So, a funny thing happened for Clyde in the wake of his 5th of 17 place finish in A Stock at the 2008 WDCR Event #2 last week.  In a storyline grabbed straight from the Team WTF?! Bible, we've come to realize that Clyde has extended his streak of consecutive dirty runs to 21.  This spans all six event days dating back to the 2007 Solo National Championships Test & Tune/Warm Up.  In fact, if we do a careful statistical analysis, we'll see that Clyde has hardly been able to buy a clean run since he and John V moed from the B Stock 2004 RX-8 to the A Stock 2000 Boxster S at the beginning of the 2007 season.  Since the switch, fewer than 11% of Clyde's non-Pro Solo runs have been clean.  He's averaged 0.94 cones hit per run over that time (not including any cones hit on runs scored as DNF, of which there have been more than a few).

The WDCR event last Sunday was no different: 6 cones hit on 4 runs (none clean).

What is interesting to note, though, is that covered up in the cone penalty padded times is that Clyde's scratch times have crept back into the boxseats of the competitiveness ballpark.  Where last year, Clyde cone issues were just icing on the slow cake, he's now just hitting cones.  While his scratch time was still considerably off of John V's 58.016 vs 57.626, analysis of the on car video showed that Clyde lost all of his time and then some to John V in what was basically a single element. For those that were there, Clyde used all of the available rope for hanging himself in the big open right turn at the top of the hill. Through the rest of the course, John V and Clyde were essentially neck and neck, trading a tenth back and forth here and there.  Clyde may have picked up some time coming down the hill to the finish that could have given him the edge over John V had he not toasted himself early in the run, but either way, Clyde's driving (or luck) seemed to be vastly improved over last year.  Final results from last week's event show Clyde 5th place in class (of 17) and 50something in PAX, the scratch time would have been good for second place in class, a full second in front of 3rd place, and 12th PAX of 222.  We'll see if he can keep climbing back.

Clyde has long repeated a mantra of "Cones don't matter" (as well as "Fuckfuckfuck! Goddamnit! You stupid idiot!" being much easier for course workers to hear from the open topped Boxster).  If your scratch times weren't any good, why do cones matter, was the question he would ask.  Perhaps, maybe, cones now do matter for Clyde.

What will happen next for Clyde?  Stay tuned here for continuing coverage of this cone packing saga!