ome championship races come down to the wire. This is one of them but without the climax one normally hears from the hype-wielding media.

I have, from time to time, been participating in time trial racing with COMSCC. To quote the club’s literature, "COM Sports Car Club (COMSCC) is one of the oldest active sports car clubs in the country. Starting from a humble beginning in 1958 as one of the early Corvette Clubs (Corvettes of Massachusetts [COM]), it grew into a general interest car club that soon attracted a diverse and loyal membership in the greater northeast United States and Canada. The club has a long-standing reputation for excellence in high-speed driving instruction and competitive time trials on sports car tracks around the Northeast U.S. and Canada."

This year, just prior to Giulietta Giubilee in July, I became an instructor for COM, and my "trial by fire" actually came at the Alfa convention, as I led the classroom and was given the responsibility as Chief Instructor. According to those who attended the class and to those I instructed, things went very well.

As for the races I did with COM this year, I had some competitors who were fairly serious: Fred Sanford was one of my former instructors, Kevin Foote is a great driver and the son of another great instructor, Carl Fossum is going to be named COM’s Chief Instructor next year, and Dennis Friedman is an SCCA Racer, all of them racing fairly new Mazda Miatas (or should I say imitation/would-have-been/faked/stolen Bertone-designed Giuliettas?). The biggest challenge of all was getting the Missus’ permission to go to the races!

Learning the track at Lime Rock, being an instructor at the same time, and trying to get the points for the championship win was a lot of excitement. Nevertheless, all fell into place nicely.

On my first run, I had a friend ride shotgun with me mumbling "turn here, do this and that", and I quickly learned most of the line on this short track. All curves but one are right turns, most of them high speed (3rd and 4th gears). The track record in SSB class was 1:09 and on the first day I was turning 1:13.

The day was also marked by a series of crashes, mostly from high-powered cars going off after the uphill. The car would go airborne and, in most cases, one of the traction wheels landed first, sending the car sideways toward the guard rail or tire wall, both not very far from the asphalt (this is a very narrow track).

On the next day (just practice in the morning, no instruction), I had a chat with one of the instructors and he gave me some pointers on a couple of curves I was having problems with. With that, I got my time down to 1:11, just two seconds off the track record. I also learned that my competition did not show up for the race! So I settled down to make sure that I got some good laps in for the time trial.

After all the practice, the afternoon started with rain and the track got very slippery. I did my laps as carefully as I could, but on the last lap had my car totally sideways (full opposite steering lock) coming off Big Bend. I said to myself, "I still have to drive home and I already won the championship", so I backed off and coasted home, good for 2nd place with a time of 1:32.

Since 1972, I have been chasing this dream of once winning a championship. I have won many races, and now a championship is finally won. Feels weird, not winning any races and yet winning the championship, but I’ll take it anyway.