Most importantly, when non-racing people ask where I race, if I mention Road America, suddenly they understand. Blackhawk is our home, Grattan is unparalleled fun, and GingerMan has great facilities, but none of those names mean anything to the uninitiated. Road America has been on television.
Because of the length of the track, we can't easily follow our typical schedule for a one-day race. A fifteen-minute practice session on that 4-mile track would give most drivers about five laps. So we have a 20-minute practice and a 25-minute qualifying session, which makes a two-day schedule much more sensible. The schedule this year called for one practice and one qualifying session on Saturday, and a morning qualifying session and afternoon race on Sunday.
Saturday's morning practice session went well, with no issues or problems. The afternoon qualifying session was a little disappointing. My new In-Car Timer told me I had actually gone almost two seconds slower than I had in the morning. It was still fast enough for pole position, but just barely. Pete Wood (two spots behind me on the grid) suggested that we hook up and draft* during Sunday's morning qualifying session so that we could qualify in front of some faster cars, one of which was currently gridded between us.
Sunday's morning qualifying session went much better, due mostly to Pete's plan. He was in front of me for the first several laps, so I used his draft to pull me along. But I noticed during those laps that it can actually be very relaxing to draft a skilled driver. Maybe it's because your vision is full of his gearbox instead of the scenery rushing past. Maybe it's because you begin to notice that you could have been on the throttle already, but he hesitates just a bit coming through corner 3... and he feathers the throttle a lot more through the carousel than you do... and he enters corner 14 on the other side of the track -- and then you try his way, and find that it's faster!
After about 4 laps, I felt well warmed up and in a solid rhythm, so I took the lead. But a few corners later, I couldn't see Pete in my mirrors at all. The next lap, I had cut two full seconds off my lap time. Our drafting trick worked for Pete, too -- he also cut a full second off his lap time and jumped two grid spots. Fortunately, mine was not one of them. We would be side-by-side on the grid.
The start of the race was a bit of a muddle. The pace car went much too fast for most of the lap, which prevented us from scrubbing our tires or warming our brakes. When we reached the front straight, the back of the pack was still very strung out. The pace car pulled into the pit lane, and the fast cars at the front of the grid slowed. As those of us a few rows back began to slow in response, the lead cars took off up the hill at full throttle. By the time Pete and I crested the hill, they were long gone. We were actually lucky. I was worried that we would crest the hill and then see the starters giving us a "no-start" signal because the pack was so strung out. If that happened, the lead cars would have slowed down, but we were now full throttle trying to catch them. A very similar scenario occurred the very next week at the vintage races, with disastrous results. Their start destroyed some 17 cars.
Fortunately, we got away cleanly. I was able to get just in front of Pete before corner 1, and I managed to pull out a little bit of a lead. My only fear now was that a faster car behind us would eventually pass me, pulling Pete along with him in his draft. Frank Reimann did pass us both in his Swift, but he couldn't stay in front of me for long. He ran wide exiting corner 14 and had to slow down. At that point he realized that he had a big lead on the other cars in his own class, so he took it easy for the rest of the race. It was a big relief to see him getting farther behind me.
But on lap 5, I got a good scare. As I approached corner 1, I started thinking about a fellow driver who claimed he drove corner 1 in third gear, instead of second gear as I did. I was preparing to try third gear, but I chickened out at the last moment and dropped down to second gear. I got halfway through the turn, when the car suddenly stopped turning. It was plowing straight ahead! I thought I had blown the left front tire or lost another suspension piece -- hardly the way I wanted to end the weekend! I got the car slowed down and managed to turn the corner. As I came around, the sun hit the track at just the right angle to reflect off a wide, thick strip of oil that a sports racer had spilled the lap prior. It took a few laps to work up the nerve to got through that corner at anything faster than a crawl.
That delay cut my lead at the end of the race to 4.4 seconds. Apparently "Speedy Petey" lost a lot less time tiptoeing through the oil.
The victory lap was especially enjoyable because I actually had some fans to wave to. My sister Leigh had brought her two daughters Kathryn and Elizabeth.
The CFF points race now stands:
- John Haydon - 100
- Pete Wood - 85
- Michael Schindlbeck - 53
- Denis Downs - 33
- Scott Reif - 33
- Jon Borkowski - 16
- Dick Plank - 10
- Bob Fleming - 8
- Larry Noble - 7
The next race is this Sunday at Blackhawk. Wish me luck!
*Racing along at speeds around 100mph, a car punches a big hole in the air. The air rushes back in to close up the hole behind the car, but if a second car is immediately behind the first car, the second car gets pulled along. The second car does not have to push the air out of the way, so it does not have to work as hard. The lead car also benefits, since the displaced air rushing in behind the car would normally slow it down, too.
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Yes, this is one of perhaps three known photographs of me outside the car. It was actually taken at Road America last year. From left to right: Elizabeth, Leigh, Kathryn, me, and the late Ford Explorer.
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