Soon it was time to go back to work before the end of the day.  The rear gears were acting strange.  The driver and crew tore the rear end apart to look at it, and most of the bolts holding the gears in were broken off.  So the guys had to bring out the extra back end out of the trailer to install on the car.  That job took a good few hours, but it was needed to be successful in a race.  So, once again, it was time to replace the car cover, return the jack stands to the bottom of the car, and go back to the hotel.

We changed clothes and met a couple people at the racetrack for dinner, then left from there.  Once we got to the restaurant, we had a good time.  We ate and stayed a while, then paid the bill and went back to the hotel.

We repeated the same routine in the morning, as far as going to the same place to eat and fuel up.  We all woke up again at O'dark thirty in the morning.  It was fun.  We got into the restaurant and sat at the same table and in the same seats.  Tom was a little late getting down to the table, but he made it before we ordered.  Bob was talking about a racecar driver named Paul Gentilozzi in Trans-Am that is a total pest to the SCCA.  He used a creative name while talking about how he uses so much of his brakes and then turns around and resells them to people, and they get into accidents because of it.  He pulls out the nickname and about one minute later, Tom notices that he called him Paul Genitalozzi, and says, "I just picked up on that Paul thing..."  Bob just says, "Good morning, Tom!"  It was a great breakfast that norming.

We again left for the track after breakfast.  We arrived at the trailer again, pulled off the car cover, lowered the car to the ground, and started it up until the water temperature reached 180 degrees, then shut the car off as usual.  The driver was getting ready as Tom and I were loading his car onto his trailer and strapping it down.  By the time we got done, the guys were getting ready to tow Bob to the false grid where they line up.  I walked up to the car and shook Bob's hand and wished him good luck, like I always do, and he was on his way.

Tom and I walked to the straight before corner five.  I was taking pictures like I always like to do, and we watched the race.  We could hear the cars start their engines and take off about a quarter mile away from where we were.  We watched as the famous "ground pounders" drove by us, and we gave Bob a thumbs up as he drove by on the warmup lap.  About a minute later they made it back to the main straight, and as the green flag dropped, the cars roared up the hill, slamming gears and smashing the gas pedal to the floor.  A couple laps into the race, someone rubbed against someone causing an accident, which brought out the yellow flag.  We watched as the pace car re-led the cars around the track for a couple laps until they cleaned it up.  Then, once again, they got crazy going up the hill and started racing again.  Bob went around 2 or 3 times after that and I snapped a picture on that lap.  We watched as the cars came around again, but no Bob!

We start walking up to the trailer, and we hear on the radio one of the corner workers call to Race Control.  "Control Control, this is Turn 12 waving yellow."  "Go ahead 12."  "Car 4, blue, slid at high speed impacting tire wall, driver's left, downstream of our station and is stopped.  We are currently holding a red flag."  "Thanks 12.  Race will end, cars finishing in current positions, and will exit the track."  We then began to get scared; a red flag is no joke!  We went back to the trailer as the guys pulled up on the 4-wheeler and unloaded the pit cart.  One of the crew guys took the 4-wheeler to the accident and went to investigate.  He came back about 10-15 minutes later telling us, "He knows his name and what day it is, but not much else."

We waited anxiously by the trailer, waiting to hear more.  We hadn't heard any news, and my dad finally took one of the guys to the race track's health center.  When he came back they took one of the crew guys into the trailer and told him something.  When the one that had gone with him came out of the trailer, he gathered all of us around and told us, "Well, Bob is flying to the hospital.  He had a pretty bad accident.  I talked to the doctor at the health center, and she told me that... he didn't make it."  At that point all of us just got weak in the knees and started feeling horrible.  One of the crew guy's wife started screaming.  It was a really bad day for us all.  One of the other racecar drivers walked over after he got out of his car and out of his suit to check on the news.  He was one of Bob's best friends in the racing business.
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After that, we stood and watched qualifying for a while.  Bob received a pretty deserved spot in the lead cars of the pack and did a burnout in one of the corners where one of the crew guy's wife was working.  We walked back and congratulated the driver at his trailer.