Midterms

Once the car was back together, I was ready to go back to Blackhawk for the next MC race: "Midterms". We try to give our races humorous names (partly to remind us not to take ourselves too seriously), and since this race was in conjunction with a driver's school, it made sense to give it a school-themed name. This school was the second of three this season, so "Midterms" makes as much sense as anything.

Race day was similar to the others: short practice in the morning, qualifying before lunch, and the race in the afternoon. The car was running and handling well, and I was confident after qualifying that I had qualified on the pole. Then something very unusual happened. A Steward met me at the end of pit lane at the end of the session and handed me a note that read, "Please report to Impound."

Some backgound: The rulebook lists a minimum weight for each class. In general (all other things being equal), lighter equals faster*. Impound is the area where we weigh cars to ensure they meet or exceed the specified minimum. This occasion was very unusual because for several years, MC did not have a set of scales that worked. We had to trust everyone to keep their cars up to the minimum weight. This was in fact the first instance since I have been racing where cars were spot-checked.

I was not worried, since I had just weighed the car after the SCCA National, and it was 12 pounds under the MC minimum weight (but 38 pounds over the SCCA minimum). I had added two 10-pound barbell weights to ensure that I would be well over the MC minimum of 1150 pounds. The car actually should have weighed 1158 pounds. Imagine my surprise when the scales proclaimed my car to weigh 1138 pounds! Somehow I had installed a pair of 10-pound barbell weights without adding any weight to the car. Either I had found some magical weightless lead, or the car went on a diet without consulting me.

Well, okay, those are not the only explanations. Another explanation is that one of the two sets of scales was inaccurate. Makes no difference which set -- we have a rule which states, "The scales at the event are the official scales for the event." In other words, just because SCCA's scales said the car should weigh 1158, that's not a valid defense against MC's scales weighing in at 1138. And that's a good rule to have. The alternative would be for everyone to claim, "But SCCA's scales last week said..." And where would it end? Why not just claim, "My scales last night said..." Better to put all our trust and faith in the one set we use. Shame on me for not checking in the morning. I knew the rules, I knew how they were checked, and I did not double-check. My bad, my mistake, my problem. Nobody's fault but mine.

The Chief Steward was notified, and we discussed the situation with Jack Bartelt, the Formula Committee Chair. We all agreed that the only fair thing would be for me to add weight to the car before the race, and to get bumped back on the grid. I was assessed a two-second penalty, which put me in second spot, directly behind Pete Wood. Jack offered to let me use a 25-pound ballast weight he had with him, and as soon as we had it in the car, we took the car back to Impound to check it.

Now here's the funny part. The car now weighed 1175 pounds -- twenty-five pounds over the minimum weight! I'll go over the math again. A car weighing 1138 pounds, plus 20 pounds of lead, weighed 1138 pounds. A car weighing 1138 pounds, plus 25 pounds of lead, weighed 1175 pounds. A 12-pound error is not all that much in the grand scheme of things. It's actually 1% of the weight of the car, well within the accuracy of the scales we use. But it was 12 critical pounds, 12 pounds that cost me a pole position and caused me to add a 25 pound weight to the car. By this time it was too late to go back, so I resigned myself to having to start second and run heavy. But I wasn't going to give up.

I managed to squeeze past Pete on the start, and I drove every lap like it was the last. Towards the end of the race, Pete was nowhere in sight. He got slowed down lapping some slower cars, so I had a comfortable lead at the end. The best part? Even with the extra 25 pounds, I got within 0.5 seconds of my (original) qualifying time.

The CFF points after that race looked like this:

1. John Haydon - 75
2. Pete Wood - 65
3. Michael Schindlbeck - 53
4. Denis Downs - 32
5. Scott Reif - 17
6. Jon Borkowski - 16
7. Dick Plank - 10
8. Bob Fleming - 8
9. Larry Noble - 7

Next time: Draft Dodging

*If you don't believe me, imagine you had to push an SUV around. You had to push it forward, you had to stop it by pulling on the bumper, and you had to push it sideways to change direction. Now imagine doing all that with a go-kart. Much easier, right? The engine, brakes, and tires all think so, too.