For those new here

I recently published a synopsis of my 2008 season at gaytona.com's website that summarises my season pretty well so I brought it over here. If you have not been to gaytona.com, you must! Well here is my season so far...

This year has been trying. The season started at Daytona in January where we thought we had a great chance at a good showing. I was paired with Mary Katharine driving the GSM Motorsports VW GTI in the Grand Am Koni Challenge enduro. Our car came off the trailer with a few issues that did not rear thier ugly heads until practice. We were way down on power and having to reset the master switch on track to get it back (not fun @150mph entering the chicane!). We played around with programming and changed a few parts hoping we found the issues. The problem was we did not qualify well having these issues. I was gridded next to Patrick Dempsey in the Roar RX 8 midpack. We got a great start picking up 8 positions and the car was making the power it should. I kept on turning times as good as the leaders when we started cutting out again. We soldiered on after a long pitstop to try and fix the issues. I handed the car over to Mary where she did a great job driving the car keeping her position. Eventually the motor let go. It was the .60 cent part that caused all the drama as usual ending our race (and our motor). Oh well! Our next race was at Lime Rock and we had a pretty good candidate to drive with me. We tested him at 2 tracks, Roebling Road in Savanna and Kershaw (CMP) in South Carolina. He was pretty good, learning the challenges of a fast front wheel drive car. Two weeks before the race I was trying to make the funds to be in the game but I came up short. Part of the fun of being the only GLBT racer is there are very few companies that want to sponsor me. I am still looking for the right one that wants to help me and our community...I am sure they are out there I just need to find them. I have had a great outpouring of support from the community though! (Faultline Bar in LA, Exile in Columbus, OH and a bar near you soon! More on that later). Anyways we go to Lime Rock and we have another driver with a bigger wallet renting the car with the kid. The new guy practiced in the car and realized you don't just hop in a car like this and learn how to drive it hours before a race. He backed out. This means I drive! Woo Hoo! Well it wasn't that simple. The kid did not want me as his co-driver. We are speculating why but the most logical answer is he wanted someone slower than him in the car. He was consistently slower than me in all our testing and he wanted to be the star. He chose one of his less experienced friends. It is possible that he did not want to be associated with a GLBT driver, but that is speculation. Well they started the race, got lapped 3 times, then crashed. It was one of the most embarrassing and degrading weekends of my life. I would have much rather gone to IML in Chicago that weekend. I skipped the race at Mosoport as our team had no plans on going, then went to Mid Ohio. I was helping a couple of teams with their programs and being a mechanic. The car I was crewing for ended up in the gravel trap with a broken wheel bearing with 20 minutes to go (it was raining and the car went off a few times before that). It has been frustrating going to these races helping others and not driving. I love being there and helping, but I love racing more. If sponsors do not come, I will be out of the sport all together.On another note, I have been doing fundraisers. I went to the Faultline bar in LA and had a great outpouring of support (paid my entry to Lime Rock...just could not afford the rest of the expenses). I was trying out a publicist type and he ended up being a bit strange and we parted ways. He did organize the event (sort of) by putting me in contact with people, but had his own plans for me. Well things did not work out with us so I was stuck in LA. He even canceled my flight home and did not inform me! Nice. The trip ended up a lot less profitable than it could have but it was great to see all the race fans! I also met my Agent for the first time. He is pretty young and still in school, but he seems pretty smart. I am still waiting to see the Faultline pics and email list though! I then went on to Palm Springs to visit my friend George (Georgie's Alibi) to talk about future fundraisers. Then on to Phoenix where I set up a table at Charlie's. Great country western bar but not really a fundraiser. The next one was at Exile in Columbus Ohio. This is a new (renovated) bar with great clientele. I was surprised at how big the gay community was there. Columbus is an interesting city and should be visited if you are passing through. The fundraiser was not planned until a week before so I did not expect much. It turned out great with me meeting some really great people. I will try and have more fundraisers all around so look out!Ok I will stop rambling on and hopefully have some great news in the near future about sponsorship! I have a blog (I promise I will update it more) http://evandarling.blogspot.com/ so check it out! Special thanks to Betty Jack...we have had some great media lately and it shows we are a BIG part of society as well as our community (GLBT race fans). Heres to growing our gearhead gay community!

Cheers!

Evan

EVAN DARLING IS A PROFESSIONAL RACECAR DRIVER BASED IN NC. CHECK OUT EVAN'S WEBSITE FOR MORE INFORMATIONhttp://www.edarlingenterprises.com/

New Jersey here we come!!

Ok I have a co-driver for the New Jersey race! Her name is Mary Katharine and she is a World Challenge driver. She raced with me in our Daytona race where we unfortunately lost the motor. This should be alot of fun as it is a televised race (Sept. 7th @2:00pm on Speed Channel) and there are alot of support races included in the weekend. If anyone lives in the area come on out to Thunderbolt Raceway to see the show! Our race starts on Sunday at 8:45am and it is a 2 1/2 hour race. If anyone would like a great advertising oppertunity, please contact me for details! More to come as we get closer!

Evan