This is the Statt Mann Baby!!  Time to Scatt a little bit.

Last weekend I watched what should be the future.  The Redline Time Attack season finale at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana was rolling along with all the drama of a mainstream auto event.

There were auto manufacturers in the garages.  There were national marketing managers from those manufacturers pulling strings in the garages.

There were event favorites stuck in their garages during the competition with their transmissions on the garage floor in pieces.

There were early round surprises taping up their cars for the final round looking for that last two tenths to stay ahead of the competition.

And finally, under a setting sun, there was that repaired transmission storming the competition bumping two seconds on the crowd for an event win no one saw coming just an hour earlier.

With a bob-and-weave here and there, time attack competition can be part of the motorsports mainstream in the near future.

And that’s exactly the point of a conversation I had last Sunday under a setting sun in Fontana when I turned to one of those major manufacturers and he just smiled.  And admitted their time attack car is being built for next year’s competition.

Peace.