Tin Roofs

I now recall with some clarity that I did not ever have the hemorrhoids before that day I decided I was going to finally repair the roof on the barn.

My friend Todd Hopkins also had an encounter of the tin kind. His did not turn out so well though. Todd drove a resurrected Datsun 260z brown in color and about as rusty. It had a locked differential and it made butt loads of torque from the inline six cylinder engine. Todd came to the autocross that day intending to drive the thing left- handed. This was due, naturally, to the fact that his right forearm was bandaged and immobilized with the sling the medics had applied at the ER earlier that week. He described the laceration as being somewhat severe. He had slipped when repairing the tin roof on his dad’s garage. I don’t remember how many stitches were involved, but he offered for me to co drive the Datsun. Having been seasoned to the task by a few years, I was down for the chance, even though I knew I was no match for his unique dirt- track driver approach to autocrossing. What the heck, it would probably be fun. At worst, the spectators would point and laugh.

In the usual autocross situation, the two driver cars are assigned a separate area to grid. The two driver cars are fed into the start by the grid marshal among the single driver cars, at three to four car intervals, depending on the size of the group. When the first of the two drivers returns to the grid, the driver changes places with his or her co-driver who changes the magnetic numbers, readjusts the seat, buckles or harnesses up, pulls on a helmet and waits for the signal to move into line. This process will repeat itself until all runs are taken.

What was not readily apparent until we were in the grid and preparing to pull into line was that Todd was quite literally expecting me to co-drive his car? That is, I would be handling the gear shifts and he would be steering the car with his left hand and working the clutch, brake, and gas pedals. Um-hmm. Ohboy, this was gonna be big-time fun, yes sir.

I was prepared for the wheel spin and fishtailing launch that I’d come to expect having been the amused observer many times over as Todd would power a car through a course as if astride a bucking bronco. It was a wee bit different experience strapped in the seat next to him. The tail-happy rust bucket was a handful with two hands on the wheel. Todd managed to stay on course through the kink at the end of the lane change and up the hill into the dogleg through the crossover. The sweeper around the pole at the lower end of the second lot into the pinch slalom proved to be too off camber and the opposite lock Todd tried to jerk it into yielded a dramatic spin with us coming to rest facing the way we had already been. Pulling back on course Todd completed the remaining third a bit tidier if more subdued. I overcame the urge to question his sanity altogether as we returned to grid. After that, Todd was on his own with the rust bucket. As for me, I was really glad I hadn’t consumed any alcohol the night before.