Most auto races start with the National Anthem. The second King of the Heap race at NCM Motorsports Park started with a different tune: “Happy Birthday” to Matt Busby, the track manager and wrangler of all things KotH, who looked amused and annoyed at the same time during the driver’s meeting. It became pretty apparent that the Midwest has a cold-weather uniform: Carhart coveralls in either classic tan or camouflage. Just about everybody was geared up in enough layers to make Ralphie from A Christmas Story look downright underdressed by comparison, but that’s the way it goes for Heap racing: no matter the weather, the show will go on. So nevermind that the temperatures were somewhere around single-digits when the cars started to line up for the first two events of the morning…the sun is out and we’re going racing, dammit!

The first two events are a 1/8th-ish mile standing start drag race and laps of NCM’s East Course track layout, and the cars are lining up. And before the action can even begin, there is an issue: the green Camaro convertible that is composed of parts from the Z28 I killed at the last event has a driver’s window that refuses to go down. With point-by passing a requirement, the team is frantically trying to remove the glass before cars start making laps, but to no avail. In desperation, they ask if they can move the car off of the asphalt and break the window. The track hands see no issue with this, so the car is guided over and the window, in the door from my old car, has a date with destiny. I pick up a baseball-sized rock and go full Randy Johnson with a throw that should’ve done the trick. Instead the rock glances off and drops off into the dirt with a thud of disappointment…and feelings of animosity against the car start to grow. A four-way lug wrench is handed to me from somewhere and I waste no time. Muttering “Ok, you mother…” I wind up and bash out the glass just as the marshals start to wave cars onto the course. The team seems happy and go on their way.

Something to consider: with ambient temperatures having been below freezing for a couple of weeks in Kentucky, no tire, let alone the spec Uniroyal Tiger Paw Touring NT, is going to hook worth a damn on the course. And at the East Course’s first turn off of the straightaway this becomes a visual fact. Front drive or rear drive, it didn’t matter what you did or how you pitched the car in. If you weren’t deep into the brakes well before the corner, you were going to mow the grass. The Cold Lotion Ford Probe GT understeered with little regard for driver input into the dirt, while pretty much every rear-drive Ford product cocked sideways and drifted…or spun. The Lincoln Mark VII with the crunched driver-side fender pulled the first tense moment of the morning, spinning out right in the middle of the corner as the green BMW from Texas was closing in hard. Luckily, a bootful of throttle to the surprisingly awake 5.0 under the hood got the Lincoln out of the way before any metal crunching was heard.

Unfortunately, there was some metal crunching noises a short time later. The Dang, Bros Marlboro-liveried V6 Camaro convertible, which had been a stout runner at both events, got destroyed at the corner before the straightaway. Driver Taylor Inge had come out of the corner sideways and rotating infield and tried to correct it, but the Camaro snapped on him and he would up smacking the pit lane wall passenger-rear first with one very sickening “thump”. Safety crews rushed to check him out, and other than hurt pride and a very eff’d F-body, was more or less ok, even after hitting his helmet hard enough on the rollbar to crack it like a hard-boiled egg. The same couldn’t be said for the Camaro, which had taken on a banana shape and sported wrinkles in the floor and a cleanly broken axle. The team sold the remains to the same guy who bought my Z28 at the last race, so we know that at least one Camaro will always be present!Meanwhile, the cars kept making the loop between the road course and the 1/8th mile run, which was punctuated by the Mark VII’s epic half-track one-legger tire fire. And it was at this point that I had to take a break in the action for an appointment that I could not get out of, so as the remains of the Dang, Bros Camaro got hauled up onto a flatbed wrecker, I took off to go handle my business. I would be back in time for the afternoon’s fun, so stay tuned for the second gallery and story from Koth Race 2. Meanwhile, you can check out the morning’s gallery below!

Car Casualty List: 

• V6 Camaro convertible: totalled out due to impact with concrete barrier at speed
• Lincoln Mark VII: Lost all electrical power
• S197 V6 Mustang: Car ate cone, cone ate radiator, car peeing like a scared puppy everywhere