Editor's note: This was written at a point in time when it was thought that the Bullrun 1000 would not be ran again due to conversion difficulties. Luckily, this turned out to be untrue.

Well, it's been a great 5 years of the Bullrun...and I'm going to miss it. I can tell you right off the bat that I asked Dave N. to try to convert Bullrun to N4, but he couldn't get it to work. So, this was the last Bullrun 1000 ever. And I'm sad to see it go.

I think back over the last FIVE years of racing at Bullrun (although only 4 races), and it's been something that I've always looked forwards to doing in the October/November time frame. And we've had some good fun...the Bullrun 1000 always seemed to be such a super event to me, with all the teams preparing, putting together cars and strategies to do well at the diabolical track, all the good-natured joking, fun-poking and smak talking. It made for a real aura, even for an event held in the confines of the electrons on our computers.

When Papy first released Bullrun as a free add-on a few years back, the first time I saw the track I immediately wanted to drive it...the view, the sweeping corners, the difficult layout made for an excellent racetrack...and one to respect. It didn't take me long to figure out that the sweeping corners all lie to the driver, making them think the track is easier than it looks. Most find out quickly how hard it really is...

Funny enough, the final race started on the same date that the inaugural Bullrun 1000 did back in 1997...November 10th. We had some very familiar people in that race, Paul Hamilton, Dave Henrie, Terry Vreeland, me, Tim Howell, Stuart Brown...and also some old-but-not-to-be-forgotten names...Sean Staples, Bruce Kennewell, and Kevin Schofield. Even Ed Solhiem was in the race...remember when he raced TPTCC? I impaled the pit wall on the infamous lap 26 incident, and Kevin S. and his brother took the group A win, while Bruce and brother took the group B. I still need to thank Patrick Watts for that if I ever meet him...

We also used Qord that race, where we sent in our qual times, Qord sorted them and then spit out the overall grid, so that you started exactly where you qualified against the other teams...that was pretty cool. Kevin smoked us all with a 1m 39.885s run, the fastest qualifying lap ever cranked out at the Bullrun 1000.

1998 was an even bigger event, with 22 teams entering the race. Kevin K and Keith were back, as well as some other names like Tommy Brolsma (who still lurks around here somewhere), Bob Roberson turned in his first appearance, Jerry Liudahl who ran the diabolical Lip Service Racing team that stole so many victories from The Pits crew with Stu at the wheel, Bill Tillman, who moved on to GPL pastures, and even Vince Cuffaro stuck his Honda in there. Goy and Gilles teamed up to start The Pits Performance Team winning streak, and took home the trophy that year with a 46 second lead over the Aussie boys of Tim Howell and Jason Burmeister. It's sad to see Tim go, he's been around awhile as well. Jason Burmeister and Joris van der Westen of Pure Insanity Racing took the group B honors.

Goy and Gilles blistered the field with a 5 hour ,1 minute and 26.4 second race, the fastest Bullrun 1000. Their average speed was 124.379 mph!

1999 marked the year of big changes...first the bulldozers came out and plowed down the Switchback and All-or-Nothing corners, but then the weather and temperature changed...much to Paul Hamilton's chagrin. The day ran on into the night.

We used N99 for the first time, and out came the E-changer...the nice little util that let you jump out, change your cockpit and weather and time of day, and into the race you went! This year, thanks to N99, we had the V8 Supercars in one class, and the SuperTourers in the other. And what a big field we had! Thirty-one cars showed up to the event, Greg Colgan and Rudi Kusters, Kevin Jurasinski and Steve Lovas, Paul Hamilton and Adrian Collier were some of the Supertouring Entries. The V8 Supercars saw the duo of Goy and Stuart Brown for the first time...Jan Kohl, Jim Kerekes, Dave Hastie, Sandy Robinson, Sean Staples and Terry Vreeland were some of the V8 competitors.

The top 3 out of all the qualifiers from each class were given a shootout online, and thanks to the fact that TPPT 1 (with Goy and Stu) didn't get their qual in, that put Jan as top qualifier...with a 1:44.7. In the shootout, he narrowly beat David Hastie with a 1:45.781. But David did well in his second class...the Supertourers! He beat out the others to take the Supertouring pole.

It was also at this time that TPTCC got the TPTCC E-groups, and if you plow back through the 1999 November-December messages from that time, you can see all the chit-chat about the race. It was at this time that David Henrie had the little run-in with the missing Aussie reporters...

The race was an excellent affair, I remember wrestling a wildly sideways Lincoln LS coming up on All-or-Nothing in the rain...but couldn't catch the rapidly disappearing Lincoln of my teammates Goy and Stu, as dusk fell over the mountains. The cars drove on through the night, and Stuart and Goy took the checkered flag, two minutes ahead of our car. David Hastie and Sandy made good their fast car, with a nice finish ahead of Paul Hamilton and Adrian. So much for Paul's not liking the rain... ;]

It was with real disappointment that I cancelled the 2000 Bullrun 1000. Problems with the new patch for N3, trying to get the N3 TPTCC online league going, and lack of testing doomed it to failure. Not only did I think that Gilles and I had a legitimate shot to win, but to not run the 1000 was almost unheard of...at least around these parts. I wish now that I had thought of this online format earlier, to lose just one race seems like a real waste now...

And finally, the last, with the fewest competitors, but perhaps one of the best Bullrun 1000s of all. The fact that you were actually in the car for 3 hours, and that everything was on the line. No restarting, no Shift-R, no nothing. You either let it hang out or you didn't. And you hung it out for three hours...congrats again to this year's winners, Stuart and James, they proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that winning the Bullrun 1000 was no mean feat, and an accomplishment of concentration and driving skill. You don't get away from this track with that very often.

You probably could never count up the hours of practice, the pieces of bent-up cars, the slides and the laps that have been run not only in this race, but leading up to it. Goy claims that he's put in 1000 laps here...and I guess that his record at least justifies that amount. Heck, just this 2001 race alone 985 laps were put in between all the competitors in the race...and who knows how many in practice? I think every car clipped the wall each race (some more than others), turn 11 right before All-or-Nothing probably claiming the biggest amount of sheet metal.

So, as I sit here one last time, sun setting over the Colorado mountains, I'll remember all the fun we had here. See ya later, Bullrun, we'll miss ya!
- Jan