Greg Smith

"
The Friday before an event, some buddies and I are chillin at the track, preppin our track demons. This guy shows up with this pre-Mesopotamian BMW 5 Series. Like... so-old-that-I-couldn't-find-a-picture-of-it-on-Google-just-now old. He comes rattling in with this thing and of course being the elitist ****** that we were (are), we start casually picking on this guy amongst the crowd I was hangin' with. "Hey, check out the hoopty with no shocks and the rear bumper rusting to pieces!"

Well next morning, instructor-student pairings come out and I get Hoop-de Ville and his pre-Cromagnum BMW 5 Series as a student. Fantastic. "Hey nice pick Shugg." "Careful, hope the hoopty makes it off pit lane." "Don't die in the Hindenburg."

About 30 minutes before my first session with this dude, I introduce myself. Picture Dilbert crossed with Screech crossed with Woody Allen and you begin to get a picture of this character. Well this guy is eerily calm for a newbie. I do my "car inspection" checking for loose items in the car and asking "what did you torque the wheels to, how much tire pressure, etc." This guy responds with such exact figures that it blows my mind. He's like "5.8 newton meters and 4.3 bars"... everything in metric. I ask what it is in terms I would understand - dumb it down for me please. He's like... "86.54 foot pounds and 36.8 psi at 72.3% relative humidity..." or something like that. Ok then, CHECK, he's got that figured out - hell, this guy could probably tell me the formulation of the rubber in his tires.

So I climb into the pre-Homo Erectus car, buckle in, strap on the helmet, and ready myself for a land cruise. The first thing I notice is that is smells like the really old book section of the New York Library. Then I look up at the dash - all the interior instrumentation and control markings are in German. Not a lick of English anywhere except where it says "BMW" on the steering wheel. So naturally I ask Spock, "Hey man, what's up with this car?" Well propeller-head's eyes light up like dawn and he starts explaining to me how this car is a German "grey market" car that he managed to sneak across the border of seven countries via the underground railroad. I mean, he goes into this story of how he paid probably 4 times as much as the car was worth.... just so he could get a car in this country with German markings. I now ask if his grandfather was a fella named Adolph cause I'm getting scared...

Fast forward to 15 minutes into our first session. I start hearing this progressively louder buzzing sound that doesn't seem to vary with speed or engine RPM. I'm like... "Hey man... do you hear that." He replies as calm as can be, "yes". So I sit there for a minute or two saying "eyes up, brake, throttle, eyes up" when it occurs to me that I've never heard this sound in ANY car I've ever been in and maybe it's in my best interest to get clarification on the sound, even though he's clearly not bothered by it and has clearly heard this sound before. "Hey man... that buzzing sound isn't going away, it's getting louder." He replies, "Yup." Well two or three corners later, I'm like.... "Hey man... what the heck is that sound?" (knowing full well it's not a wheel bearing... suspension rub... engine noise... I couldn't figure it out).........

He's like... "It's the bees. They live in the dash."

WHAT?!?! No sooner did he say that than a one of those nasty little hell demons came zipping out of the vent with a trail of dust that looked like the vapor trail on an F-16 pulling 7g's and dive bombed my face. Then another... then 3 others.... then 10 others.....

This whole time, Buck Rogers is completely and totally unphased and keeps piloting the Battlestar Galactica. I'm swatting so badly that he's starting to get confused by my flailing arms - "Right? Left? More throttle?"

No kidding - I ask him to pull into the pits, I hop out like Chris Farley in Tommy Boy yelling "Bees! Bees! They're everywhere!" Yoda, still totally unphased, shuts off the land yacht, slowly unbuckles, takes his helmet off, then gingerly gets out of the car. I'm like.... "Who the eff is this mo fo?!?!"

It was freaking nuts man... totally nuts."

From: http://www.roadrace-autox.com/bbs/fo...=9134&start=76

Bull

Damn, I was looking for the punch line....and it never happened.

paradisenb

I'm still looking. Wasted time at the link and didn't find it there either.

A little help please.

Veloce Raptor

Greg is obviously delusional when he posts at 3:55 AM.

Food Angel

I thought it was going to be like the time my instructor was watching me buckle into the five-point harnesses and he asked me, "So, how do women deal with all that extra....."

I looked at him and asked, "Extra what?"

"You know--extra......"

Answers should have included:
1) I don't know--how do you deal with the substrap?
2) I don't know--maybe you should ask a real woman.

Bonster

Oh my God, I got the humor in the story. Talk about a nightmare. I've had some crazy students, but I think that guy trumps them all. The description and the allegories were great! No punchline needed . . . the story in and of itself is hillarious.

About those straps, Katie . . . I remember the first time I used a six point harness. The sub belts were not quite tight enough, or so my instructor noted (at a race school, even worse). I was all strapped in and ready to go, but he wanted my subs to be correct (they were right about at my belly button -- NOT good). So with his wife looking on, he got right in there and adjusted my sub belts. I must have turned five shades of red. His wife merely laughed and said something like, "That's racing . . . get used to it." Lol. I now instruct for the fellow that adjusted those belts. The story still comes up from time to time.

trumperZ06

Great story...

I might even know that BMW pilot.

Greg Smith

Haha, yes, I probably was.

At least some people found some humor in it.

Veloce Raptor

LOL...here, buy yourself something nice at this store:

Bull

Oh, there was humor in it, just not as much as some of us expected.

Randy V

Based on the description, and the location of the hive, I'm quite sure they were not 'bees, but rather Guatamalan bonnet wasps.

Larry Herman

Give Greg a break. I'm sure that the drugs he was on last night made it seem a lot funnier. I will give him that it was downright weird.

Bull

I always give people a break...just check Globe's sig.

TR6

The bee story reminds me of an ant incident at one of my DE's at MSR Cresson. I had recently been soloed. Just before I gridded up to go out, somehow I ended up stepping in a fire ant bed on the edge of the pavement at grid. I had stomped around, brushed off my shoes, and thought I'd gotten all of the little bastards. But once out on the track, after the green flag dropped, I started feeling this painful stinging sensation on my legs (I was wearing jeans). I quickly realized there were more ants in there and, man, they were open for business. It was like they all quietly waited for a signal to chomp down. I probably set my fastest lap time of that weekend trying to get back to the pit!

Greg Smith

HAHA!