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The combatants: Lingenbrink & O’Brien-before the race.
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What Rotary Club do you know that picks up its toys and heads for the track? The Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club did just that Friday for a breakfast meeting at the Traxx Indoor Race
Course in Mukilteo. Hosted by Rotarian Rourke O’Brien, about 50 members of the BBRC showed up, with a smattering of guests also attending.
Traxx International, brainchild of O’Brien last year, plans to open several more tracks around the country in the near future. O’Brien, while on a European vacation, saw hundreds of the tracks
operating throughout Europe. “I reasoned that this was a business waiting to happen in the U.S. and came back with plans that created Traxx.”
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BBRCers make quick work of a fine continental breakfast prior to racing at
Traxx Indoor Racing facility in Mukilteo. |
The facility is located in a former sub-contractor for Boeing. The décor is definitely “race track,” with lots of silver, red, and black-and-white flags. The building also features video arcade games,
mostly on the theme of racing. The track itself has three hairpin turns, and each of the cars has a transponder aboard, which automatically charts the time it takes each racer to go from start
to finish. Most races are 10 laps, with up to 12 race cars participating. The race cars are manufactured in Belgium and look somewhat like a Formula One car. They are powered by 5.5 HP Honda engines.
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Larry May (#1) sits in Car #3....a demo model parked in the dining room. |
The information gleaned from each transponder is fed into a computer system, which instantaneously prints out the tale of each race. The morning’s first race was a grudge match between O’Brien and
Steve Lingenbrink, the new Sergeant At Arms pitted against the current office holder. Seems a bet was made several months ago between the two. It was a matter of a $200 fine
imposed by Lingenbrink. O’Brien responded by throwing down the gauntlet for the race last Friday morning.
Word at the breakfast was that Lingenbrink was going to get a two-lap lead on O’Brien. After all, it’s his track. After breakfast was over, the
crowd assembled on a foot bridge over the track to watch the proceedings.
Lingenbrink popped out on the track first, but it was no two-lap handicap. Rourke hit the accelerator when Lingenbrink was halfway up the back
stretch. With a steady hand, Lingenbrink edged his competitor by one-tenth of a second – 26.02 to Rourke’s 26.12. The time represents the average of the ten laps, as recorded by the transponder.
What followed were six more heats, with 10 cars competing. The final race was a run-off between the racers with the best times. There were five racers in that heat:
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A blur of Rotary Racers.
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Steve “Hot Dog” Luplow was tooling along looking like the guy to beat, but he got “pushed” into the barrier on the first hairpin. This cost him a pretty bunch of seconds and he
fell from competition.
Wayne McCaulley brought along his business associate, “Reidsy,” who had the best time from the previous race. “Reidsy” racked up a morning’s best 23.83, which gave him top prize.
Luplow was second with 24.34; “DellAcqua” (John DeWater) was third with 24.53; Italian exchange student “Super” Stefano was fifth overall; while the BBRC’s exchange student, Marina,
was back in the pack, but with a respectable 27.05.
Other individual race winners were Steve Luplow, Robin Callan, Kevin Jewell, Larry Gill, and our hard-driving visitor, “Reidsy.” His real name
will be suppressed since he was supposed to be at work that morning.
Needless to say, the daredevils of the BBRC had a super Friday, zipping around the indoor track. The Traxx Indoor Racing facility is open Sunday
through Thursday, 11:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., and Fridays and Saturdays, 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. Traxx has a Tuesday Racing League beginning this week. For more information, go to the Traxx website.
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