliya won it a few years back and when Lance Andrews should have won it in 2004 (he got screwed out of it by an electronics mishap that car's transponder had the entire day, but Danny's car carried Finnair on the quarterpanels that race... fill in the blanks...).

However, a few Finnish teams won it with American drivers, and looking at the official recordbooks Charlie Conway won the race driving for a French team. I say that because I know no Americans named "Jean Claude".

Anyway, we have not been as good as I thought we were going to be. 28th in the open practice session where there were 80-some odd cars on the track! Ian Cooper didn't have much luck all month, and he ended up DNQing, much to my surprise.

Well, he's been sort of off this season, really...

The car lacks a lot of power in the straights. I friggin beat this into everyone's head. We're. Too. Slow. In. The. Long. Straights. Where. There. Are. Two. Passing. Zones. Fortunately that problem was cured come the actual main practice sessions after the qualifying races to an extent.

Duffy (Zach Duff) was 44th in the open practice and Yuliya was 35th. Ian Cooper was 46th. Atop that practice session was Arto Kekkonen and then Brian Sendack. Neither of those names are a surprise to me, and Brian tends to specialize here (not a bad place to specialize). This could be a big, big race for him on a sidenote. Brian's a nice guy unless you rub him the wrong way. A certain guy in a certain #30 Lenard did that to him last year...

Main practice session 1 was yesterday and we picked up the pace and we're 18th. We're down on power a bit but I can make it up in the turns. On lap averages, however, we were 4th, which made me very, very happy -- because that's the only stat I'm looking at. The top 8 or 9 cars all made qualifying runs, and Mathias Taube is on top of the timesheets.

Who is this guy? Well, he was on the GRL entry list for this season but failed the payment requirements. He's been racing touring cars in Germany and France and he's started on the pole once or twice but always managed to find himself in the walls. They say he's pretty good but he seems to crash a lot -- really sweet guy, too.

He's driving for a team crew chiefed by his dad, who I understand was a multiple-time rally champion.

Anyway.

Did a few fan appearances here, and the fans here are a very special lot. Maybe 10% of them speak English, and they'll always ask for the strangest autographs. I recall one girl (she had to be about 17 or 18) wanted me to sign on the toe of her sneaker being one of the most normal ones.

Well, I'm exaggerating there. There's the usual shirt and hat signings, with one or two with a diecast (which I personally don't like signing) or something like that...

Apparently my emo glasses in all their colors have become somewhat iconic (for the record, they're basically reading glasses), and I have had a few people ask me to sign a pair of those this month. You know what this means, right? Time to get a pair of those with a #27 on the bridge or something! Wooo!

Some of the drivers do the fan signings for appearance's sake. I'd say I don't do that but it's really easy to say that and not mean it. I remember telling the media to fuck off (quite literally -- and got in trouble for doing that) to talk to these two girls (they had to be about 14) at Decatur last year for like 20 minutes before I walked over to my car. I think they were kind of surprised how I acted, really -- they didn't expect me to be able to understand their down to earth issues and stuff. I remember telling them to keep their chins up and follow their wishes, regardless of gender discrimination. I think I also told them not to read cosmetics magazines, because they do nothing but make you feel bad about yourself.

I actually heard that one of them (I'm not revealing their names unless I get an email from their parents okaying it) started racing karts this year. The funny thing is that neither of those two girls looked the racer type -- guess I was wrong. Appearances don't tell all -- one look at me and you'd think I write for some super liberal magazine or newspaper or am in college or something (I'm actually one of the few drivers on the grid that has a bachelor's degree -- please nobody ask how I pulled off college and the TM Lights title in the same year).

I personally like some of the bizarro crowd. You know, the more out there people. They're fun, they really are. One guy in... I think it was Seattle wanted me to sign a white band that went around his top hat. This guy had like 200 tattoos and a pretty cool skull ring. Nice guy, too.

Bye for now!
- A.R.