HUMPTY DUMPTY

DAYTONA BEACH (19April, 2012) –

Yes, it’s time to update some rather longstanding but old copy. It’s hard to imagine, but in the intervening time period one other race has transpired since the previous post. Wow.

Here’s why.

This is my hand after peanut oil fried part of it:

 

 

 

 

 

This is my hand after the skin started coming off sometime later (No, Dr. Lowe, I haven’t rushed a thing):

Need more be said?

Now, back to the world of Grand-Am, finally.

Having long ago learned one tends toward "manufacturing" luck -- good or bad -- it's time for yours truly to make like a ball and get rolling straight into some good ol' self-made trouble.

So, hang in there; a wild hair is a-growing.

Long before most 'lectric guitar listeners knew of Eric Clapton, he, Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce as the rock group "Cream" once wowed yours truly with a song featuring "Slow Hand's" guitar, along with Bruce's vocal and a (natural) henna-haired Baker pounding his drums (one might fairly inquire: "Did Baker know any other method?").

The band's cover of a William Bell-written blues song, "Born Under A Bad Sign," spoke to DC The Younger, screaming (as best as could stereo speakers of that day), "This is you, boy!" -- the song's strains converging just slightly beyond the hour when Ol' DC's Leydig cells cranked-on-high and "la femme" was simultaneously discovered.

"Bad luck and trouble's been my only friend,

I've been down since I was ten,

Born under a bad sign

I've been down since I began to crawl

If it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have no luck at all."

Following on the footsteps of rejection by every woman chased, miraculously coming when diversion of mind was most needed, "sports car racing" arose.

Yet, in an age when a $6,700 Shelby GT350 (yes, I’ve seen an invoice) was clearly an expenditure to be absorbed by only the most frivolous of frivolous playboys, DC The Younger was left pining for yet another object beyond his immediate grasp. (Does the preceding, combined with that which preceded the preceding, indicate an "objectification" of women?)

Proving still far more elusive were the absurd fortunes spent on a newfangled type of sports car, a "prototype," for how could anyone afford a state-of-art $100,000 race car!? One could live an entire life on such money!

‘ROUND, ‘ROUND, I GET AROUND

Kevin Doran, in case you don't know him, is a respected, successful sports car racer -- especially as viewed from this quarter.

Raised by a "racing father," James Edward Doran (the first two initials of whom, "JE", prefix the four in-house race car designs of Doran Enterprises), Kevin Doran likewise has a talented “little” racing brother, David, who still competitively drives all manner of racing creations. (David is one of those whose talent exceeded sponsorship) (Now, what in heck is the difference between "those" and "whose" -- one letter? One lousy letter! The first letter! And yet the two words' pronunciation is entirely different. Little wonder the English language is the world's most difficult).

Um, sorry. It's just one of them Ol' DC deals.

Doran, hired by the likes of Al Holbert specifically to go Indy Car racing, was later convinced by Holbert (who said something along the lines of, "Well, if you want to keep your job . . .") to take a path Doran has mostly pursued since, but was a part of the team earlier enough to be in its pit for Holbert's first Rolex 24 At Daytona win -- the first of many Rolex 24 wins in which Doran would have a direct role.

Indeed, it's beyond luck's scope to think a guy like Doran was "just hanging around" sufficiently enough to have collected the plethora of Rolex 24 At Daytona wins in which he's been involved -- from chief wrench to car constructor and nearly each position between (including floor-sweeping, though Doran's probably done more of that as a team owner than "officially" so). Why, if Doran was a driver, he’d have almost as many Rolex 24 wins as Scott Pruett (at right).

Along with championship and race wins scored for other folks, Kevin Doran has won his fair share of both for hisownself.

Kevin Doran's racing genius even helped fashion at least a couple of racing's more iconic race cars, one being the Ferrari 333 SP. Yep, Doran (in picture at right, on far left in headset, looking downward) was on the ground floor of that car's creation and, with the late Gianpiero Moretti, campaigned the famous No. 30 MOMO Ferrari 333SP.

Years later and for the umpteenth time, Doran would head yet another victorious endurance team -- Didier Theys, Fredy Lienhard, Mauro Baldi and Massimiliano "Anti-Ax The Max" Papis -- winning the 2002 Rolex 24 At Daytona -- with a Chrysler. (at left, with Theys driving)

Well, kinda sorta.

Yes, yes, we all know the record books have the car listed as a Judd-powered Dallara, but it also had a lot of "Chrysler" in it.(The “real” Chrysler at lower right, pictured with Yannick Dalmas and Olivier Beretta, L-R)

The Chrysler sports racing prototype's original mission, undertaken in conjunction with eccellente Italian race-car designer Dallara and a quite successful Viper-racing Hugues de Chaunac (Oreca; to which David Donohue had considerable ties), was so far in front of the race-engineering world that "so far" actually is a hugely inadequate descriptor of what the triumvirate attempted.

"Hybrid," though, gives the reader an idea of the car's originally intended direction, albeit one plagued with embryonic hassles, before Chrysler dumped the project and sportscar racing altogether in 2001 but emerging in NASCAR the same year. (Mere coincidence or effectuated Mayan apocalyptic presaging? You be the judge).

To thus say Kevin Doran has fairly well "seen it all," at least insofar as racing is concerned, would be accurate if not entirely understated and, without doubt, qualifies Doran to ask a question posed of this writer just days ago:

"Would G/A drop DP for 2013-14 due to poor participation, or do they run it out until only 2-3 cars show up? Let me know your thoughts on this one."

Well, Mr. Doran, having already given the subject three or four years of thought and, given the amount of work pouring into the answer while hoping yours was not a rhetorical nor sarcastic question, the following is only my opinion and my opinion, only.

The simple answer: "Don't really know."

But such hasn't previously prevented Ol' DC from containing hisownself.

And it is in the details to follow where Ol' DC expects trouble to arise (if such hasn't already with Mr. Doran) . . . you know, being born under a bad sign and all.

But such will only continue with the next installment, inasmuch as the lawn needs mowing right now and it’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

END OF PART I

Later,

DC