The last time I raced on the Wisconsin State Fair Park / Milwaukee Mile infield road course was in 2005. Since then, another layer of asphalt has been added to smooth out the infield course and especially the transitions from the oval to the road course. Still, I thought I would have an advantage over those who had never raced there before when we finally went back for a double Regional race last weekend.
It turns out that sometimes a clean slate is better than a memory.
The track was terribly dirty and dusty for the first qualifying session on Saturday. When the track isn't being used as a track, it (and the grass around it) serves as a parking lot for people attending the State Fair and other functions at the fairgrounds. Unfortunately, it rained heavily during one or two days of the fair this year, so a lot of mud was left on the track surface. Some of the animals at the fair also used the track as an outhouse, and the resulting mess was too much for even the track sweepers to scrub off completely. As if the slippery conditions and dusty atmosphere weren't enough, the track didn't even go the way I remembered. Every line that I thought I knew was wrong. I qualified last in CFF and 13th overall, 2 rows back from Pete Wood and not even in sight of polesitter Mike Green. I still don't know how they managed to get enough grip to go as fast as they did without off-road tires. I think I would have gone just as fast on the grass as on the track.
Saturday's race started well. I got a good run off the last corner, and the green flag was out just as soon as I could see the starter's stand. I got around the F500 in front of me and tried to tuck in behind Pete, but just as we passed the start-finish line, my car sputtered. It was a familiar feeling, but I tried hard to tell myself that it didn't happen and that everything was fine. I downshifted for corner 1 and followed Pete through. I got on the throttle and felt like I had hit the rev limiter. I shifted to 2nd and set the car up for corner 2 before I realized... my car doesn't have a rev limiter. Just then the car sputtered again. It was starving for fuel and wouldn't pull all the way to redline. That might not have been so bad except that this track is basically 4 flat-out stretches connected by 3 hairpins and a flat-out sweeper. As I exited the corner 4 hairpin, the car sputtered earlier and earlier in the rev band. I watched everyone speed past me as I tried desperately to make it back to the pits with the engine coughing and misfiring the whole way. The next thing I knew, I was on the front straight again. I had missed the pit lane entrance! It would take another agonizingly slow lap before I would have another chance to find it. I just barely made it into the pits before the pack came around again to put me a lap down. I jumped out of the car and took the rear bodywork off, hoping to find an obvious problem like a pinched fuel line, or a loose fitting allowing the fuel pump to suck in air instead of fuel. No such luck. I sent someone running for a screwdriver so I could take the top of the carburetor off. Lucky for me, John Vlasis happened to be in the pits. He came over and noticed right away that the carburetor float bowl was almost empty. Since the float appeared to be in good shape (not broken or leaking), he suggested that the float level had somehow been mis-adjusted. I was willing to believe that, since I had adjusted it just last week! He offered to do a "quick and dirty" adjustment, and I eagerly accepted. He couldn't possibly make it worse. He bent the float to what he estimated would be a super-rich condition and put the carb top back on while I got back in the car. I looked at the lap counter and saw there were still 8 laps to go of an 18-lap race. I needed at least 9 laps to be considered a finisher. As I got buckled in, I saw the starters change the lap counter to 7. Should I still go back out? Let's see, I had 2 laps already. Add 7 more. That's 9! If I could just keep from going another lap down, I'd have a finish. I took off out of the pits and the car ran flawlessly. It popped and backfired a bit on trailing throttle, but that was to be expected with all the extra fuel. I got passed immediately by the 3rd place CFF, and I did everything I could to stay on his tail. He pulled away a bit each lap, but I still managed to knock 2 seconds off of my qualifying time. And I got exactly 9 laps, enough for an official 4th-place finish.
Why did the carburetor lean out so much? I have no idea, and that's what bothers me. The last time that carburetor was opened was in 2005 when Bruce Lindstrand set the float level for me. The car ran flawlessly since then, but most engine builders advise that the float level should be checked after every event. I never did because the car ran so well. Last week I figured that I was living on borrowed time and I should check it. It seemed to be just a little bit richer than it should be, which I thought was odd. Still, I leaned it out just a hair -- not even all the way to the recommended level. It also ran just fine Saturday morning in qualifying. We speculated that the needle valve could have stuck closed, but on my second "limping" lap I hit a pothole, bottoming the car on the track surface and jarring everything so hard that I can't imagine that it wouldn't have been knocked loose. It's just possible that some debris could have gotten on the seat for the needle valve, sticking it closed like glue (as opposed to some grit getting in between the two sliding parts of the valve), and that when John bent the float tang in the pits, the pressure on the needle valve was enough to break the grip of whatever was gluing it closed. It's a mystery, which means I don't know what to do to prevent it from happening again. But Bruce reset the float level after the race, which seems to have made it happy again. My fingers are crossed.
Sunday morning qualifying started better than Saturday's race, mainly because the car ran without any issues. I also tried to forget what I thought I knew about the track and just follow the fast cars. Unfortunately, as I started to really learn the track, the brake pedal started going soft. Within a few laps, the pedal was going to the floor without slowing the car. There was no way I would be able to turn any better laps, so I pulled in early. When I checked the car between sessions, I found that both brake fluid reservoirs were nearly empty! A failing master cylinder would have ended my weekend, but when I went to unscrew the caps, they both just fell off in my hands. I had neglected to tighten them all the way, and the brake fluid simply sloshed out.
I only took a couple of tenths off of my lap times, but it was good enough to qualify on the same row as Pete Wood with a 1:20.3. Pete pointed out that the 4 CFFs qualified at 1:17, 1:18, 1:19, and 1:20. Not a tremendously tight field, but at least Mike, Pete, and I would be within 3 rows of each other. After the session I watched some other cars in the corner 4 hairpin. The fastest cars were taking a very different line than what I was doing. It was definitely worth a try! I should have taken a walk down to the two corners where the track exits and enters the oval. I probably could have picked up several seconds there.
The race start went well for me. The green flag came out a bit later this time, but I got a great jump on the FST in front of me, and Pete and I passed Mike going into corner 1. The infield course is very narrow, and it suddenly looked very crowded. I actually laid back a little bit, expecting to see at least one car go cartwheeling through the air, but I should have known better. Everyone made it through cleanly and started to spread out a bit as we approached the hairpin. I tried my new line entering the hairpin, but as I turned in, I was surprised to see Butch Deer's FST right next to me -- in the grass! Apparently he had followed me a few laps in qualifying and expected me to take the same line as I had been doing, which would have left him plenty of room to drive inside me. I got lucky once more. Butch is an excellent driver, and he was able to keep his car under control despite the total lack of pavement under it. There are many drivers who would have ended up on top of me. But we made it through, and the field started to spread out a bit. Pete and I were pretty evenly matched with a couple of FST cars, and we battled back and forth for several laps. Around lap 8, I followed Pete into the hairpin, but it was clear he wasn't on the right line. He slid off the track and let me pass, but he didn't lose much time. He kept the car moving and pointed in the right direction, and I heard later that I only had about a 3 second lead on him at the end of that lap. Two or three laps later, he passed me back and held me off for the rest of the race. I got close, but never quite close enough to challenge. Mike ran into an ignition issue during the race, so I managed to finish 3rd. Pete turned a 1:17.9, and I managed to get down to a 1:18.9 trying to catch him.
One thing became very clear during the weekend: My tires are no longer any good. One thing I am sure of from 2005 is that I was able to take the long sweeper (turns 1 & 2 on the oval) flat out in 4th gear with only a little lift at the entry and slight throttle modulation in the middle. This year, I had to stab the brakes hard before the turn and I could only hold about 3/4 throttle through the turn.
The engine, on the other hand, is doing very well. When the carburetor was working, the engine pulled hard all the way to 6800 rpm. In fact, it accelerated so quickly that I almost over-revved exiting the hairpin a few times. A fresh Farley cylinder head will do that for you, apparently.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
More Competition
The third race weekend of the year (yes, here we are in July and there have been only 3 race weekends) was the Blackhawk Valley Region "Firecracker" at Blackhawk Farms Raceway . This event is usually a double Regional (one race Saturday and one race Sunday), but to encourage more entries, BVR made it a quad Regional, with two races each day. This weekend would effectively count as one-third of the season.
The four-race schedule had me in a bit of a panic. Would there be enough time between sessions to take care of a full nut-and-bolt check? Would I have time to change out of my driver's suit? When would I eat lunch?? It wasn't until Friday afternoon that I realized what a goof I was being. Circle track racers run as many sessions in a single night as I would be running over the course of two days. Why was I so worried?
Early entries looked promising, with 4 cars pre-registered. Marty Handberg would be bringing his Tiga, Alan Murray would have his Crossle, and Bob Hall would bring his Crossle. Unfortunately, Bob backed out early in the week. I think he ended up running at Watkins Glen with Pete Wood instead. But the three of us could still have some fun races together. After I got to the track, though, I found that Alan couldn't bring his car. Now it was down to just Marty and me.
On the other hand, there were many more Fomula First entries than usual. We normally run together with FST, F500, and FV, but the total entries for that group were over 30. Meanwhile there were only 9 cars in the FA / FB / FC / FE / CSR / DSR / S2000 group, so the stewards decided to even things out by moving the FF and CFF cars to the FA group. That was just fine with me. That moved us from Group 2 to Group 4, and I love being in a later group. That also meant that our first race would be the first session after lunch.
It was a hot, sticky weekend, so I chose my oldest, hardest race tires. I figured that anything newer and softer would just overheat, and I wasn't far off. I felt like I had good traction all weekend, and the tires were still in decent shape Sunday night. But it rained Friday night, and it threatened to rain Saturday, so I brought rain tires with me too. They weren't needed, and I took them home Saturday night.
Saturday's morning qualifying session went well. The car was running strong, and the handling felt solid. The track was a little greasy, so everyone was running a little slow. I qualified with a 1:22.9, one second faster than Marty but still on the same row.
I quickly changed out of my driver's suit and started the nut-and-bolt check before the car had cooled off. I ran through the list and realized that I still had about 2 hours before the race! That was more than enough time for lunch and a bit of rest and relaxation. We had paddocked next to the grid lane, coincidentally within two spaces of my qualifying spot. All we had to do was push the car out from under the canopy and I was gridded.
The pace lap was rather fast, so there was no time to scrub the tires to heat them up. Lucky it was so hot outside. The green flag came out, and I looked for any way I could get in front of Marty. I looked to the right side of the track and considered a diving move into corner 1, but I thought better of it. If I wrote the car off in the first race of the weekend, I'd lose a lot more points than if I finished second. I decided just to try to stay with the cars in front of me for a few laps. I managed to gain a bit of ground, but what really helped me was when the leaders came to lap us. The lead cars seemed to time it just right for me and just wrong for him. I saw at least two of the lead cars outbrake Marty going into a corner, forcing them both to slow down. Both of those cars passed me on a straight, exiting a corner, so I lost no time at all. I don't think any of the leaders cost me any time when they lapped me, and the one car I lapped also didn't cost me any time.
On the victory lap, I came around the Silo turn to see that the corner 6A station was waving double yellow flags. That was a little odd. Not that they would have flags out on a victory lap, but that they would be double waving yellow. Officially, there is no "double waving yellow" in SCCA. The "official" conditions are standing (or stationary) yellow, waving yellow, or double yellow (a.k.a. full-course yellow). Before I could guess what they meant, I saw that another car was stopped on-track at corner 7, and a worker was waving the red flag at me. Now I was really confused. The car wasn't blocking the track, so couldn't I just drive around him? But the worker was signalling for me to pull in behind the other car. Just then, the other car pulled away, and I noticed that all three workers were wearing Hawaiian shirts. I stopped where they indicated. The man with the red flag shook my hand and congratulated me. Another man handed me a bottle of water, and a woman put a lei around my neck. How fun!
It turned out that Marty had also gotten slowed a little by battling with Tom Stillwell, who was turning similar lap times in a Swift FF. Marty tried to pass but realized that he would have to take too great a chance to do it. So I wasn't the only one who figured that finishing second would be smarter than finishing the weekend early. But the starting grid for the second race of the day would be based on the finishing positions from this race. That put me one row in front of Marty.
The interesting consequence of the grid being determined by finishing positions is that a few cars that ran into problems during the first race would have to start at the back of the grid. That would mean more traffic to deal with, but nobody in the group was trying to crowd or intimidate anyone else. I felt very safe with everyone.
We had just as much time for the nut-and-bolt check between races. I found a couple of loose fasteners that hadn't come loose in a few years, but everything looked good, and the car was running very strong. I sat down and tried to relax before the second race.
The grid for the second race had me directly behind Katie List in a yellow C Sports Racer on the outside lane with Marty in the next row directly behind me. On the start, Katie didn't accelerate as quickly as I expected. Just as I realized that I wasn't at full throttle, I also noticed a huge hole in the right lane. Orie Voigtmann's red Sports 2000 had been in the same row as Katie, but he took off quickly, and Tom Stillwell, whose Swift was next to me, didn't. I dove for the opening, passing Katie and almost passing someone else before corner 1. Again, I tried to stay with the cars in front of me for a while, but Marty did an even better job of staying with me. For at least the first four or five laps, he was right on my tail. I was starting to prepare myself for him passing me, when I realized that Katie had passed him. He didn't seem to be right behind her, either. When she passed me, I saw a comfortable gap between Marty and me. I just tried to concentrate on driving smoothly while I waited for the leaders. Once again, they seemed to want to pass Marty in the corners, but they almost always passed me on the straights. (Do I drive like a menace? Now I'm paranoid that nobody wants to share corners with me.) I made it to the end and stopped in corner 7 for another bottle of water and another lei. Later I found out that Marty's fastest lap in that race was a full second faster than mine. I would have to work even harder on Sunday.
Sunday was less humid but also less breezy than Saturday. Overall it felt a little cooler, but not by much. The hard tires would still be the right choice. We lined up for qualifying, and I tried to get close enough to Marty that I could draft him, or at least watch him. Unfortunately, we were separated and my pit signals weren't very useful. This time, he outqualified me by less than half a second.
For the race, Marty should have been gridded on the outside lane with me in the inside lane behind him, but I think someone in front of us may have been late to the grid, because I ended up in the outside lane on the same row. I was behind Jim Smalley in a Formula Mazda, and Marty was behind Katie List's CSR. Marty and I got a little behind on the pace lap somehow, and we ended up with a gap between us and the row in front of us as we exited corner 7. I could hear Marty get on the gas before the flag came out, and I reacted a little slowly. I got on the gas as well, but he was already well in front of me. Once again, though, I got lucky. The timing of the green flag was on my side. Marty caught up to Katie before the flag came out, and he had to get off the throttle. I was just far enough behind Marty that the green came out just before I would have had to lift -- and while Marty's foot was still off the throttle. If the timing had been any different, I'd have lost the battle. I passed Katie and followed Jim through the first few corners. He shook me fairly early though, and Katie passed me soon after, but by then, Marty was nowhere in sight. He disappeared so quickly, I was worried that he may have gotten tangled in an incident on the first lap. I wasn't getting any pit signals, so I had no idea what was going on with him. For all I knew, he could have been in front of me. I tried to signal my crew that I wanted to know where he was, but before they could respond, I saw him in front of me! By then, the checkered flag was out, but it was clear that he was having car troubles. It sounded awful on the cool-off lap. One more lei.
It turned out that the top plate of his carburetor had come loose, and he was suffering from a terrible vacuum leak. My crew relaxed when they heard his car popping and banging, but they neglected to let me know about it. Marty told me later that he made a bad mistake on the start after the green flag too. A Formula C car which had lapped the field on Saturday had a different driver today, but he didn't know that. He let the car go, figuring that the driver must have had a problem in the morning qualifying session. But on Sunday, the driver's fastest lap time was only a second faster than Marty's fast time -- which, once again, was one second faster than mine.
The grid for the second race was similar to the second race on Saturday. I was in the outside lane behind Lyle Rundhaug's D Sports Racer, with Gayle Gaborski in the FC next to me and Marty directly behind me. This time, Marty didn't let Gayle go first. But I got a good start again. I moved over to the inside lane to try to pass Lyle. He got back in front of me and also passed Tony Foster's Swift before the corner, so I followed Tony through the first few corners. Marty was on my tail again, but within a lap or two, Alex Murray (who had been having bad luck with his FC all weekend) was ready to pass us as he moved up through the pack. He separated us a bit, but it wasn't until the leaders came around that I got a comfortable lead on Marty. I never really did relax, but I could concentrate on driving smoothly, instead of trying to stay in front. It paid off with another lei.
But the biggest victory of the weekend was that for the first time since 2005, I don't feel like I'm fighting the car anymore. In 2005, I felt like I was on the same wavelength as the car. It felt like it was obvious what to do. When I needed more cornering speed, I would do this. When I needed to brake later, I would do that. The car would always do what I needed, and sometimes it felt like I didn't even need to know what to do. But since 2006, I've felt like I just couldn't get it right. The car wouldn't turn in -- or was I cranking the wheel too hard? The back end would step out in a corner -- or had I just lifted? And I just couldn't trust the brakes not to lock the wheels coming into a corner. I had actually started to coast coming into some corners because the car just didn't feel right. I'm not sure what changed, but this weekend, I was able to keep my foot down much later. The car always did what I needed, and it seemed like I knew what to do again. It was an amazing feeling, and had I finished 8th, it still would have felt great to have that back again.
TRO Central Division Championship CFF points:
John Haydon 100
Marty Handberg 64
Bruce Drenth 28
Alan Murray 24
Peter Wood 15
Each lei has a laminated tag attached that reads:
"I got LEI'D at turn 7."
The four-race schedule had me in a bit of a panic. Would there be enough time between sessions to take care of a full nut-and-bolt check? Would I have time to change out of my driver's suit? When would I eat lunch?? It wasn't until Friday afternoon that I realized what a goof I was being. Circle track racers run as many sessions in a single night as I would be running over the course of two days. Why was I so worried?
Early entries looked promising, with 4 cars pre-registered. Marty Handberg would be bringing his Tiga, Alan Murray would have his Crossle, and Bob Hall would bring his Crossle. Unfortunately, Bob backed out early in the week. I think he ended up running at Watkins Glen with Pete Wood instead. But the three of us could still have some fun races together. After I got to the track, though, I found that Alan couldn't bring his car. Now it was down to just Marty and me.
On the other hand, there were many more Fomula First entries than usual. We normally run together with FST, F500, and FV, but the total entries for that group were over 30. Meanwhile there were only 9 cars in the FA / FB / FC / FE / CSR / DSR / S2000 group, so the stewards decided to even things out by moving the FF and CFF cars to the FA group. That was just fine with me. That moved us from Group 2 to Group 4, and I love being in a later group. That also meant that our first race would be the first session after lunch.
It was a hot, sticky weekend, so I chose my oldest, hardest race tires. I figured that anything newer and softer would just overheat, and I wasn't far off. I felt like I had good traction all weekend, and the tires were still in decent shape Sunday night. But it rained Friday night, and it threatened to rain Saturday, so I brought rain tires with me too. They weren't needed, and I took them home Saturday night.
Saturday's morning qualifying session went well. The car was running strong, and the handling felt solid. The track was a little greasy, so everyone was running a little slow. I qualified with a 1:22.9, one second faster than Marty but still on the same row.
I quickly changed out of my driver's suit and started the nut-and-bolt check before the car had cooled off. I ran through the list and realized that I still had about 2 hours before the race! That was more than enough time for lunch and a bit of rest and relaxation. We had paddocked next to the grid lane, coincidentally within two spaces of my qualifying spot. All we had to do was push the car out from under the canopy and I was gridded.
The pace lap was rather fast, so there was no time to scrub the tires to heat them up. Lucky it was so hot outside. The green flag came out, and I looked for any way I could get in front of Marty. I looked to the right side of the track and considered a diving move into corner 1, but I thought better of it. If I wrote the car off in the first race of the weekend, I'd lose a lot more points than if I finished second. I decided just to try to stay with the cars in front of me for a few laps. I managed to gain a bit of ground, but what really helped me was when the leaders came to lap us. The lead cars seemed to time it just right for me and just wrong for him. I saw at least two of the lead cars outbrake Marty going into a corner, forcing them both to slow down. Both of those cars passed me on a straight, exiting a corner, so I lost no time at all. I don't think any of the leaders cost me any time when they lapped me, and the one car I lapped also didn't cost me any time.
On the victory lap, I came around the Silo turn to see that the corner 6A station was waving double yellow flags. That was a little odd. Not that they would have flags out on a victory lap, but that they would be double waving yellow. Officially, there is no "double waving yellow" in SCCA. The "official" conditions are standing (or stationary) yellow, waving yellow, or double yellow (a.k.a. full-course yellow). Before I could guess what they meant, I saw that another car was stopped on-track at corner 7, and a worker was waving the red flag at me. Now I was really confused. The car wasn't blocking the track, so couldn't I just drive around him? But the worker was signalling for me to pull in behind the other car. Just then, the other car pulled away, and I noticed that all three workers were wearing Hawaiian shirts. I stopped where they indicated. The man with the red flag shook my hand and congratulated me. Another man handed me a bottle of water, and a woman put a lei around my neck. How fun!
It turned out that Marty had also gotten slowed a little by battling with Tom Stillwell, who was turning similar lap times in a Swift FF. Marty tried to pass but realized that he would have to take too great a chance to do it. So I wasn't the only one who figured that finishing second would be smarter than finishing the weekend early. But the starting grid for the second race of the day would be based on the finishing positions from this race. That put me one row in front of Marty.
The interesting consequence of the grid being determined by finishing positions is that a few cars that ran into problems during the first race would have to start at the back of the grid. That would mean more traffic to deal with, but nobody in the group was trying to crowd or intimidate anyone else. I felt very safe with everyone.
We had just as much time for the nut-and-bolt check between races. I found a couple of loose fasteners that hadn't come loose in a few years, but everything looked good, and the car was running very strong. I sat down and tried to relax before the second race.
The grid for the second race had me directly behind Katie List in a yellow C Sports Racer on the outside lane with Marty in the next row directly behind me. On the start, Katie didn't accelerate as quickly as I expected. Just as I realized that I wasn't at full throttle, I also noticed a huge hole in the right lane. Orie Voigtmann's red Sports 2000 had been in the same row as Katie, but he took off quickly, and Tom Stillwell, whose Swift was next to me, didn't. I dove for the opening, passing Katie and almost passing someone else before corner 1. Again, I tried to stay with the cars in front of me for a while, but Marty did an even better job of staying with me. For at least the first four or five laps, he was right on my tail. I was starting to prepare myself for him passing me, when I realized that Katie had passed him. He didn't seem to be right behind her, either. When she passed me, I saw a comfortable gap between Marty and me. I just tried to concentrate on driving smoothly while I waited for the leaders. Once again, they seemed to want to pass Marty in the corners, but they almost always passed me on the straights. (Do I drive like a menace? Now I'm paranoid that nobody wants to share corners with me.) I made it to the end and stopped in corner 7 for another bottle of water and another lei. Later I found out that Marty's fastest lap in that race was a full second faster than mine. I would have to work even harder on Sunday.
Sunday was less humid but also less breezy than Saturday. Overall it felt a little cooler, but not by much. The hard tires would still be the right choice. We lined up for qualifying, and I tried to get close enough to Marty that I could draft him, or at least watch him. Unfortunately, we were separated and my pit signals weren't very useful. This time, he outqualified me by less than half a second.
For the race, Marty should have been gridded on the outside lane with me in the inside lane behind him, but I think someone in front of us may have been late to the grid, because I ended up in the outside lane on the same row. I was behind Jim Smalley in a Formula Mazda, and Marty was behind Katie List's CSR. Marty and I got a little behind on the pace lap somehow, and we ended up with a gap between us and the row in front of us as we exited corner 7. I could hear Marty get on the gas before the flag came out, and I reacted a little slowly. I got on the gas as well, but he was already well in front of me. Once again, though, I got lucky. The timing of the green flag was on my side. Marty caught up to Katie before the flag came out, and he had to get off the throttle. I was just far enough behind Marty that the green came out just before I would have had to lift -- and while Marty's foot was still off the throttle. If the timing had been any different, I'd have lost the battle. I passed Katie and followed Jim through the first few corners. He shook me fairly early though, and Katie passed me soon after, but by then, Marty was nowhere in sight. He disappeared so quickly, I was worried that he may have gotten tangled in an incident on the first lap. I wasn't getting any pit signals, so I had no idea what was going on with him. For all I knew, he could have been in front of me. I tried to signal my crew that I wanted to know where he was, but before they could respond, I saw him in front of me! By then, the checkered flag was out, but it was clear that he was having car troubles. It sounded awful on the cool-off lap. One more lei.
It turned out that the top plate of his carburetor had come loose, and he was suffering from a terrible vacuum leak. My crew relaxed when they heard his car popping and banging, but they neglected to let me know about it. Marty told me later that he made a bad mistake on the start after the green flag too. A Formula C car which had lapped the field on Saturday had a different driver today, but he didn't know that. He let the car go, figuring that the driver must have had a problem in the morning qualifying session. But on Sunday, the driver's fastest lap time was only a second faster than Marty's fast time -- which, once again, was one second faster than mine.
The grid for the second race was similar to the second race on Saturday. I was in the outside lane behind Lyle Rundhaug's D Sports Racer, with Gayle Gaborski in the FC next to me and Marty directly behind me. This time, Marty didn't let Gayle go first. But I got a good start again. I moved over to the inside lane to try to pass Lyle. He got back in front of me and also passed Tony Foster's Swift before the corner, so I followed Tony through the first few corners. Marty was on my tail again, but within a lap or two, Alex Murray (who had been having bad luck with his FC all weekend) was ready to pass us as he moved up through the pack. He separated us a bit, but it wasn't until the leaders came around that I got a comfortable lead on Marty. I never really did relax, but I could concentrate on driving smoothly, instead of trying to stay in front. It paid off with another lei.
But the biggest victory of the weekend was that for the first time since 2005, I don't feel like I'm fighting the car anymore. In 2005, I felt like I was on the same wavelength as the car. It felt like it was obvious what to do. When I needed more cornering speed, I would do this. When I needed to brake later, I would do that. The car would always do what I needed, and sometimes it felt like I didn't even need to know what to do. But since 2006, I've felt like I just couldn't get it right. The car wouldn't turn in -- or was I cranking the wheel too hard? The back end would step out in a corner -- or had I just lifted? And I just couldn't trust the brakes not to lock the wheels coming into a corner. I had actually started to coast coming into some corners because the car just didn't feel right. I'm not sure what changed, but this weekend, I was able to keep my foot down much later. The car always did what I needed, and it seemed like I knew what to do again. It was an amazing feeling, and had I finished 8th, it still would have felt great to have that back again.
TRO Central Division Championship CFF points:
John Haydon 100
Marty Handberg 64
Bruce Drenth 28
Alan Murray 24
Peter Wood 15
Each lei has a laminated tag attached that reads:
"I got LEI'D at turn 7."
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Competition
After the minimal turnout at the first Regional of the season, it was encouraging to see that 6 Club Formula Fords were entered for the double Regional at Road America at the end of May. Again, mixed feelings. Six is much better than one, but I'm getting excited over just 6 cars. There was a day when 20 cars was a pathetic showing. But I'll still take 6 over 1.
The car needed a new battery, a new water temperature gauge (to replace the borrowed electrical gauge), a gear change, and a thorough drying-out. Everything went smoothly, but for some reason I ended up with a 3rd gear that is just a bit taller than ideal for Road America. I think the preferred gear may have been in the transmission that burned up at Blackhawk in 2005, and I had just lived without it since then.
The weather threatened to be a repeat of the April race, but Saturday morning dawned clear and sunny. It stayed that way just long enough for us to unload everything from the truck. Then it started raining. We loaded everything back into the truck... and the rain stopped. So we unloaded everything again to let it dry... and the rain started again. We went back and forth at least three times before it started to really rain. But the sun was starting to poke through in the west.
So, would it be wet or dry? Time was running out, and we had to make a decision in time to change the setup for the first qualifying session. I decided to gamble on a dry session, while Pete Wood did the opposite. I got lucky. The sun came out and stayed out, and the cars on track immediately before us dried the track pretty thoroughly. It didn't rain the rest of the weekend. Fortunately for Pete, the session was long enough that he was able to duck into the pits, change tires, and still get a few laps in.
I was a little disappointed in my performance that weekend. My fastest lap time all weekend was a 2:41.6, three seconds slower than my best, and only good enough for 4th place. On Saturday, Pete dropped out with an engine problem, but Marty Handberg passed me for 3rd, and I just couldn't challenge.
Sunday was much better, though my lap times didn't really show it. Pete pulled into the CFF lead on the start and held it for the first lap. Bruce Drenth, who had qualified on the CFF pole, passed him back and used the aerodynamics of his Eagle chassis to run away from the rest of us. Alan Murray had also gotten a poor start, dropping all the way back to 5th, but by the third lap, he charged past Marty coming into Canada Corner. He was trying to pass me too, but I closed the door and made him try again. And try again he did -- in corner 14. He passed Pete on the front straight, but not before giving me a bit of a tow, which brought me back in sight of Pete.
The rest of the race, I worked on getting to within striking distance of Pete. I got close, but never close enough to make a legitimate challenge for 3rd. Finally, on the last lap, I got close enough to draft him on the front straight. I pulled out to pass... and realized that my too-tall 3rd gear cost me enough acceleration on the steep hill that I couldn't quite draw even with him. Fourth again, but at least this time the gap was down from 2.3 seconds to 0.14 seconds.
Now we have a points race!
John Haydon 44 points
Bruce Drenth 28 points
Alan Murray 24 points
Peter Wood 15 points
The car needed a new battery, a new water temperature gauge (to replace the borrowed electrical gauge), a gear change, and a thorough drying-out. Everything went smoothly, but for some reason I ended up with a 3rd gear that is just a bit taller than ideal for Road America. I think the preferred gear may have been in the transmission that burned up at Blackhawk in 2005, and I had just lived without it since then.
The weather threatened to be a repeat of the April race, but Saturday morning dawned clear and sunny. It stayed that way just long enough for us to unload everything from the truck. Then it started raining. We loaded everything back into the truck... and the rain stopped. So we unloaded everything again to let it dry... and the rain started again. We went back and forth at least three times before it started to really rain. But the sun was starting to poke through in the west.
So, would it be wet or dry? Time was running out, and we had to make a decision in time to change the setup for the first qualifying session. I decided to gamble on a dry session, while Pete Wood did the opposite. I got lucky. The sun came out and stayed out, and the cars on track immediately before us dried the track pretty thoroughly. It didn't rain the rest of the weekend. Fortunately for Pete, the session was long enough that he was able to duck into the pits, change tires, and still get a few laps in.
I was a little disappointed in my performance that weekend. My fastest lap time all weekend was a 2:41.6, three seconds slower than my best, and only good enough for 4th place. On Saturday, Pete dropped out with an engine problem, but Marty Handberg passed me for 3rd, and I just couldn't challenge.
Sunday was much better, though my lap times didn't really show it. Pete pulled into the CFF lead on the start and held it for the first lap. Bruce Drenth, who had qualified on the CFF pole, passed him back and used the aerodynamics of his Eagle chassis to run away from the rest of us. Alan Murray had also gotten a poor start, dropping all the way back to 5th, but by the third lap, he charged past Marty coming into Canada Corner. He was trying to pass me too, but I closed the door and made him try again. And try again he did -- in corner 14. He passed Pete on the front straight, but not before giving me a bit of a tow, which brought me back in sight of Pete.
The rest of the race, I worked on getting to within striking distance of Pete. I got close, but never close enough to make a legitimate challenge for 3rd. Finally, on the last lap, I got close enough to draft him on the front straight. I pulled out to pass... and realized that my too-tall 3rd gear cost me enough acceleration on the steep hill that I couldn't quite draw even with him. Fourth again, but at least this time the gap was down from 2.3 seconds to 0.14 seconds.
Now we have a points race!
John Haydon 44 points
Bruce Drenth 28 points
Alan Murray 24 points
Peter Wood 15 points
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
O the Drama
Where to begin? If you don't mind, I'll try to start at the beginning of the interesting stuff.
April 26 was the first SCCA race of the season. It was a one-day single Regional race at Blackhawk Farms Raceway, capping off a three-day weekend that included two days of driver's schools. The students who attended and passed both driver's schools would qualify to run the Regional on Sunday, and to encourage entries, this was designated as a double-points event. Still, entries were very light. I was the only Club Formula Ford entered.
Unfortunately, it rained for much of the weekend. By Sunday morning, many paddock spots were underwater. The rain came and went through the day, but every time it stopped, it just came back that much harder later on.
I had parked under the Lindstrand Motorsports tent in an attempt to stay dry. Allen Wheatcroft and I both waited until the very last moment before going out for qualifying. When you're moving, at least in the Tiga, rain doesn't have much of a chance to fall into the cockpit of the car. I managed to stay pretty dry that session. The wet conditions kept my lap times up in the 1:55s, but I kept the car on the track and facing in the right direction.
The car didn't need much maintenance between sessions, which was lucky. It's hard to work on a precision machine when you're parked in the middle of a muddy lake. As we waited for the race, the clouds seemed to part. We even saw something resembling sunlight in the sky. For the first time all day, the predawn half-light gave way, and it really seemed to be the middle of the day instead of the end. But not long after Allen and I commented on that, the sky really opened up. Just in time for us to push our cars to the grid.
I mentioned before that you can stay fairly dry when the car is moving through the rain. When you're sitting still on the grid for 10 minutes, you give the rain a much better chance of hitting you. Over and over and over.
By the time we rolled out onto the track for the pace lap, the rain had soaked through my driver's suit and had even splashed onto the inside of my helmet visor. The wind might clear the rain off the outside of the visor, but there wasn't much I could do about the rain on the inside. Shaking my head back and forth didn't do much. I would just have to live with the blurriness.
We set off for the pace lap (still shaking my head), and I immediately discovered some new things. I had seen a deep puddle on the track at the apex of corner 3A before, but I had never seen standing water anywhere else. It turns out that when it rains really hard for a couple of days, standing water collects in a lot of new places. One of these places is the apex of corner 1. And it turns out that when you drive right through a deep enough puddle, you create a really big wave, like a wall of water taller than the car. The next thing that happens after you create this wave is you drive right through it. When that happens, a shocking amount of said wave ends up in your lap. In case you're wondering how that could possibly be shocking, it's because the temperature never got above 50 degrees, and all that icy water ended up, as I said, in my lap. I hit similar puddles (with similar results) in 3A (yes, I should have known), the braking zone for 4, 6, and 7. And I kept hitting them throughout the race. Each time I would make a mental note to avoid it on the next lap, but it was like my mental notes kept getting washed away.
The only scary moment in the race was when the car suddenly slowed while exiting corner 4 about halfway through the race. It felt incredibly harsh inside the car, like someone had turned off the engine for a second. Oddly, I have a hard time picking it out in the video. Could it be that I'm really concentrating that much harder, and I'm that much more tuned in to the car when I'm driving, that the slightest hesitation feels like an eternity in freefall? Or am I just a drama queen?
Back to the point: The car stumbled under acceleration. It felt a bit like it was out of gas (I know that feeling well), but I had filled the fuel before the start. Plus, we were running so slowly, I would probably only burn about 2 gallons during the race. The only other possibility I could think of was that the battery was dying. Moments later, my onboard lap time display confirmed my suspicions by displaying a very helpful blank screen.
The battery I was running that weekend came with the car in 2004. I have no reason to doubt that it was the same one Pete Wood had been using in 2003 and 2002. Seven years of racing, and I never replaced it? Keeping a battery for 5 years in a street car is pushing your luck, as far as I'm concerned. Now here I was, taxing this antique battery with the added demands of the rain light and an electrical temperature gauge. What was I thinking?
If there's one thing I know about, it's nursing an ailing car to the finish. That's not to say that I'm any good at it, but I've read about it a lot. The ignition system needs maximum battery voltage under heavy acceleration, so it was time to ease up and coast a lot. I considered turning off the rain light, but I would have been black-flagged without it. The race was nearly halfway through, and all I needed was a finish. As miserable and soggy and cold as I was, I preferred some slow track time to an early ending to the race.
In Impound, we discovered that the car now weighed a full 8 pounds more than it had after qualifying. All of it was water.
Almost as soon as the race was over, the clouds parted and the sun came out. It didn't matter much; everything inside the truck was soaked, too.
April 26 was the first SCCA race of the season. It was a one-day single Regional race at Blackhawk Farms Raceway, capping off a three-day weekend that included two days of driver's schools. The students who attended and passed both driver's schools would qualify to run the Regional on Sunday, and to encourage entries, this was designated as a double-points event. Still, entries were very light. I was the only Club Formula Ford entered.
Unfortunately, it rained for much of the weekend. By Sunday morning, many paddock spots were underwater. The rain came and went through the day, but every time it stopped, it just came back that much harder later on.
I had parked under the Lindstrand Motorsports tent in an attempt to stay dry. Allen Wheatcroft and I both waited until the very last moment before going out for qualifying. When you're moving, at least in the Tiga, rain doesn't have much of a chance to fall into the cockpit of the car. I managed to stay pretty dry that session. The wet conditions kept my lap times up in the 1:55s, but I kept the car on the track and facing in the right direction.
The car didn't need much maintenance between sessions, which was lucky. It's hard to work on a precision machine when you're parked in the middle of a muddy lake. As we waited for the race, the clouds seemed to part. We even saw something resembling sunlight in the sky. For the first time all day, the predawn half-light gave way, and it really seemed to be the middle of the day instead of the end. But not long after Allen and I commented on that, the sky really opened up. Just in time for us to push our cars to the grid.
I mentioned before that you can stay fairly dry when the car is moving through the rain. When you're sitting still on the grid for 10 minutes, you give the rain a much better chance of hitting you. Over and over and over.
By the time we rolled out onto the track for the pace lap, the rain had soaked through my driver's suit and had even splashed onto the inside of my helmet visor. The wind might clear the rain off the outside of the visor, but there wasn't much I could do about the rain on the inside. Shaking my head back and forth didn't do much. I would just have to live with the blurriness.
We set off for the pace lap (still shaking my head), and I immediately discovered some new things. I had seen a deep puddle on the track at the apex of corner 3A before, but I had never seen standing water anywhere else. It turns out that when it rains really hard for a couple of days, standing water collects in a lot of new places. One of these places is the apex of corner 1. And it turns out that when you drive right through a deep enough puddle, you create a really big wave, like a wall of water taller than the car. The next thing that happens after you create this wave is you drive right through it. When that happens, a shocking amount of said wave ends up in your lap. In case you're wondering how that could possibly be shocking, it's because the temperature never got above 50 degrees, and all that icy water ended up, as I said, in my lap. I hit similar puddles (with similar results) in 3A (yes, I should have known), the braking zone for 4, 6, and 7. And I kept hitting them throughout the race. Each time I would make a mental note to avoid it on the next lap, but it was like my mental notes kept getting washed away.
The only scary moment in the race was when the car suddenly slowed while exiting corner 4 about halfway through the race. It felt incredibly harsh inside the car, like someone had turned off the engine for a second. Oddly, I have a hard time picking it out in the video. Could it be that I'm really concentrating that much harder, and I'm that much more tuned in to the car when I'm driving, that the slightest hesitation feels like an eternity in freefall? Or am I just a drama queen?
Back to the point: The car stumbled under acceleration. It felt a bit like it was out of gas (I know that feeling well), but I had filled the fuel before the start. Plus, we were running so slowly, I would probably only burn about 2 gallons during the race. The only other possibility I could think of was that the battery was dying. Moments later, my onboard lap time display confirmed my suspicions by displaying a very helpful blank screen.
The battery I was running that weekend came with the car in 2004. I have no reason to doubt that it was the same one Pete Wood had been using in 2003 and 2002. Seven years of racing, and I never replaced it? Keeping a battery for 5 years in a street car is pushing your luck, as far as I'm concerned. Now here I was, taxing this antique battery with the added demands of the rain light and an electrical temperature gauge. What was I thinking?
If there's one thing I know about, it's nursing an ailing car to the finish. That's not to say that I'm any good at it, but I've read about it a lot. The ignition system needs maximum battery voltage under heavy acceleration, so it was time to ease up and coast a lot. I considered turning off the rain light, but I would have been black-flagged without it. The race was nearly halfway through, and all I needed was a finish. As miserable and soggy and cold as I was, I preferred some slow track time to an early ending to the race.
In Impound, we discovered that the car now weighed a full 8 pounds more than it had after qualifying. All of it was water.
Almost as soon as the race was over, the clouds parted and the sun came out. It didn't matter much; everything inside the truck was soaked, too.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Anarchy Dingo
The Internet is a wonderful tool that allows you to find out really useful things. It also allows you to find out that an anagram of Haydon Racing is "Anarchy Dingo".
I can't decide which version I like better.
I can't decide which version I like better.
Isn't that just the cutest little anarchist you ever saw? He makes me want to denounce all property as theft. On the other hand, I really want a stuffed animal version of him.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Shame
Yes, I am writing this post purely out of shame. The kind of shame that comes with not writing anything in three months.
It's that time of year, though, and the excuses are the same as last year: It's too cold to do anything with the car, I've been working on the catalog, and I'm in hibernation. There is a new excuse on this year's list: We're still dealing with the basement rebuild. This week was the first time in 6 months that actually mopping the (new) basement floor looked like it wouldn't be a total waste of time. And even that took three hours and almost an entire box of Swiffer pads. The construction dust was so thick that it would completely clog a pad after about 5 square feet. The sponge mop only rearranged the dust into fascinating new patterns.
The catalog just arrived today (it will be in the mail to you shortly, don't panic), and once again it looks like the best we've ever done. I can't take as much credit this year though. The choice of paper and ink and printer and presses combined to make the photos and really pop. The blacks are actually black this year, not just dark grey. The type looks sharper as well. And then there's all that wonderful text and layout work. I'll autograph your copy if you bring me a Sharpie. (No, not a Shar Pei. It's hard to write with a dog.)
If I may be permitted to whine a bit about the weather: BRRR!! I heard last night that we had 24 consecutive days this month with a high temperature below freezing. Three days in a row we had a high in the single digits, and for three nights the lows were in the teens below zero. That's Fahrenheit, folks. Not Celsius.
I have been told to be thankful for cold winters, because that helps to control the bug population. On the other hand, the mountains of snow on the ground have probably insulated the little critters pretty well. I'll bet they're loving life right now. Jerks. I should probably mention here that I was stung by a bee at the last race. Stupid little thing flew right into me, landed on my neck under the collar of my driver's suit, and then the little turkey had the nerve (and the stinger) to blame me for it. Moron.
The trailer is currently buried behind the garage, and the car is buried inside the garage. I expect that's how things will stay for at least a few more weeks. I had planned all kinds of projects for the car to get it ready for the Formula Ford 40th Birthday Party race at Road America in July, but of course I haven't started any of them. The good news is that only two of them are really important: Checking the engine bearings and revising the shoulder harness mounting points.
What's wrong with the current shoulder belt mounts? The Tiga was designed before anyone ever thought about head and neck restraint devices, so the mounts are about 10 inches apart. Unfortunately, the HANS Device (virtually the standard head and neck restraint these days) requires the shoulder belt mount spacing to be no more than 6 inches center-to-center. Bruce Lindstrand had modified the mounts on the LMI Tiga, and I was hoping to copy his design. It is a very clever design: It brings the belts closer together, it's a stronger mount (the belts are anchored to two square tubes instead of just one), and it allows for vertical adjustment to accomodate taller and shorter drivers. He also eliminated a somewhat questionable piece of anchoring hardware, which can't be a bad thing.
Changing the mounts will require stripping the car to the bare frame. Stripping the car will require room in the garage. Room in the garage will require moving about two tons of assorted things that don't really have a permanent home. Finding them a home will require clearing household items out of the storage garage that we rented while the basement was being redone. Moving those items will require a clean basement floor. Oh, wait...
It's that time of year, though, and the excuses are the same as last year: It's too cold to do anything with the car, I've been working on the catalog, and I'm in hibernation. There is a new excuse on this year's list: We're still dealing with the basement rebuild. This week was the first time in 6 months that actually mopping the (new) basement floor looked like it wouldn't be a total waste of time. And even that took three hours and almost an entire box of Swiffer pads. The construction dust was so thick that it would completely clog a pad after about 5 square feet. The sponge mop only rearranged the dust into fascinating new patterns.
The catalog just arrived today (it will be in the mail to you shortly, don't panic), and once again it looks like the best we've ever done. I can't take as much credit this year though. The choice of paper and ink and printer and presses combined to make the photos and really pop. The blacks are actually black this year, not just dark grey. The type looks sharper as well. And then there's all that wonderful text and layout work. I'll autograph your copy if you bring me a Sharpie. (No, not a Shar Pei. It's hard to write with a dog.)
If I may be permitted to whine a bit about the weather: BRRR!! I heard last night that we had 24 consecutive days this month with a high temperature below freezing. Three days in a row we had a high in the single digits, and for three nights the lows were in the teens below zero. That's Fahrenheit, folks. Not Celsius.
I have been told to be thankful for cold winters, because that helps to control the bug population. On the other hand, the mountains of snow on the ground have probably insulated the little critters pretty well. I'll bet they're loving life right now. Jerks. I should probably mention here that I was stung by a bee at the last race. Stupid little thing flew right into me, landed on my neck under the collar of my driver's suit, and then the little turkey had the nerve (and the stinger) to blame me for it. Moron.
The trailer is currently buried behind the garage, and the car is buried inside the garage. I expect that's how things will stay for at least a few more weeks. I had planned all kinds of projects for the car to get it ready for the Formula Ford 40th Birthday Party race at Road America in July, but of course I haven't started any of them. The good news is that only two of them are really important: Checking the engine bearings and revising the shoulder harness mounting points.
What's wrong with the current shoulder belt mounts? The Tiga was designed before anyone ever thought about head and neck restraint devices, so the mounts are about 10 inches apart. Unfortunately, the HANS Device (virtually the standard head and neck restraint these days) requires the shoulder belt mount spacing to be no more than 6 inches center-to-center. Bruce Lindstrand had modified the mounts on the LMI Tiga, and I was hoping to copy his design. It is a very clever design: It brings the belts closer together, it's a stronger mount (the belts are anchored to two square tubes instead of just one), and it allows for vertical adjustment to accomodate taller and shorter drivers. He also eliminated a somewhat questionable piece of anchoring hardware, which can't be a bad thing.
Changing the mounts will require stripping the car to the bare frame. Stripping the car will require room in the garage. Room in the garage will require moving about two tons of assorted things that don't really have a permanent home. Finding them a home will require clearing household items out of the storage garage that we rented while the basement was being redone. Moving those items will require a clean basement floor. Oh, wait...
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Fall Sprints
The last SCCA race of the year is usually a single Regional race spanning two days in October. This race is also usually worth double points, so the maximum number of points possible is 28 instead of 14. With a 30 point lead going in, I could have stayed home and watched Bob Hall take all 28 points and still won the championship. But where’s the fun in that? Several other people seemed to agree with that thought, so we had a good field of 5 CFFs and 23 cars in the group.
I had to get new tires for this race, but new race tires live longer if they are run through one heat cycle and then allowed to rest for 24 hours before being run again. That meant that I would also need a new set of old tires. Pete Wood came through with a set of tires that had a lot of tread, but they were so old that he playfully called them “rim protectors” rather than race tires. They were round, they were black, and they held air. That was all I needed.
Saturday morning was wet and chilly. Not as wet as Road America (did I mention it rained there?), but the track was damp in a few spots. The worst was corner 2. Normally flat-out, this corner becomes a brake-and-downshift corner in the rain, and it’s the last to dry out because of a thick canopy of trees overhead. I had a few tense moments there, but still managed to turn a 1:23 lap or two, and everybody made it though safely.
I put the new tires on for qualifying and tried my best to bring them up to temperature gently. Unfortunately, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to run a few hard laps behind Alan Murray. We turned a 1:19.9 before I passed him and got down to a 1:19.5, which was good enough for the second CFF grid position. Alan would be two cars behind me, with Gunnar Lindstrom (who hauled his Lola all the way from California! ) between us. The three of us had qualified within half a second of each other, and the entire Club Ford field was within 3.5 seconds.
I was very disappointed to hear that Alan had broken a stub axle during qualifying and wouldn’t make the race. The same thing happened in July, and he had to search to find the very last replacement stub axle in the country. That meant he didn’t have a spare when the other one broke, and nobody had another to send to him by air freight. I may not have been as disappointed as he was, but I think I was a close second. I was hoping to either enjoy a fun drafting session with him and Gunnar while Bob Hall drove away… or to work together with Alan and Gunnar to chase down and pass Bob. Alan said his goal for the weekend had been to turn a 1:18 lap, but that it was now up to me to do it for him.
Sunday was dry and sunny, but windy enough to be somewhat chilly. The morning races went quickly, and cleanup between sessions was done so efficiently that by lunchtime the races were running a full hour ahead of schedule. I had originally planned to sleep in on Sunday and just show up around 1pm, which would have been an hour early by the printed schedule… and would have been too late in reality. It’s great that things ran so smoothly, but they never made a single call to the grid for our race. Gunnar and William Cobb, the F500 gridded second overall, were both paddocked away from the rest of us, so they never saw us when we started pushing our cars to the grid around 12:30. Gunnar told me later that his first warning was when he heard our engines start at the 5 minute signal on grid. He rushed to get to the grid just in time to see us pulling away without him.
We all tried desperately to get some heat in our tires and engines during the pace lap. I was in the left row, with Bob Hall lined up directly in front of me and Allen Wheatcroft in front of him. Pete Wood was a row back from me. When the green flag dropped, my engine coughed as I stood on the gas, but I didn’t lose much ground. I started to catch up to Bob a little as we approached corner 1, but he was trying to pass Allen on the left edge of the track. Allen hadn’t left any room on that side though, so Bob ended up dropping his left rear wheel off the track surface just as he hit the brakes, snapping his car into a spin and sending it backwards across the track in front of me. I thanked myself for being too chicken to follow him any closer than I had (I had left at least a full car length between us), but then I saw a yellow blur come up from behind me. Cobb had decided to try to slice his way through the entire pack all at once and get back to second overall in just one move. He had a huge head of steam going when Bob’s car suddenly appeared in front of him. The yellow F500 bounced off of Bob’s black Crossle and started heading back toward me. I actually had to get back on the throttle to try to get out of the way. Two cars out, and we’re not even through the first turn.
Entering corner 6 on the same lap, Brad Ellingson tried to pass Dan Johnson’s Van Diemen FF on the right. Unfortunately, Dan was already trying to pass another car. There isn’t quite room there for three cars, especially when one is a car as wide as Brad’s Swift DB1 FF. Brad hit the curbing, which made his left front wheel hit Dan’s right front wheel. That impact catapulted Brad up into the air, vaulting over Dan’s car and landing on Rick Eskola’s F500. Three more cars out, and we still hadn’t completed a single lap. The pace car came out, and we crawled around for four laps under full course yellow while the safety crews tried to untangle all the cars. It took me a couple of laps to realize how few cars were in front of me. There was one F500, two FFs, and then me. I was suddenly 4th overall and leading CFF!
When the green flag came out again, I charged hard to try to keep the lead. After two laps, my crew showed me that I had a 3 second lead over Pete Wood in second place. A few laps later, I realized that I was still hot on the tail of John Luxon’s Piper FF. John has been to the Runoffs a few times, and I was determined to stay with him for as long as I could. I turned a 1:18.7 (there you go, Alan! ) before losing him in lapped traffic. I tried to chase him down again, but I reminded myself that I didn’t need to push so hard. I just needed to stay in front of Pete, who was now 26 seconds back, and Gunnar, who was trying to pass Pete for second place. Actually, I didn’t need to stay in front of anyone. I didn’t even need a finish. I just wanted to have fun and bring the car home in one piece. The championship had already been locked before the weekend even started. Still, I couldn't help being a little disappointed with myself for giving up 4th overall. I thought I was being lapped by the overall leader, but it turned out to be Darrel Greening, who was running 2nd in F500.
The TRO Manufacturing Central Division Regional Championship requires each participant to run a minimum of 4 races to be eligible for the championship. Although 14 drivers earned points in CFF this year, only four qualified for the championship. I ran all 9 events (the last counted double, so it is considered to be two events), Bob Hall ran 6, and Pete Wood and Alan Murray each ran 5.
At first I felt that I had won the championship by racing (and winning) the first three races that the runner-up did not attend. That gave me an “automatic” 42-point advantage. But take out those three events and that still leaves me with a 12-point lead and the championship.
I had to get new tires for this race, but new race tires live longer if they are run through one heat cycle and then allowed to rest for 24 hours before being run again. That meant that I would also need a new set of old tires. Pete Wood came through with a set of tires that had a lot of tread, but they were so old that he playfully called them “rim protectors” rather than race tires. They were round, they were black, and they held air. That was all I needed.
Saturday morning was wet and chilly. Not as wet as Road America (did I mention it rained there?), but the track was damp in a few spots. The worst was corner 2. Normally flat-out, this corner becomes a brake-and-downshift corner in the rain, and it’s the last to dry out because of a thick canopy of trees overhead. I had a few tense moments there, but still managed to turn a 1:23 lap or two, and everybody made it though safely.
I put the new tires on for qualifying and tried my best to bring them up to temperature gently. Unfortunately, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to run a few hard laps behind Alan Murray. We turned a 1:19.9 before I passed him and got down to a 1:19.5, which was good enough for the second CFF grid position. Alan would be two cars behind me, with Gunnar Lindstrom (who hauled his Lola all the way from California! ) between us. The three of us had qualified within half a second of each other, and the entire Club Ford field was within 3.5 seconds.
I was very disappointed to hear that Alan had broken a stub axle during qualifying and wouldn’t make the race. The same thing happened in July, and he had to search to find the very last replacement stub axle in the country. That meant he didn’t have a spare when the other one broke, and nobody had another to send to him by air freight. I may not have been as disappointed as he was, but I think I was a close second. I was hoping to either enjoy a fun drafting session with him and Gunnar while Bob Hall drove away… or to work together with Alan and Gunnar to chase down and pass Bob. Alan said his goal for the weekend had been to turn a 1:18 lap, but that it was now up to me to do it for him.
Sunday was dry and sunny, but windy enough to be somewhat chilly. The morning races went quickly, and cleanup between sessions was done so efficiently that by lunchtime the races were running a full hour ahead of schedule. I had originally planned to sleep in on Sunday and just show up around 1pm, which would have been an hour early by the printed schedule… and would have been too late in reality. It’s great that things ran so smoothly, but they never made a single call to the grid for our race. Gunnar and William Cobb, the F500 gridded second overall, were both paddocked away from the rest of us, so they never saw us when we started pushing our cars to the grid around 12:30. Gunnar told me later that his first warning was when he heard our engines start at the 5 minute signal on grid. He rushed to get to the grid just in time to see us pulling away without him.
We all tried desperately to get some heat in our tires and engines during the pace lap. I was in the left row, with Bob Hall lined up directly in front of me and Allen Wheatcroft in front of him. Pete Wood was a row back from me. When the green flag dropped, my engine coughed as I stood on the gas, but I didn’t lose much ground. I started to catch up to Bob a little as we approached corner 1, but he was trying to pass Allen on the left edge of the track. Allen hadn’t left any room on that side though, so Bob ended up dropping his left rear wheel off the track surface just as he hit the brakes, snapping his car into a spin and sending it backwards across the track in front of me. I thanked myself for being too chicken to follow him any closer than I had (I had left at least a full car length between us), but then I saw a yellow blur come up from behind me. Cobb had decided to try to slice his way through the entire pack all at once and get back to second overall in just one move. He had a huge head of steam going when Bob’s car suddenly appeared in front of him. The yellow F500 bounced off of Bob’s black Crossle and started heading back toward me. I actually had to get back on the throttle to try to get out of the way. Two cars out, and we’re not even through the first turn.
Entering corner 6 on the same lap, Brad Ellingson tried to pass Dan Johnson’s Van Diemen FF on the right. Unfortunately, Dan was already trying to pass another car. There isn’t quite room there for three cars, especially when one is a car as wide as Brad’s Swift DB1 FF. Brad hit the curbing, which made his left front wheel hit Dan’s right front wheel. That impact catapulted Brad up into the air, vaulting over Dan’s car and landing on Rick Eskola’s F500. Three more cars out, and we still hadn’t completed a single lap. The pace car came out, and we crawled around for four laps under full course yellow while the safety crews tried to untangle all the cars. It took me a couple of laps to realize how few cars were in front of me. There was one F500, two FFs, and then me. I was suddenly 4th overall and leading CFF!
When the green flag came out again, I charged hard to try to keep the lead. After two laps, my crew showed me that I had a 3 second lead over Pete Wood in second place. A few laps later, I realized that I was still hot on the tail of John Luxon’s Piper FF. John has been to the Runoffs a few times, and I was determined to stay with him for as long as I could. I turned a 1:18.7 (there you go, Alan! ) before losing him in lapped traffic. I tried to chase him down again, but I reminded myself that I didn’t need to push so hard. I just needed to stay in front of Pete, who was now 26 seconds back, and Gunnar, who was trying to pass Pete for second place. Actually, I didn’t need to stay in front of anyone. I didn’t even need a finish. I just wanted to have fun and bring the car home in one piece. The championship had already been locked before the weekend even started. Still, I couldn't help being a little disappointed with myself for giving up 4th overall. I thought I was being lapped by the overall leader, but it turned out to be Darrel Greening, who was running 2nd in F500.
The TRO Manufacturing Central Division Regional Championship requires each participant to run a minimum of 4 races to be eligible for the championship. Although 14 drivers earned points in CFF this year, only four qualified for the championship. I ran all 9 events (the last counted double, so it is considered to be two events), Bob Hall ran 6, and Pete Wood and Alan Murray each ran 5.
At first I felt that I had won the championship by racing (and winning) the first three races that the runner-up did not attend. That gave me an “automatic” 42-point advantage. But take out those three events and that still leaves me with a 12-point lead and the championship.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Catching Up Part 2: All Tired Out
Although my 2008 season has been all about SCCA, it was easy to talk me into running the Midwestern Council 50th anniversary race at Blackhawk on September 21. Unfortunately, I had committed to that event long before running the Double Regional at Road America the week before. I came down with a cold after spending the weekend outside in the cold and the rain (did I mention I was wet?), and I was seriously considering sleeping in when Sunday came around.
The title of the event was “All Tired Out,” so it was fitting that I had to drag myself out of bed at oh-dark-thirty and spend two hours trying to pick my way through a pea soup fog to get to the track. The fog lifted by the time I got to the track, but it was still cool and humid when we hit the track. I got out of the car after the practice session and realized that I was blowing a lot of fog around. I was breathing heavy, and the cool air turned my breath into quite a cloud every time I exhaled. I tried to calm my breathing a bit, but I was still engulfed in steam. Finally I realized that the steam was coming off my body! My slight fever combined with the exertion raised my body temperature, and the perspiration was all but sizzling off of me. Yes, I was hot.
I couldn’t hook up with anyone during qualifying. I was balked by sports racers nearly every lap, and it seemed that nobody was turning the same lap times that I was. I settled for a 1:22 and 3rd in CFF. Several DSRs had come to test for the Runoffs, so the field was large and fast. Third in CFF was 21st overall on the grid.
The race started off very badly. On lap 2, a Runoffs-bound DSR broke and stopped at the side of the track. On lap 3, an S2000 hit the wall, and an FC broke and stopped. On lap 7, another FC and another DSR both stopped. There were not enough wreckers available to get all of the broken cars to safety, so the officials had no choice but to stop the race until the track could be cleared.
When we lined up for the restart, I was directly behind Scott Reif, who was running 2nd in CFF. I thought I could get a jump on him at the start, and I was right. By the next lap, he was almost a straightaway behind me, balked by a sports racer. I did my best to deal with increasing understeer, but I could only manage a 1:21. Meanwhile Scott had passed the sports racer and
was turning 1:19s in pursuit of me. He passed me with only a few laps to go, and I finished 3rd, just 5 seconds behind him.
After the race it became clear why the car had been understeering. The left front tire had just about shredded, losing a significant portion of its tread. But this wasn’t an entirely bad thing. While it was happening, I felt as though I learned (or re-learned) a lot about driving the car. I tried to compensate for the loss of traction by turning in to the corner a little earlier, so I could turn the wheel a little less abruptly. That not only made
the car turn better, it also made the car handle much more neutrally than it had been doing. The back end was finally sliding as much as the front, which is what I had been struggling to make happen since 2006. I was probably as spent as that tire, but I felt so much better about everything that nothing really seemed to matter.
That would have been a terrifically high note to end the season, but there was still one more race to go.
The title of the event was “All Tired Out,” so it was fitting that I had to drag myself out of bed at oh-dark-thirty and spend two hours trying to pick my way through a pea soup fog to get to the track. The fog lifted by the time I got to the track, but it was still cool and humid when we hit the track. I got out of the car after the practice session and realized that I was blowing a lot of fog around. I was breathing heavy, and the cool air turned my breath into quite a cloud every time I exhaled. I tried to calm my breathing a bit, but I was still engulfed in steam. Finally I realized that the steam was coming off my body! My slight fever combined with the exertion raised my body temperature, and the perspiration was all but sizzling off of me. Yes, I was hot.
I couldn’t hook up with anyone during qualifying. I was balked by sports racers nearly every lap, and it seemed that nobody was turning the same lap times that I was. I settled for a 1:22 and 3rd in CFF. Several DSRs had come to test for the Runoffs, so the field was large and fast. Third in CFF was 21st overall on the grid.
The race started off very badly. On lap 2, a Runoffs-bound DSR broke and stopped at the side of the track. On lap 3, an S2000 hit the wall, and an FC broke and stopped. On lap 7, another FC and another DSR both stopped. There were not enough wreckers available to get all of the broken cars to safety, so the officials had no choice but to stop the race until the track could be cleared.
When we lined up for the restart, I was directly behind Scott Reif, who was running 2nd in CFF. I thought I could get a jump on him at the start, and I was right. By the next lap, he was almost a straightaway behind me, balked by a sports racer. I did my best to deal with increasing understeer, but I could only manage a 1:21. Meanwhile Scott had passed the sports racer and
was turning 1:19s in pursuit of me. He passed me with only a few laps to go, and I finished 3rd, just 5 seconds behind him.After the race it became clear why the car had been understeering. The left front tire had just about shredded, losing a significant portion of its tread. But this wasn’t an entirely bad thing. While it was happening, I felt as though I learned (or re-learned) a lot about driving the car. I tried to compensate for the loss of traction by turning in to the corner a little earlier, so I could turn the wheel a little less abruptly. That not only made
the car turn better, it also made the car handle much more neutrally than it had been doing. The back end was finally sliding as much as the front, which is what I had been struggling to make happen since 2006. I was probably as spent as that tire, but I felt so much better about everything that nothing really seemed to matter.That would have been a terrifically high note to end the season, but there was still one more race to go.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Catching Up in 3 Parts
Amazing thing, inertia. You can keep a thing going with so little effort, but take a brief break and it’s like pulling teeth to get going again. Once you’re rolling, you wonder why you stopped in the first place.
After the Firecracker in July, we had a two-month layoff before the Kettle Moraine Double Regional at Road America. It was an agonizing two months. The car was begging to be worked on, and I was itching to get back out. Of course, I didn’t touch the car at all for seven and a half weeks. Thursday night before the race, I finally got out to the garage to at least look at the car.
It rained Friday night, so I waited until Saturday morning to load the car. Of course, it was still raining in the morning, so the car and I got wet anyway. I got to the track bright and early (and wet) to find a line of cars waiting for Tech Inspection. Several people were milling about inside the Tech shelter, drinking coffee and not doing a whole lot of anything else. One car sat at the front of the line with nobody looking at it for nearly an hour. The next car in line was being inspected by two or three people for well over an hour. The owner of the CFF in front of me finally pointed out to the coffee drinking people that he and I were in group 2 and would miss our session if someone didn’t put down their coffee and help us soon. About ten minutes later, an inspector came over to look at his car. When he was done, he left. I then watched as two other inspectors began to check the Corvette in line behind me. When an inspector finally came back to me some fifteen minutes later, I informed him that I was now definitely going to miss my qualifying session because I had been waiting for so long while everyone stood around not inspecting my car. He finally handed me my tech sticker as my group was hitting the track. Thanks. That was a great way to start the weekend.
With my qualifying session wasted, all I could do was wait for the race and watch everything get wet. My clothes were all so completely soaked that I had to call my girlfriend to bring me something dry to wear. Fortunately, she did. And she didn’t even make me buy her breakfast.
The weather was a bit chilly, so I decided to wear my old three-layer driver’s suit rather than my newer, lighter-weight, breathable suit. That turned out to be a bad choice. When I got in the car, I couldn’t even buckle the lap belt! The old suit was so much bulkier than the new one that the belts were about an inch away from each other. So we each grabbed a belt and pulled… and as soon as my back popped, the belts snapped into place. Ouch.
As we lined up on the grid, a fog descended that was so thick the corner workers could not see from one corner to the next. We had to sit on the grid for several minutes (getting wet) until the fog lifted enough that the workers were confident that they would not lose any cars in the mist. I appreciated their caution, even though I got wetter because of the wait.
Because I had never raced in the rain at Road America, and I had no practice session in the morning, I had no idea what to expect. I started very conservatively and tried to gradually bring my lap times down from the 4-minute range to something approaching 3:30. I watched as my position marker counted down: 23… 19… 17… I hadn’t passed a single car, but people were having a tough time staying on the track. Finally I passed a pair of more modern Formula Fords. The newer cars are sprung so stiff that they can’t get much traction in the rain. The older Club Fords have much more compliant suspensions, so they can deal with reduced traction much more effectively. I finished 12th overall and 5th in CFF, mostly due to attrition and spins in front of me. All that mattered to me was that I had brought my car back in one piece, without ever leaving the track.
Sunday was more of the same, though thankfully without the Tech scene or the belt drama. I got a little more used to the RA rain line, which holds a couple of surprises. Corner 7, the Kink, and corner 13 (all flat out in the dry) require some braking in the rain. The entrance to the Carousel has a very slick patch, followed by a lot of traction. The tricky part is that there is no visual indication where one ends and the other begins. If you turn the wheel too early, the front wheels lose traction and slide straight ahead until they hit the grippy bit, which suddenly throws the front end of the car sideways. The rear tires are still on the slippery part, so they start sliding the other way, which is very exciting. The car goes from pure understeer to scary oversteer in a heartbeat. The exit of the Carousel is almost as bad, but the track goes from having almost as much traction as in the dry to a bit of a slippery patch. The transition is much more gradual, so you just start to become aware that the car is starting to slide. You can modulate the throttle to keep it from getting away from you, or you can plan for it and leave yourself a car width of track at the exit.
The race would have been called uneventful except that I picked up two positions on the last lap. Ian Lenhart was leading in CFF, with Garey Guzman in second place. Ian went off and got stuck in the gravel trap at corner 3, and Garey spun in the Carousel (apparently a victim of the slippery/grippy surprise). I finished 4th in CFF, which was good enough for a trophy.
TRO Manufacturing Central Division Championship Series points:
John Haydon - 70
R. Hall - 40
P. Kingham - 28
A. Murray - 25
D. Harmison - 24
S. Beeler - 20
P. Wood - 18
J. Tovo - 18
G. Guzman - 18
I. Lenhart 17
M. Green - 16
C. Smith - 11
C. Rehder - 7
With only 28 more points left to earn, that would seem to be a wrap for the season! But we can't let it end like that. Stay tuned.
After the Firecracker in July, we had a two-month layoff before the Kettle Moraine Double Regional at Road America. It was an agonizing two months. The car was begging to be worked on, and I was itching to get back out. Of course, I didn’t touch the car at all for seven and a half weeks. Thursday night before the race, I finally got out to the garage to at least look at the car.
It rained Friday night, so I waited until Saturday morning to load the car. Of course, it was still raining in the morning, so the car and I got wet anyway. I got to the track bright and early (and wet) to find a line of cars waiting for Tech Inspection. Several people were milling about inside the Tech shelter, drinking coffee and not doing a whole lot of anything else. One car sat at the front of the line with nobody looking at it for nearly an hour. The next car in line was being inspected by two or three people for well over an hour. The owner of the CFF in front of me finally pointed out to the coffee drinking people that he and I were in group 2 and would miss our session if someone didn’t put down their coffee and help us soon. About ten minutes later, an inspector came over to look at his car. When he was done, he left. I then watched as two other inspectors began to check the Corvette in line behind me. When an inspector finally came back to me some fifteen minutes later, I informed him that I was now definitely going to miss my qualifying session because I had been waiting for so long while everyone stood around not inspecting my car. He finally handed me my tech sticker as my group was hitting the track. Thanks. That was a great way to start the weekend.
With my qualifying session wasted, all I could do was wait for the race and watch everything get wet. My clothes were all so completely soaked that I had to call my girlfriend to bring me something dry to wear. Fortunately, she did. And she didn’t even make me buy her breakfast.
The weather was a bit chilly, so I decided to wear my old three-layer driver’s suit rather than my newer, lighter-weight, breathable suit. That turned out to be a bad choice. When I got in the car, I couldn’t even buckle the lap belt! The old suit was so much bulkier than the new one that the belts were about an inch away from each other. So we each grabbed a belt and pulled… and as soon as my back popped, the belts snapped into place. Ouch.
As we lined up on the grid, a fog descended that was so thick the corner workers could not see from one corner to the next. We had to sit on the grid for several minutes (getting wet) until the fog lifted enough that the workers were confident that they would not lose any cars in the mist. I appreciated their caution, even though I got wetter because of the wait.Because I had never raced in the rain at Road America, and I had no practice session in the morning, I had no idea what to expect. I started very conservatively and tried to gradually bring my lap times down from the 4-minute range to something approaching 3:30. I watched as my position marker counted down: 23… 19… 17… I hadn’t passed a single car, but people were having a tough time staying on the track. Finally I passed a pair of more modern Formula Fords. The newer cars are sprung so stiff that they can’t get much traction in the rain. The older Club Fords have much more compliant suspensions, so they can deal with reduced traction much more effectively. I finished 12th overall and 5th in CFF, mostly due to attrition and spins in front of me. All that mattered to me was that I had brought my car back in one piece, without ever leaving the track.
Sunday was more of the same, though thankfully without the Tech scene or the belt drama. I got a little more used to the RA rain line, which holds a couple of surprises. Corner 7, the Kink, and corner 13 (all flat out in the dry) require some braking in the rain. The entrance to the Carousel has a very slick patch, followed by a lot of traction. The tricky part is that there is no visual indication where one ends and the other begins. If you turn the wheel too early, the front wheels lose traction and slide straight ahead until they hit the grippy bit, which suddenly throws the front end of the car sideways. The rear tires are still on the slippery part, so they start sliding the other way, which is very exciting. The car goes from pure understeer to scary oversteer in a heartbeat. The exit of the Carousel is almost as bad, but the track goes from having almost as much traction as in the dry to a bit of a slippery patch. The transition is much more gradual, so you just start to become aware that the car is starting to slide. You can modulate the throttle to keep it from getting away from you, or you can plan for it and leave yourself a car width of track at the exit.
The race would have been called uneventful except that I picked up two positions on the last lap. Ian Lenhart was leading in CFF, with Garey Guzman in second place. Ian went off and got stuck in the gravel trap at corner 3, and Garey spun in the Carousel (apparently a victim of the slippery/grippy surprise). I finished 4th in CFF, which was good enough for a trophy.
TRO Manufacturing Central Division Championship Series points:
John Haydon - 70
R. Hall - 40
P. Kingham - 28
A. Murray - 25
D. Harmison - 24
S. Beeler - 20
P. Wood - 18
J. Tovo - 18
G. Guzman - 18
I. Lenhart 17
M. Green - 16
C. Smith - 11
C. Rehder - 7
With only 28 more points left to earn, that would seem to be a wrap for the season! But we can't let it end like that. Stay tuned.
Friday, August 01, 2008
Firecracker Double
July 12-13 was a double Regional race at Blackhawk known as the "Firecracker". Saturday morning was very damp from soaking rains overnight (which created a fun little moat in my paddock space), but most of us went out on dry tires for the first session. I still don't know why any of us thought that was a good idea. None of us turned a respectable lap time in that session, and a few of us came perilously close to writing off our cars completely. Yes, my hand is raised.
The track was dry for the afternoon qualifying session, so all of us dropped our times dramatically. I qualified toward the back of the pack, but I'll need to check my excuse file to tell you why. Here we go: I was having an off weekend, the weather was hot, the sun was in my eyes, and the goldfish ate my homework. I certainly can't blame the car. It was begging to go faster.
During Saturday's race I tried to keep up with Pete Wood while he tried to pressure Bob Hall into making a mistake. Neither of us succeeded. Pete was in much better shape than I was, so it was all I could do to keep him in sight while the leaders drove off into the distance. For some reason, Pete slowed down towards the end of the race. That only made me drive faster (and beat my qualifying time by 2 seconds), but I still couldn't catch him until just after the finish line.
Pete had somewhere else to be on Sunday, so I had to find another rabbit to chase that day. Fortunately, Tom Stillwell fit the bill very well. I chased his white Swift for several laps, and he helped me to come within a half second of my fast time from Saturday. I had a lot of fun that session. I always think it's a lot more fun to chase a quick car than to just run laps alone, even if the car you’re chasing is too aerodynamic to give you much of a tow.
I got a fairly good start in the race, and on the second lap I was right on Bob Hall's gearbox through corner 5. Unfortunately, his off-track excursions during qualifying had damaged the fasteners on the nose cone of his car, and the nose actually came off as we exited corner 6. It was an amazing sight. The nose seemed to dance in the air, climbing and tumbling high enough and long enough that three of us drove under it before it came back down. The trouble was, I was completely mesmerized by it. By the time I finally peeled my eyes off of it, Bob had opened up a lead of at least five car lengths. I might have been able to stay with him (yes, that's a stretch, but humor me), but after that mistake there was no way for me to catch him. I had to settle for a 5th and a 4th for the weekend.
This was the first weekend that had more than two CFF competitors, and the standings for the TRO Manufacturing Central Division Regional Championship suddenly had a lot more depth than before.
John Haydon - 56
P. Kingham - 28
A. Murray - 25
D. Harmison - 24
R. Hall - 20
M. Green - 16
C. Smith - 11
P. Wood - 8
The track was dry for the afternoon qualifying session, so all of us dropped our times dramatically. I qualified toward the back of the pack, but I'll need to check my excuse file to tell you why. Here we go: I was having an off weekend, the weather was hot, the sun was in my eyes, and the goldfish ate my homework. I certainly can't blame the car. It was begging to go faster.
During Saturday's race I tried to keep up with Pete Wood while he tried to pressure Bob Hall into making a mistake. Neither of us succeeded. Pete was in much better shape than I was, so it was all I could do to keep him in sight while the leaders drove off into the distance. For some reason, Pete slowed down towards the end of the race. That only made me drive faster (and beat my qualifying time by 2 seconds), but I still couldn't catch him until just after the finish line.Pete had somewhere else to be on Sunday, so I had to find another rabbit to chase that day. Fortunately, Tom Stillwell fit the bill very well. I chased his white Swift for several laps, and he helped me to come within a half second of my fast time from Saturday. I had a lot of fun that session. I always think it's a lot more fun to chase a quick car than to just run laps alone, even if the car you’re chasing is too aerodynamic to give you much of a tow.
I got a fairly good start in the race, and on the second lap I was right on Bob Hall's gearbox through corner 5. Unfortunately, his off-track excursions during qualifying had damaged the fasteners on the nose cone of his car, and the nose actually came off as we exited corner 6. It was an amazing sight. The nose seemed to dance in the air, climbing and tumbling high enough and long enough that three of us drove under it before it came back down. The trouble was, I was completely mesmerized by it. By the time I finally peeled my eyes off of it, Bob had opened up a lead of at least five car lengths. I might have been able to stay with him (yes, that's a stretch, but humor me), but after that mistake there was no way for me to catch him. I had to settle for a 5th and a 4th for the weekend.
This was the first weekend that had more than two CFF competitors, and the standings for the TRO Manufacturing Central Division Regional Championship suddenly had a lot more depth than before.
John Haydon - 56
P. Kingham - 28
A. Murray - 25
D. Harmison - 24
R. Hall - 20
M. Green - 16
C. Smith - 11
P. Wood - 8
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Road America Video
Here is a quick (24 minute) video from the Road America race on May 31. For some reason, the camera cut out a couple of laps from the end... just as I was beginning to catch Bill Bonow.
I also have video from the double Regional race at Blackhawk on July 12 & 13, but that's another post.
Monday, June 02, 2008
Results, I've Had a Few
The first race weekend at Blackhawk in April was a two-day drivers' school followed by a Regional race on Sunday. Only one other CFF showed, and he qualified two spots behind me. I think he got caught up in traffic on the start because I didn't see him for most of the race. But around the halfway point, just when I was starting to curse myself for never actually getting around to exercising like I had planned, I noticed a distant speck in my mirror. The speck was getting closer, gaining a little on me every lap. After a few more laps I could see that it was a red car like the other CFF. I tried to calculate how many laps he would need to overtake me, and if there was any way I could hold him off long enough. At the start of the last lap, it was clear that it would be a close finish. I tried to put the other car out of my mind so I could concentrate on driving as well as I possibly could. Finally, coming into the last corner, he was close enough that I could see the car more clearly. It was not the other CFF, but Jeff Primm, a student of mine driving an FF. I had been coaching him throughout the day, and he was doing a great job of putting my advice into practice! We drag-raced to the finish, and he got me by a quarter of a second. The other CFF finished about 16 seconds behind me. But once again, the big story was Bruce Lindstrand. He test-drove a customer's 1998 Van Diemen FF, starting at the back of the pack after the green flag, and worked his way up to second overall, winning FF and lapping everyone up to 4th place.
On Memorial Day weekend, we went to Grattan for a double Regional. This weekend was the first two rounds of the 2008 East-West FF/CFF Challenge, but turnout was surprisingly light. Four FFs and 7 CFFs entered. I blame the long drive for my 5th place (8th overall) finish on Saturday. This weekend also had a little twist. Usually the race grid is determined by the fastest lap time turned during qualifying, but this time the Sunday morning qualifying session was a 7-lap sprint race, and the finishing order would determine the grid for the race. I managed to get a great start, passing two CFFs and lining up behind Bruce Lindstrand in the LMI Tiga (the car had stickier tires than are allowed in CFF, so he ran in FF). Steve Beeler in a Lola and Joe Marcinski in another Tiga were right behind me for a couple of laps, but when I failed to capitalize on a (rare) misstep by Lindstrand, Beeler took advantage of my error and passed us both. Lindstrand passed him back before Marcinski passed both me and Beeler for third. I finished 5th again, but that sprint was so much fun I didn't care. I was also testing a new video camera that weekend, and fortunately the one session I managed to make it work was the qualifying sprint.
The race was a bit weird. Beeler shot up the middle at the start and ran away with the two leaders. I tried to keep up with Marcinski but I couldn't keep up the pace and finally let him go. When I realized I had nobody to chase or to defend against, I slowed a little bit and just waited for the last lap. Suddenly, the last corner on the last lap was showing a waving yellow flag. I lifted off the throttle slightly in case I had to stop or avoid a spinning car, but when I crested the hill I saw Beeler coasting, out of gas. I put my foot down and passed him for 4th. In impound, I learned that Dave Harmison's Royale had overheated and dropped out after 3 laps, which would have given me 3rd place. But the results sheet showed Beeler in 3rd and me in 4th. I couldn't understand it. I had passed Beeler well before the flag stand, so why did the results show that he had crossed the finish line a full second before I had? Cindy Lindstrand investigated and was reminded that at Grattan, the finish line is actually about 100 yards before the starter's stand. Beeler had crossed the line before me. I only beat him to the starter's stand.
One quick turnaround later, and it was time for a double Regional at Road America. We had a fair group, with 23 cars total, but again only 2 CFFs. Alan Murray was having a hard time getting back in the groove in his Crossle, and he started the weekend in bad shape: registration mishaps, a late start (he got to the track just as we were about to start the qualifying session), and a misfire above 4000 rpm -- and that was all before lunch on Saturday, so he would start the race at the back of the grid. Saturday's qualifying session was tough. The track was wet in some places and dry in others. You could come full-bore up the front straight, through 1 and 3, then full-bore down the back straight, but the braking zone for corner 5 was wet. Tiptoe through 5, and you could blast up the hill for 6, full throttle through 7, plenty of traction in 8 and through the carousel -- but the track was wet from the Kink through corner 12. That's a very fast section, so losing traction there was a scary prospect. I managed to turn a 2:47, which was fast enough to grid 10th overall.
I spent most of the race trying to chase down Bill Bonow in an FST and Dan Johnson in an FF as they traded 7th place back and forth for several laps. Suddenly Johnson slowed, and as I passed him I could hear that his engine didn't sound right. Neither did mine, though. It sounded like a diesel truck was tailgating me, which either meant horribly misadjusted valves or a blown exhaust header gasket. I concentrated on chasing down Bonow, whittling down the gap until he also slowed and let me pass, which gave me 7th overall. Sunday's qualifying started off poorly. Murray was ahead of me, but we were stuck in a pack of cars for a few laps. Once traffic cleared, I passed Murray on the front straight and he followed me as I passed a F500 coming into corner 1. He stuck with me through corner 3 and fell back a bit coming into 5. I didn't see him again through the carousel, but I just assumed I had lost him (the Tiga is amazingly stable and quick through the carousel). The next lap, corner 4 was waving yellow. As I crested the hill, I could see two wreckers at the side of the track near the braking zone for 5... pulling Murray's Crossle off the wall. Fortunately, it looked a lot worse than it was. The car had a bent tie rod and four flat-spotted tires, but no other damage, and Alan was unhurt. He told me later he had just jumped on the brakes a little too hard, locking the wheels. Before he had a chance to react, the car was backwards in the wall. I gridded 12th for the race and spent the first few laps playing with Carl Middelegge in an FST. He would draft me on the straights (using my horsepower for a tow) and I would let him pass before the corner, because I knew he could corner much faster than I could. We repeated that trick until he had a solid lead over Bonow in the other FST, when he let me go. I tried to chase down Dan Johnson again, but his car was running much better than it had on Saturday. I cruised to a 6th overall and another win. While Carl and I were playing and trying to chase down the faster cars, I managed to beat my qualifying time by almost 3 seconds (2:39.9), getting me to within 2 seconds of my best time ever. And that's only 7 seconds off the track record. I think I can make that up just in the braking zone for corner 5.
Next stop: Blackhawk, July 12 & 13 for the "Firecracker" double Regional (rounds 3 & 4 of the East-West Challenge series)
On Memorial Day weekend, we went to Grattan for a double Regional. This weekend was the first two rounds of the 2008 East-West FF/CFF Challenge, but turnout was surprisingly light. Four FFs and 7 CFFs entered. I blame the long drive for my 5th place (8th overall) finish on Saturday. This weekend also had a little twist. Usually the race grid is determined by the fastest lap time turned during qualifying, but this time the Sunday morning qualifying session was a 7-lap sprint race, and the finishing order would determine the grid for the race. I managed to get a great start, passing two CFFs and lining up behind Bruce Lindstrand in the LMI Tiga (the car had stickier tires than are allowed in CFF, so he ran in FF). Steve Beeler in a Lola and Joe Marcinski in another Tiga were right behind me for a couple of laps, but when I failed to capitalize on a (rare) misstep by Lindstrand, Beeler took advantage of my error and passed us both. Lindstrand passed him back before Marcinski passed both me and Beeler for third. I finished 5th again, but that sprint was so much fun I didn't care. I was also testing a new video camera that weekend, and fortunately the one session I managed to make it work was the qualifying sprint.
The race was a bit weird. Beeler shot up the middle at the start and ran away with the two leaders. I tried to keep up with Marcinski but I couldn't keep up the pace and finally let him go. When I realized I had nobody to chase or to defend against, I slowed a little bit and just waited for the last lap. Suddenly, the last corner on the last lap was showing a waving yellow flag. I lifted off the throttle slightly in case I had to stop or avoid a spinning car, but when I crested the hill I saw Beeler coasting, out of gas. I put my foot down and passed him for 4th. In impound, I learned that Dave Harmison's Royale had overheated and dropped out after 3 laps, which would have given me 3rd place. But the results sheet showed Beeler in 3rd and me in 4th. I couldn't understand it. I had passed Beeler well before the flag stand, so why did the results show that he had crossed the finish line a full second before I had? Cindy Lindstrand investigated and was reminded that at Grattan, the finish line is actually about 100 yards before the starter's stand. Beeler had crossed the line before me. I only beat him to the starter's stand.
One quick turnaround later, and it was time for a double Regional at Road America. We had a fair group, with 23 cars total, but again only 2 CFFs. Alan Murray was having a hard time getting back in the groove in his Crossle, and he started the weekend in bad shape: registration mishaps, a late start (he got to the track just as we were about to start the qualifying session), and a misfire above 4000 rpm -- and that was all before lunch on Saturday, so he would start the race at the back of the grid. Saturday's qualifying session was tough. The track was wet in some places and dry in others. You could come full-bore up the front straight, through 1 and 3, then full-bore down the back straight, but the braking zone for corner 5 was wet. Tiptoe through 5, and you could blast up the hill for 6, full throttle through 7, plenty of traction in 8 and through the carousel -- but the track was wet from the Kink through corner 12. That's a very fast section, so losing traction there was a scary prospect. I managed to turn a 2:47, which was fast enough to grid 10th overall.
I spent most of the race trying to chase down Bill Bonow in an FST and Dan Johnson in an FF as they traded 7th place back and forth for several laps. Suddenly Johnson slowed, and as I passed him I could hear that his engine didn't sound right. Neither did mine, though. It sounded like a diesel truck was tailgating me, which either meant horribly misadjusted valves or a blown exhaust header gasket. I concentrated on chasing down Bonow, whittling down the gap until he also slowed and let me pass, which gave me 7th overall. Sunday's qualifying started off poorly. Murray was ahead of me, but we were stuck in a pack of cars for a few laps. Once traffic cleared, I passed Murray on the front straight and he followed me as I passed a F500 coming into corner 1. He stuck with me through corner 3 and fell back a bit coming into 5. I didn't see him again through the carousel, but I just assumed I had lost him (the Tiga is amazingly stable and quick through the carousel). The next lap, corner 4 was waving yellow. As I crested the hill, I could see two wreckers at the side of the track near the braking zone for 5... pulling Murray's Crossle off the wall. Fortunately, it looked a lot worse than it was. The car had a bent tie rod and four flat-spotted tires, but no other damage, and Alan was unhurt. He told me later he had just jumped on the brakes a little too hard, locking the wheels. Before he had a chance to react, the car was backwards in the wall. I gridded 12th for the race and spent the first few laps playing with Carl Middelegge in an FST. He would draft me on the straights (using my horsepower for a tow) and I would let him pass before the corner, because I knew he could corner much faster than I could. We repeated that trick until he had a solid lead over Bonow in the other FST, when he let me go. I tried to chase down Dan Johnson again, but his car was running much better than it had on Saturday. I cruised to a 6th overall and another win. While Carl and I were playing and trying to chase down the faster cars, I managed to beat my qualifying time by almost 3 seconds (2:39.9), getting me to within 2 seconds of my best time ever. And that's only 7 seconds off the track record. I think I can make that up just in the braking zone for corner 5.
Next stop: Blackhawk, July 12 & 13 for the "Firecracker" double Regional (rounds 3 & 4 of the East-West Challenge series)
Monday, March 10, 2008
Rats
After several months of wondering and waiting for schedules to be published, and after a few more weeks of planning and nail-biting and revising plans, I finally posted a tentative schedule, thinking that all of the events had been confirmed. Silly me. Two days after posting it, races were cancelled and race series changed. Next year I'll post my plans in November and see if the "last-minute" changes happen any sooner.
Now I'm down to just 10 races over 6 weekends:
April 27: SCCA Regional, Blackhawk Farms Raceway, South Beloit, IL (TRO Champ Series)
May 24-25: SCCA Double Regional, Grattan Raceway, Belding, MI (East-West Challenge Series)
May 31-June 1: SCCA Double Regional, Road America, Elkhart Lake, WI (TRO Champ Series)
July 12-13: SCCA Double Regional, Blackhawk Farms Raceway, So. Beloit, IL (EWC and TRO)
Sept 13-14: SCCA Double Regional, Road America, Elkhart Lake, WI (EWC and TRO)
Oct 18-19: SCCA Regional, Blackhawk Farms, So. Beloit, WI (TRO Champ Series)
I wish I could run more events at Road America or Grattan, but neither track has any more SCCA Regional or Midwestern Council events scheduled. I'm also very disappointed that neither series will be stopping at GingerMan or the Milwaukee Mile. There are a half-dozen racetracks within 100 miles of Chicago, yet each sanctioning body is only running two of them! What gives??
Now I'm down to just 10 races over 6 weekends:
April 27: SCCA Regional, Blackhawk Farms Raceway, South Beloit, IL (TRO Champ Series)
May 24-25: SCCA Double Regional, Grattan Raceway, Belding, MI (East-West Challenge Series)
May 31-June 1: SCCA Double Regional, Road America, Elkhart Lake, WI (TRO Champ Series)
July 12-13: SCCA Double Regional, Blackhawk Farms Raceway, So. Beloit, IL (EWC and TRO)
Sept 13-14: SCCA Double Regional, Road America, Elkhart Lake, WI (EWC and TRO)
Oct 18-19: SCCA Regional, Blackhawk Farms, So. Beloit, WI (TRO Champ Series)
I wish I could run more events at Road America or Grattan, but neither track has any more SCCA Regional or Midwestern Council events scheduled. I'm also very disappointed that neither series will be stopping at GingerMan or the Milwaukee Mile. There are a half-dozen racetracks within 100 miles of Chicago, yet each sanctioning body is only running two of them! What gives??
Friday, February 22, 2008
Hibernation
Have I mentioned that I am not a fan of winter? I'm not. Especially winters where the snowfall total is more than I am tall, the windchills are below zero for days at a time, and even the plow trucks get stuck. Winter Wonderland? Sure, if by "wonder" you mean “I wonder if I’ll make it to work today… I wonder when I’ll feel my toes again… I wonder if I should buy a few more sets of long underwear... I wonder if I still have ears...”
Our one-year-old snowblower is going to need a major overhaul if summer ever comes, because it has seen some very hard use this winter. I think the racecar has seen less abuse in 30 years than the snowblower has seen in 3 months. I should be thankful that snowblowers don’t have logbooks. That would be an embarrassing read: “Crashed into ice-packed snowbank; repair auger hood damage before next snowfall… Stalled by choking on heavy snow; check engine case for cracks before next storm… Rolled, total damage to everything, tech sticker pulled…”
Last Sunday was a refreshing change. Instead of shoveling ice and snow, I spent the day shoveling ice and water. The mercury finally poked its head up over the 30 degree mark as a warm (storm) front came through town. For the first time in months, we got rain instead of snow. It was a terrific opportunity to get the two-inch layer of ice off the driveway, but underneath the ice was a lot of water. The rain and melting snow combined to make some epic puddles (which couldn’t get past the snowbanks on either side of the driveway into the soil which was frozen anyway), so I basically worked on corralling the water from the garage to the street, which was also flooded and iced over. I was thrilled with the rain, but I also wasn’t sad when it finally changed to snow in the afternoon.
Fortunately, the warm weather (well, relatively warm) gave me an opportunity to finally get the car up on stands, and just in time too. All that water in the garage has now frozen into a fascinating display of freeze expansion. Depending on your point of view, the garage floor looks either like a 3-D map of the glaciers during the ice age, or like a snapshot of the tide coming in. The ice actually sits up so high that it just touches one of the rear wheels, which is hanging 2 inches off the floor.
That’s enough talk about winter. I’m getting cold.
I mentioned before that this is the first time that I’ve had a running car in my garage during the off-season. I’m used to panicking with a three-page to-do list a couple of weeks before the first event, so this is an unusual situation for me to say the least. I do have a brief list of projects to keep me busy, like fixing some stripped threads on the gearbox and re-doing a hasty exhaust repair, but the car is essentially ready to run. So what do I do now?
My other big area of indecision is in planning the 2008 season. I have a list of events I really want to run, but they don’t really add up to a season. I’m looking at an SCCA Regional here and a Midwestern Council race there, but I’m not leaning towards a commitment to any one series right now. Each group has at least one event that I'm willing to miss the other group's race for, so I won't be running a full season with either group.
Another question mark on the horizon is my license renewal. Because of my abbreviated 2007 season, I ran enough races to renew an SCCA Regional license, but not enough to automatically renew my National license*. For an extra fee I can apply for a waiver to renew my National license, and for another extra fee I can also apply for a waiver to renew my Midwestern Council license. MC will let me run on an SCCA license, but I won’t be awarded any points (which won’t be a big deal if I’m not running the full MC schedule anyway, since I won’t be in the running for a championship).
Here are the not-quite-set-in-concrete, definite maybe events that I’m considering, possibly:
April 19-20 Driver’s School & Race, MC, Blackhawk Farms
April 27 SCCA Regional Race, Blackhawk Farms
May 24-25 SCCA Double Regional, Grattan (MI)
May 31-June 1 SCCA Double Regional, Road America
June 29 MC Race, Blackhawk Farms
July 12-13 SCCA Double Regional, Blackhawk Farms
July 19-20 Driver’s School & Race, MC, Blackhawk Farms
August 9-10 (a busy weekend) MC Race, Blackhawk
(or) SCCA National, Grattan
(or) SCCA Double Regional, Mid-Ohio
August 30-31 SCCA Double Regional, State Fair Park
Sept 13-14 SCCA Double Regional, Road America
Sept 21 MC Race, Blackhawk Farms
Oct 18-19 SCCA Regional, Blackhawk Farms
Oct 25-26 MC Race, Blackhawk Farms
Whoops, that’s 13. Not that I’m superstitious, but let’s put the June 8 MC Race at Autobahn Country Club on the list too.
My only complaint about that calendar is the same as in many other years: The events are clustered, with back-to-back events separated by long gaps. The back-to-back events at Blackhawk are not too tough because the setup doesn’t need to be changed, but going from Grattan to Road America to Autobahn can be tough. In addition to the major wallet strain, you have to schedule a gear change during the week. That isn’t a big deal for some people named Nicole Temple who can change gears in 15 minutes, but when it takes you an entire evening (hi, that’s me), the week gets pretty hectic. Unload the car Sunday night (if it’s not too late), clean the car and get the tools back together Monday night, nut & bolt Tuesday, change gears Wednesday, load the truck Thursday so you can take the car along Friday morning so you can leave from work Friday afternoon. That doesn’t leave much room for actually fixing problems.
But thinking about it again, the first back-to-back like that is the Memorial Day weekend at Grattan followed by a Road America event. RA is so close to home that I wouldn’t have to load the car until Friday night after work, or even Saturday morning (plus we have a holiday on Monday which will help). The trip back home from RA Sunday night will get us home early enough to get everything unloaded and cleaned up so we can start working on the car on Monday. And the next event (MC at Autobahn) is Sunday only, so I could drive down Saturday night or (ungodly early) Sunday morning, so that’s another half-day on my side at least. The other nasty back-to-back is the September Road America event followed by an MC Race at Blackhawk. The MC race is also a one-day (Sunday) event, which gives me Saturday to finish the car, after an early evening the Sunday before. So what am I worried about?
*To renew an SCCA Regional license, SCCA requires completing 2 Regional races. To renew an SCCA National license, SCCA requires 4 Regionals, or 2 Nationals and 1 Regional, or 3 Nationals. I ran 2 Regionals plus 2 MC events which are not officially recognized by SCCA for licensing purposes.
Our one-year-old snowblower is going to need a major overhaul if summer ever comes, because it has seen some very hard use this winter. I think the racecar has seen less abuse in 30 years than the snowblower has seen in 3 months. I should be thankful that snowblowers don’t have logbooks. That would be an embarrassing read: “Crashed into ice-packed snowbank; repair auger hood damage before next snowfall… Stalled by choking on heavy snow; check engine case for cracks before next storm… Rolled, total damage to everything, tech sticker pulled…”
Last Sunday was a refreshing change. Instead of shoveling ice and snow, I spent the day shoveling ice and water. The mercury finally poked its head up over the 30 degree mark as a warm (storm) front came through town. For the first time in months, we got rain instead of snow. It was a terrific opportunity to get the two-inch layer of ice off the driveway, but underneath the ice was a lot of water. The rain and melting snow combined to make some epic puddles (which couldn’t get past the snowbanks on either side of the driveway into the soil which was frozen anyway), so I basically worked on corralling the water from the garage to the street, which was also flooded and iced over. I was thrilled with the rain, but I also wasn’t sad when it finally changed to snow in the afternoon.
Fortunately, the warm weather (well, relatively warm) gave me an opportunity to finally get the car up on stands, and just in time too. All that water in the garage has now frozen into a fascinating display of freeze expansion. Depending on your point of view, the garage floor looks either like a 3-D map of the glaciers during the ice age, or like a snapshot of the tide coming in. The ice actually sits up so high that it just touches one of the rear wheels, which is hanging 2 inches off the floor.
That’s enough talk about winter. I’m getting cold.
I mentioned before that this is the first time that I’ve had a running car in my garage during the off-season. I’m used to panicking with a three-page to-do list a couple of weeks before the first event, so this is an unusual situation for me to say the least. I do have a brief list of projects to keep me busy, like fixing some stripped threads on the gearbox and re-doing a hasty exhaust repair, but the car is essentially ready to run. So what do I do now?
My other big area of indecision is in planning the 2008 season. I have a list of events I really want to run, but they don’t really add up to a season. I’m looking at an SCCA Regional here and a Midwestern Council race there, but I’m not leaning towards a commitment to any one series right now. Each group has at least one event that I'm willing to miss the other group's race for, so I won't be running a full season with either group.
Another question mark on the horizon is my license renewal. Because of my abbreviated 2007 season, I ran enough races to renew an SCCA Regional license, but not enough to automatically renew my National license*. For an extra fee I can apply for a waiver to renew my National license, and for another extra fee I can also apply for a waiver to renew my Midwestern Council license. MC will let me run on an SCCA license, but I won’t be awarded any points (which won’t be a big deal if I’m not running the full MC schedule anyway, since I won’t be in the running for a championship).
Here are the not-quite-set-in-concrete, definite maybe events that I’m considering, possibly:
April 19-20 Driver’s School & Race, MC, Blackhawk Farms
April 27 SCCA Regional Race, Blackhawk Farms
May 24-25 SCCA Double Regional, Grattan (MI)
May 31-June 1 SCCA Double Regional, Road America
June 29 MC Race, Blackhawk Farms
July 12-13 SCCA Double Regional, Blackhawk Farms
July 19-20 Driver’s School & Race, MC, Blackhawk Farms
August 9-10 (a busy weekend) MC Race, Blackhawk
(or) SCCA National, Grattan
(or) SCCA Double Regional, Mid-Ohio
August 30-31 SCCA Double Regional, State Fair Park
Sept 13-14 SCCA Double Regional, Road America
Sept 21 MC Race, Blackhawk Farms
Oct 18-19 SCCA Regional, Blackhawk Farms
Oct 25-26 MC Race, Blackhawk Farms
Whoops, that’s 13. Not that I’m superstitious, but let’s put the June 8 MC Race at Autobahn Country Club on the list too.
My only complaint about that calendar is the same as in many other years: The events are clustered, with back-to-back events separated by long gaps. The back-to-back events at Blackhawk are not too tough because the setup doesn’t need to be changed, but going from Grattan to Road America to Autobahn can be tough. In addition to the major wallet strain, you have to schedule a gear change during the week. That isn’t a big deal for some people named Nicole Temple who can change gears in 15 minutes, but when it takes you an entire evening (hi, that’s me), the week gets pretty hectic. Unload the car Sunday night (if it’s not too late), clean the car and get the tools back together Monday night, nut & bolt Tuesday, change gears Wednesday, load the truck Thursday so you can take the car along Friday morning so you can leave from work Friday afternoon. That doesn’t leave much room for actually fixing problems.
But thinking about it again, the first back-to-back like that is the Memorial Day weekend at Grattan followed by a Road America event. RA is so close to home that I wouldn’t have to load the car until Friday night after work, or even Saturday morning (plus we have a holiday on Monday which will help). The trip back home from RA Sunday night will get us home early enough to get everything unloaded and cleaned up so we can start working on the car on Monday. And the next event (MC at Autobahn) is Sunday only, so I could drive down Saturday night or (ungodly early) Sunday morning, so that’s another half-day on my side at least. The other nasty back-to-back is the September Road America event followed by an MC Race at Blackhawk. The MC race is also a one-day (Sunday) event, which gives me Saturday to finish the car, after an early evening the Sunday before. So what am I worried about?
*To renew an SCCA Regional license, SCCA requires completing 2 Regional races. To renew an SCCA National license, SCCA requires 4 Regionals, or 2 Nationals and 1 Regional, or 3 Nationals. I ran 2 Regionals plus 2 MC events which are not officially recognized by SCCA for licensing purposes.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Catching Up
It's all a blur.
Starting where we left off, Friday (October 26) during lunch I drove to NAPA to pick up the correct bearings. Then the fun began.
If you recall, we had to warm the upright and chill the bearings to loosen the interference fit between them. I put the bearings in the freezer and checked the LP tank on the gas grill at work. Everything was ready to go, but I didn't want to char the uprights or get burger grease on them. Fortunately, we tend to save things here. We had a company lunch a while back, with food from a local restaurant brought in inside pans of heavy aluminum foil. Knowing that the pans would come in handy somehow, we washed and saved the pans and the lids. One lid was the perfect size and shape to wrap the upright to protect it from smoke and hot spots. We fired up the grill and put the upright in to cook for an hour.
Bruce Lindstrand had told me that if I warmed the upright and chilled the bearings, the bearings would slip right in (insert slurping noise here). I confess I'm not used to things going that smoothly. When I hear, "They'll slip right in (slurping noise)," that translates to "You'll only have to fight with them for 15 minutes, not an hour or two." But this was a statement I could have taken at face value. I positioned the first bearing over its hole just to get it ready for the press, but the frost on the bearing made me lose my grip on it, and it fell out of my hand... and slipped right in (slurping noise). We were so thrilled that we flipped the upright over to get the other bearing in from the other side -- and the first bearing slipped right back out. A few minutes of Three Stooges re-enactment later, and both bearings were in. By the time the upright cooled to the point that the bearings would not fall out, it was after 5pm. I wrapped the assembly in racer's tape to ensure that the bearings would still be in the upright when I got home.
Reassembly was only a little more work than disassembly, but not by much. When everything was back together, I spun each axle and listened for any noise. The right axle had a little noise
that seemed to be coming from the inner CV joint, so I took that joint apart to examine it. There was a little wear inside, and a couple of the balls had a little discoloration, so I decided to replace it. First I would need to grease the new joint. Which took a little longer than I anticipated, because I had to look for my grease gun (I'm still unpacking from the move). And the grease gun was empty. No problem, I have more grease in the basement. Twenty minutes later, the grease gun was loaded with fresh grease and so was I. Ten minutes later the new CV joint was installed and the car was on the ground. It was about 9pm at this point, so I was well ahead of schedule. I got the car on the trailer and went to bed.
I think I've mentioned before that I'm not a fan of being in the first group of the day. I'm not a morning person to begin with, and I don't like having to rush to be ready. But the truck was running well and the prior weekend's head wind had died down, so I was able to get to the track by 7am. The good people in Registration and Tech got me through in plenty of time to set up a work area. We got the canopy set up with the sidewalls on (50 degrees with a stiff wind is not nearly as pleasant as 50 degrees with no wind at all), unloaded the truck, and got some hot chocolate.
The first practice session was incident-free. Despite the cold, I turned a 1:21. The engine was very strong -- cold weather typically makes more horsepower than hot weather -- but the cold air seemed to be right at the limit of the carburetor jetting. There was a definite lag getting on the throttle, and the exhaust would pop frequently, but I had no competition, so I wasn't too worried.
We huddled around the car under the canopy during lunch. The warm tires, brakes, and engine were like a campfire in our tent. One quick nut-and-bolt check (and refueling) later, and we were ready for qualifying. The afternoon was slightly warmer than the morning, so the engine was running a bit better and the tires were gripping better. I qualified at a 1:19.6, which put be 8th overall in the group, but the official grid confirmed that I had no competition. I was the only car entered in CFF for this race. Of course I have mixed emotions about that. Every trophy and every win still means a lot to me, and running alone makes for a very relaxing race. On the other hand, it also makes for a boring race, both for me and for anyone I talked into coming to watch. It also means that the average number of entrants in the class is coming down. Still, I needed to run this race in order to keep my license current, so I wasn't about to go home.
We checked over the car before buttoning it up for the night. Everything looked good, but we struggled for a while with the zippers on the sidewalls. The car is just a little bit longer than the canopy is, and the sidewalls are only just barely long enough to go all the way around the canopy -- IF the legs are perfectly vertical. Which they weren't.
It was a bit like another Three Stooges episode. We'd close the zipper a little bit, then it would refuse to budge because the opening was too wide. Then we'd pull up the stakes holding a couple of legs down, move the legs in a bit, stake them back down, and try the zipper again. Better, closer, but still a bit too snug. Pull up the stakes, move the legs in, stake them back down, try the zipper. That one got us another 3/4 of an inch. (Before you yell, "Idiots! Why do you keep pounding the stakes back in before you try the zipper?" Please understand, it was windy. As soon as a stake came up, the canopy began dancing in the wind. We had to get the stakes back in the ground as quickly as we could or we'd lose the whole thing.)
We finally got the zippers almost all the way to the ground and called it good. Driving away, my father remarked that the canopy looked remarkably like a tomb. Yeah, let's not bring up death at a racetrack, okay?
Sunday morning was clear and nowhere near as windy, but we were greeted by a layer of frost
on everything. Thankfully the sun was coming out when we got to the track, so it felt even warmer than Saturday. Unfortunately, that meant the frost on the canopy was melting quickly, and it was dripping on everything. We pushed the car out and left the canopy to dry in the sun.
I warmed up the car, changed into my driver's suit, and waited for the calls to grid. Normally, they will announce three calls to the grid over the PA system. When they give "third and final call," they will often warn that the grid will close soon (typically 5 minutes). Anyone who is not on the grid when the grid closes will lose his starting position and will have to start the race from the back of the grid.
The PA was eerily silent. Several of us were standing around, wondering out loud when the grid calls would start. Finally, about 5 minutes before the race was scheduled to start, they gave first call. I walked to the car and suddenly heard an oddly frantic voice over the PA shrieking, "Grid is at 5 minutes!! Grid is at 5 minutes!!" The grid had signalled that the race would begin in 5 minutes. I drove the 50 feet to the grid and was informed that I was late and would have to start at the back. Was this someone's idea of a joke? One grid call, and then we're suddenly late? What happened to second call, third call, and the warning that the grid was closed?
Actually, I wasn't that close to the back. Only four or five cars had made it to the grid "on time." The rest of us were being lined up as we came, and at least four cars were behind me. Suddenly I was very glad that I didn't have any competition. If I had been trying to beat someone, I'd have been furious. Or at least as upset as my dad was. I actually had to try to calm him down while I waited for the pace lap to start.
For the start of the pace lap, cars pull out from the grid and stop on the front straight as they wait for the rest of the field to line up behind them. Once the entire field is lined up on the front straight, the pace car pulls out to start the pace lap. I waited for the cars behind me (maybe it's more than four, this is taking a while) and saw the pace car pull away. The cars in front of me began to move, I went to pull away -- and stalled the car. I have never done that before -- have I? Maybe once before. Or twice. But not in the last 5 years, certainly. I think. I got the car started again and rejoined the field for what was perhaps the fastest pace lap of my life. Nobody had a chance to scrub tires or warm their brakes, but I'm sure we warmed up the track a bit.
The grid mix-up had put me behind several FVs and FSTs, which I decided to use for entertainment. I would gradually pull up behind a slower car and watch the driver's technique, looking for any little tricks that I haven't seen before. I learned a few new lines through some corners (not all of them successful), but after a corner or two behind each car I would begin to look for the safest and easiest place to pass. Some were easy to pass, either under acceleration or braking. Some drivers nearly pulled over and stopped to let me pass. When I finally reached the F500 which should have been gridded behind me, I realized that I was working very hard to pass him and even harder to keep him behind me. Since we were running in different classes, I let him re-pass me, choosing an easy finish over a potential mistake.
Two cars did make the kind of mistake I was trying to avoid. An F500 and an FST tangled in corner 6 on the first lap. The FST was one of the few cars who had made it to the grid on time, but his qualifying time was the slowest of the group. It appeared that the F500 (who had not made it to the grid on time) may have been trying too hard to pass the slower car, or at least may not have realized how much slower the other car was. Both cars were unable to continue.
I settled in behind the F500 and concentrated on running a conservative race. My fastest lap time in the race was a 1:20.4, which was likely when I was trying to chase down the F500. Most of my laps during the second half of the race were in the 1:22 to 1:23 range. But I finished the race and set a new record -- for the first time, I finished the last race of the season with a car that will not need any repairs over the winter.
While we were resting after the race, a photographer approached me and told me he had been looking for me for two years. He had taken pictures of my victory lap at this same event in 2005, but he hadn't seen me since.
He only needed to look on my couch; I was there pretty much the whole time.
Starting where we left off, Friday (October 26) during lunch I drove to NAPA to pick up the correct bearings. Then the fun began.
If you recall, we had to warm the upright and chill the bearings to loosen the interference fit between them. I put the bearings in the freezer and checked the LP tank on the gas grill at work. Everything was ready to go, but I didn't want to char the uprights or get burger grease on them. Fortunately, we tend to save things here. We had a company lunch a while back, with food from a local restaurant brought in inside pans of heavy aluminum foil. Knowing that the pans would come in handy somehow, we washed and saved the pans and the lids. One lid was the perfect size and shape to wrap the upright to protect it from smoke and hot spots. We fired up the grill and put the upright in to cook for an hour.
Bruce Lindstrand had told me that if I warmed the upright and chilled the bearings, the bearings would slip right in (insert slurping noise here). I confess I'm not used to things going that smoothly. When I hear, "They'll slip right in (slurping noise)," that translates to "You'll only have to fight with them for 15 minutes, not an hour or two." But this was a statement I could have taken at face value. I positioned the first bearing over its hole just to get it ready for the press, but the frost on the bearing made me lose my grip on it, and it fell out of my hand... and slipped right in (slurping noise). We were so thrilled that we flipped the upright over to get the other bearing in from the other side -- and the first bearing slipped right back out. A few minutes of Three Stooges re-enactment later, and both bearings were in. By the time the upright cooled to the point that the bearings would not fall out, it was after 5pm. I wrapped the assembly in racer's tape to ensure that the bearings would still be in the upright when I got home.
Reassembly was only a little more work than disassembly, but not by much. When everything was back together, I spun each axle and listened for any noise. The right axle had a little noise
that seemed to be coming from the inner CV joint, so I took that joint apart to examine it. There was a little wear inside, and a couple of the balls had a little discoloration, so I decided to replace it. First I would need to grease the new joint. Which took a little longer than I anticipated, because I had to look for my grease gun (I'm still unpacking from the move). And the grease gun was empty. No problem, I have more grease in the basement. Twenty minutes later, the grease gun was loaded with fresh grease and so was I. Ten minutes later the new CV joint was installed and the car was on the ground. It was about 9pm at this point, so I was well ahead of schedule. I got the car on the trailer and went to bed.I think I've mentioned before that I'm not a fan of being in the first group of the day. I'm not a morning person to begin with, and I don't like having to rush to be ready. But the truck was running well and the prior weekend's head wind had died down, so I was able to get to the track by 7am. The good people in Registration and Tech got me through in plenty of time to set up a work area. We got the canopy set up with the sidewalls on (50 degrees with a stiff wind is not nearly as pleasant as 50 degrees with no wind at all), unloaded the truck, and got some hot chocolate.
The first practice session was incident-free. Despite the cold, I turned a 1:21. The engine was very strong -- cold weather typically makes more horsepower than hot weather -- but the cold air seemed to be right at the limit of the carburetor jetting. There was a definite lag getting on the throttle, and the exhaust would pop frequently, but I had no competition, so I wasn't too worried.
We huddled around the car under the canopy during lunch. The warm tires, brakes, and engine were like a campfire in our tent. One quick nut-and-bolt check (and refueling) later, and we were ready for qualifying. The afternoon was slightly warmer than the morning, so the engine was running a bit better and the tires were gripping better. I qualified at a 1:19.6, which put be 8th overall in the group, but the official grid confirmed that I had no competition. I was the only car entered in CFF for this race. Of course I have mixed emotions about that. Every trophy and every win still means a lot to me, and running alone makes for a very relaxing race. On the other hand, it also makes for a boring race, both for me and for anyone I talked into coming to watch. It also means that the average number of entrants in the class is coming down. Still, I needed to run this race in order to keep my license current, so I wasn't about to go home.
We checked over the car before buttoning it up for the night. Everything looked good, but we struggled for a while with the zippers on the sidewalls. The car is just a little bit longer than the canopy is, and the sidewalls are only just barely long enough to go all the way around the canopy -- IF the legs are perfectly vertical. Which they weren't.
It was a bit like another Three Stooges episode. We'd close the zipper a little bit, then it would refuse to budge because the opening was too wide. Then we'd pull up the stakes holding a couple of legs down, move the legs in a bit, stake them back down, and try the zipper again. Better, closer, but still a bit too snug. Pull up the stakes, move the legs in, stake them back down, try the zipper. That one got us another 3/4 of an inch. (Before you yell, "Idiots! Why do you keep pounding the stakes back in before you try the zipper?" Please understand, it was windy. As soon as a stake came up, the canopy began dancing in the wind. We had to get the stakes back in the ground as quickly as we could or we'd lose the whole thing.)
We finally got the zippers almost all the way to the ground and called it good. Driving away, my father remarked that the canopy looked remarkably like a tomb. Yeah, let's not bring up death at a racetrack, okay?
Sunday morning was clear and nowhere near as windy, but we were greeted by a layer of frost
on everything. Thankfully the sun was coming out when we got to the track, so it felt even warmer than Saturday. Unfortunately, that meant the frost on the canopy was melting quickly, and it was dripping on everything. We pushed the car out and left the canopy to dry in the sun.I warmed up the car, changed into my driver's suit, and waited for the calls to grid. Normally, they will announce three calls to the grid over the PA system. When they give "third and final call," they will often warn that the grid will close soon (typically 5 minutes). Anyone who is not on the grid when the grid closes will lose his starting position and will have to start the race from the back of the grid.
The PA was eerily silent. Several of us were standing around, wondering out loud when the grid calls would start. Finally, about 5 minutes before the race was scheduled to start, they gave first call. I walked to the car and suddenly heard an oddly frantic voice over the PA shrieking, "Grid is at 5 minutes!! Grid is at 5 minutes!!" The grid had signalled that the race would begin in 5 minutes. I drove the 50 feet to the grid and was informed that I was late and would have to start at the back. Was this someone's idea of a joke? One grid call, and then we're suddenly late? What happened to second call, third call, and the warning that the grid was closed?
Actually, I wasn't that close to the back. Only four or five cars had made it to the grid "on time." The rest of us were being lined up as we came, and at least four cars were behind me. Suddenly I was very glad that I didn't have any competition. If I had been trying to beat someone, I'd have been furious. Or at least as upset as my dad was. I actually had to try to calm him down while I waited for the pace lap to start.
For the start of the pace lap, cars pull out from the grid and stop on the front straight as they wait for the rest of the field to line up behind them. Once the entire field is lined up on the front straight, the pace car pulls out to start the pace lap. I waited for the cars behind me (maybe it's more than four, this is taking a while) and saw the pace car pull away. The cars in front of me began to move, I went to pull away -- and stalled the car. I have never done that before -- have I? Maybe once before. Or twice. But not in the last 5 years, certainly. I think. I got the car started again and rejoined the field for what was perhaps the fastest pace lap of my life. Nobody had a chance to scrub tires or warm their brakes, but I'm sure we warmed up the track a bit.
The grid mix-up had put me behind several FVs and FSTs, which I decided to use for entertainment. I would gradually pull up behind a slower car and watch the driver's technique, looking for any little tricks that I haven't seen before. I learned a few new lines through some corners (not all of them successful), but after a corner or two behind each car I would begin to look for the safest and easiest place to pass. Some were easy to pass, either under acceleration or braking. Some drivers nearly pulled over and stopped to let me pass. When I finally reached the F500 which should have been gridded behind me, I realized that I was working very hard to pass him and even harder to keep him behind me. Since we were running in different classes, I let him re-pass me, choosing an easy finish over a potential mistake.
Two cars did make the kind of mistake I was trying to avoid. An F500 and an FST tangled in corner 6 on the first lap. The FST was one of the few cars who had made it to the grid on time, but his qualifying time was the slowest of the group. It appeared that the F500 (who had not made it to the grid on time) may have been trying too hard to pass the slower car, or at least may not have realized how much slower the other car was. Both cars were unable to continue.
I settled in behind the F500 and concentrated on running a conservative race. My fastest lap time in the race was a 1:20.4, which was likely when I was trying to chase down the F500. Most of my laps during the second half of the race were in the 1:22 to 1:23 range. But I finished the race and set a new record -- for the first time, I finished the last race of the season with a car that will not need any repairs over the winter.
While we were resting after the race, a photographer approached me and told me he had been looking for me for two years. He had taken pictures of my victory lap at this same event in 2005, but he hadn't seen me since.
He only needed to look on my couch; I was there pretty much the whole time.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Losing my Bearings
I forgot the cardinal rule of auto racing: When everything looks like it's falling into place, you've missed something. Put another way, if anything can be described as "too easy", it is.
I purchased replacement bearings (four, in case we damaged any on installation). I took the upright off the car (it came off without any trouble). I packed everything in a box and arranged to take it all to LMI Thursday evening.
The first thing Bruce did was to take the stub axle out of the upright. As soon as he did, he could see that I had purchased the wrong bearings. Nothing about them was correct -- wrong size (by about 1mm on the OD), wrong type (double-row ball instead of single-row ball), and much too wide to fit the upright. He got the old bearings out without much trouble (he makes it look so easy), but there was nothing else we could do. The parts stores were closed, and none of the other cars in the LMI shop use the bearing I needed. I put all the loose parts back in the box and drove home.
The real shame is not that I wasted all that time driving to Darien. I felt worse that I asked Bruce to stay in the shop three hours after they closed so he could help me. But this morning I have an upright with no bearings, and no access to the proper way to install the new bearings once I get them.
The proper way to install bearings in a cast aluminum part is to start by warming the aluminum part to about 300-350 degrees. This makes the bearing bore slightly larger, making it easier to slip the bearing in. Ideally the bearings should also be chilled to shrink them slightly for even more clearance. Finally, a press should be at hand to squeeze the bearings into place. I have two out of those three here at work and at home. We have a press and a freezer at work, but no oven. We have an oven and a freezer at home, but no press. If the bearings arrive in time today, we may try to warm the upright on a gas grill. If not, I'll have to go shopping for a press on my way home tonight. And then I'll have to do a lot of explaining and apologizing for putting my car parts in the oven.
I'm giving myself until midnight tonight. If the car isn't on its wheels by then (or at least making significant progress), I don't think I'll make the race this weekend.
I purchased replacement bearings (four, in case we damaged any on installation). I took the upright off the car (it came off without any trouble). I packed everything in a box and arranged to take it all to LMI Thursday evening.
The first thing Bruce did was to take the stub axle out of the upright. As soon as he did, he could see that I had purchased the wrong bearings. Nothing about them was correct -- wrong size (by about 1mm on the OD), wrong type (double-row ball instead of single-row ball), and much too wide to fit the upright. He got the old bearings out without much trouble (he makes it look so easy), but there was nothing else we could do. The parts stores were closed, and none of the other cars in the LMI shop use the bearing I needed. I put all the loose parts back in the box and drove home.
The real shame is not that I wasted all that time driving to Darien. I felt worse that I asked Bruce to stay in the shop three hours after they closed so he could help me. But this morning I have an upright with no bearings, and no access to the proper way to install the new bearings once I get them.
The proper way to install bearings in a cast aluminum part is to start by warming the aluminum part to about 300-350 degrees. This makes the bearing bore slightly larger, making it easier to slip the bearing in. Ideally the bearings should also be chilled to shrink them slightly for even more clearance. Finally, a press should be at hand to squeeze the bearings into place. I have two out of those three here at work and at home. We have a press and a freezer at work, but no oven. We have an oven and a freezer at home, but no press. If the bearings arrive in time today, we may try to warm the upright on a gas grill. If not, I'll have to go shopping for a press on my way home tonight. And then I'll have to do a lot of explaining and apologizing for putting my car parts in the oven.
I'm giving myself until midnight tonight. If the car isn't on its wheels by then (or at least making significant progress), I don't think I'll make the race this weekend.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Getting My Bearings
The good people at Lindstrand Motorsports have helped me identify the mysterious noises I thought I was hearing. The noises were real, and they were the result of worn wheel bearings. The left rear wheel can be moved about 1/8" up and down, although it is still tight side to side.
The left rear wheel on a formula car is typically the most heavily loaded wheel in road racing. Road racing courses are generally run clockwise, which emphasizes right hand turns. Turning right transfers weight to the outside wheels (the left side), and the rear of the car is heavier than the front, both because of static weight distribution and because weight transfers to the rear wheels under acceleration. I won't speculate on what percentage of the car's weight is carried by the left rear wheel in a right hand turn, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was more than half. This is the same force that ate up the VW wheel hubs I used a couple of years ago.
What appears to have happened is the outer race of the bearing has become egg-shaped (pointy end up) from the extra weight it has been carrying. It hasn't just generally worn out, which would cause the wheel to be loose in every direction. If you put one hand on the tire at 3 o'clock and your other hand at 9 o'clock and push and pull, you won't feel any play. But put your hands at 6 o'clock and 12 o'clock and you can move the wheel up and down with an audible clunk.
The plan for the next few days is to take the upright off tonight so that I can deliver it (and two new bearings) to LMI tomorrow, as Bruce has offered to stay in the shop after hours to help press the old bearings out and install the new ones. Depending on the hour when I get home Thursday night, I may try to get the car back together that night so I can load up Friday night and head to the track Saturday morning. I don't know if I'll make it in time for the first practice session in the morning, but I should be ready for qualifying in the afternoon.
The left rear wheel on a formula car is typically the most heavily loaded wheel in road racing. Road racing courses are generally run clockwise, which emphasizes right hand turns. Turning right transfers weight to the outside wheels (the left side), and the rear of the car is heavier than the front, both because of static weight distribution and because weight transfers to the rear wheels under acceleration. I won't speculate on what percentage of the car's weight is carried by the left rear wheel in a right hand turn, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was more than half. This is the same force that ate up the VW wheel hubs I used a couple of years ago.
What appears to have happened is the outer race of the bearing has become egg-shaped (pointy end up) from the extra weight it has been carrying. It hasn't just generally worn out, which would cause the wheel to be loose in every direction. If you put one hand on the tire at 3 o'clock and your other hand at 9 o'clock and push and pull, you won't feel any play. But put your hands at 6 o'clock and 12 o'clock and you can move the wheel up and down with an audible clunk.
The plan for the next few days is to take the upright off tonight so that I can deliver it (and two new bearings) to LMI tomorrow, as Bruce has offered to stay in the shop after hours to help press the old bearings out and install the new ones. Depending on the hour when I get home Thursday night, I may try to get the car back together that night so I can load up Friday night and head to the track Saturday morning. I don't know if I'll make it in time for the first practice session in the morning, but I should be ready for qualifying in the afternoon.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
That Loooong Race '07
"Couldn't ask for better weather" was the most often heard phrase last weekend. The late October weather in northern Illinois has not been the best for outdoor activities in the past. Rain, cold, wind, bitter cold, snow, and cold are typical conditions for "The Looong Race," but cloudless skies and temperatures in the 70s made the stiff breeze tolerable all weekend.
This was my first race at Blackhawk since losing the oil pump in the rain last May, and I was looking forward to it. Blackhawk is a fun track with a welcoming atmosphere. Pro teams test there, but the track doesn't host any pro events. Unlike other tracks that cater to the pro racer (and to the spectators), Blackhawk hasn't clearcut groves of trees to set up grandstands or paved everything in sight. The creek where I used to catch tadpoles and snails and grasshoppers as a kid is still a creek. The track is still shaded by trees in many areas. Yes, the bathrooms are far from glamorous and we all paddock on grass or gravel, but the place feels more like a park or a picnic area than a business.
Most of the races we run are short sprint races, somewhere around 30 minutes or 50 miles. The Looong Race is a 100 mile race (technically, it's 97 1/2 -- 50 laps around a 1.95 mile track). Many cars stop to refuel (as I would have to do), and many people co-drive the event (as my competition, Mike and Paul Schindlbeck, would do). Most of our races don't involve pit stops, so this race can see some real entertainment in the pits. Unless the race is going to decide a championship, many of us take a fairly laid-back approach to setting up a pit crew. I hadn't actually arranged for a crew to help me refuel, but the great thing about club racing is that I knew could count on someone to help me. My parents were there, and my father agreed to hand me the fuel jug and hold the fire extinguisher ready while I poured in the fuel. That was all I needed, and I only needed enough fuel to make it to the finish.
Practice was relatively uneventful as I got reacquainted with the track. It was amazing how quickly some of the reference points came back, and equally amazing how baffling some of the corners seemed, even at the end of the session. Still, I turned a 1:20.655, which is only a few seconds off my best time. The car ran flawlessly, and I was even able to buckle the belts without holding my breath this time.
Practice didn't go so well for everyone. For some reason, people in fast cars seemed content to follow slower cars for many laps. I caught up to a group of cars including FCs, FFs, a CSR, and a CS2000 (all faster) following a slower car. I was directly behind a Reynard FC, just watching and trying to copy his rhythm, when the CS2 spun entering corner 3A. A couple of cars went right, one car went left, a couple of cars stopped, and the Reynard went off the track to the left. He must have hit a curb on his way out, because the car went bounding over the grass like a huge metal puppy. He came back on the track in front of me, but he slowed and pulled off at corner 4 with a bent suspension.
I shouldn't have put so much emphasis on qualifying, since winning this race would not earn me any points. Only one other CFF was running (Schindlbecks), and I would still get a trophy for second place. They would probably beat me in the pits anyway, since they have co-driven this race in their car more times than I have in all the cars I've driven. But I didn't come to finish second. I worked hard during qualifying, turning a 1:19.7 to Paul Schindlbeck's 1:22.5.
Paul told me during lunch that they had found their two and a half seconds -- the ignition points were badly burned out, keeping the car from making any power above 5000rpm. With the new set of points, he predicted he'd be right on my tail. I didn't doubt him. But what he didn't tell me is that they wouldn't need to refuel. They would only change drivers. That would be a big advantage for them.
The pace lap was incredibly fast. I don't remember the last time I was in 4th gear during a pace lap. (That may have been my fastest lap of the race.) Once the green flag dropped, I tried to settle in to a conservative pace, turning 1:22 laps and driving as smoothly as I could. Traffic spread out almost immediately, which was surprising after the clumps in the morning practice session. Soon I was all alone. No faster cars in sight in front of me, but more surprising, no cars in my mirrors either. Where was Paul, and when would I see him flying past me? I started cursing my decision not to burden my mother with the stopwatch and pit board. I really wanted to know what was going on around me!
A peculiar thing happens when you're all alone with your thoughts in a noisy racecar. The noises seem to change, though it may only be your interpretation of the noises that changes. Every click, every buzz, every pop, and every rattle worries you. Is that clicking sound new? Was that pop the sound of something breaking? Is something wearing out? Is this car going to last the entire race? You can go crazy listening for new sounds, trying to picture just what the sound is, and trying to calculate how much longer you can afford to push it before the sound turns into an explosion.
I started to worry about the gearbox. This was the same race that cost me a transmission in 2005. I had checked the oil level before this race, though, and it was fine. I kept telling myself to concentrate on the track, on the steering, the throttle and brake. But I kept hearing a rattling, popping noise. I kept picturing a tooth broken off of a gear, bouncing around inside the transmission, waiting for just the right moment to jump between two meshed gears and jam everything solid. I actually stopped using first and second gears, thinking that shifting less often would be less strain on the gearbox. Not that it would have helped. If something had broken off and was rattling around, it could have jammed everything regardless of what gear I was in at the time.
I had a very loose plan in place to stop for fuel somewhere around the 25 lap mark. On my 22nd lap, I recognized my fuel jug being waved in the air at the pit wall. But the person waving it was wearing a helmet, and I couldn't figure out who it was! The next lap, the person had taken his helmet off, and I recognized that it was David Cox. I pulled in the next time around and hopped out of the car. I found out later that David had approached my father and offered to do the fueling so I could rest. I'm so thankful that he did. I had forgotten how tiring it is to race for that long.
I pulled out of the pit lane and saw that my lap timer showed a time of 5:49.5. I had lost 4 minutes in the pits -- most of it spent struggling to buckle myself back in the car. I found out later that the Schindlbecks had changed drivers in less than 30 seconds, and their total pit stop, including entering and exiting pit lane, cost them only about one minute. After both pit stops, I was one lap down. I would really have to turn some seriously fast laps to catch them.
Or I could rely on luck. The next thing I knew (which was about 15 laps later), I passed Mike on the track. He was going very slow, and the car didn't sound right. Even with a helmet on, I could see he wasn't happy. Shortly after they had changed drivers, Mike spent about 5 minutes in the pits because the car was overheating. Several laps later -- probably shortly after I passed him -- he pulled back in with a blown head gasket. Their race was done after 35 laps.
I nursed the car to the finish, turning a best lap of 1:21.5. This was my first time ever winning The Looong Race (and only my third time making it to the checkered flag) in 9 tries. I was so worn out at the end, I know the car was in better shape than I was. I could barely hold the checkered flag because my hand was so sore from gripping the steering wheel. I couldn't push the clutch pedal because my foot hurt so badly from bracing myself against the footrest. My eyes were as dry as the Sahara and I could barely hold my head upright. But it felt great.
Now I need to open the gearbox and find out what is going on in there before the last SCCA Regional race of the season at Blackhawk this weekend. Wish me luck.
This was my first race at Blackhawk since losing the oil pump in the rain last May, and I was looking forward to it. Blackhawk is a fun track with a welcoming atmosphere. Pro teams test there, but the track doesn't host any pro events. Unlike other tracks that cater to the pro racer (and to the spectators), Blackhawk hasn't clearcut groves of trees to set up grandstands or paved everything in sight. The creek where I used to catch tadpoles and snails and grasshoppers as a kid is still a creek. The track is still shaded by trees in many areas. Yes, the bathrooms are far from glamorous and we all paddock on grass or gravel, but the place feels more like a park or a picnic area than a business.
Most of the races we run are short sprint races, somewhere around 30 minutes or 50 miles. The Looong Race is a 100 mile race (technically, it's 97 1/2 -- 50 laps around a 1.95 mile track). Many cars stop to refuel (as I would have to do), and many people co-drive the event (as my competition, Mike and Paul Schindlbeck, would do). Most of our races don't involve pit stops, so this race can see some real entertainment in the pits. Unless the race is going to decide a championship, many of us take a fairly laid-back approach to setting up a pit crew. I hadn't actually arranged for a crew to help me refuel, but the great thing about club racing is that I knew could count on someone to help me. My parents were there, and my father agreed to hand me the fuel jug and hold the fire extinguisher ready while I poured in the fuel. That was all I needed, and I only needed enough fuel to make it to the finish.
Practice was relatively uneventful as I got reacquainted with the track. It was amazing how quickly some of the reference points came back, and equally amazing how baffling some of the corners seemed, even at the end of the session. Still, I turned a 1:20.655, which is only a few seconds off my best time. The car ran flawlessly, and I was even able to buckle the belts without holding my breath this time.
Practice didn't go so well for everyone. For some reason, people in fast cars seemed content to follow slower cars for many laps. I caught up to a group of cars including FCs, FFs, a CSR, and a CS2000 (all faster) following a slower car. I was directly behind a Reynard FC, just watching and trying to copy his rhythm, when the CS2 spun entering corner 3A. A couple of cars went right, one car went left, a couple of cars stopped, and the Reynard went off the track to the left. He must have hit a curb on his way out, because the car went bounding over the grass like a huge metal puppy. He came back on the track in front of me, but he slowed and pulled off at corner 4 with a bent suspension.
I shouldn't have put so much emphasis on qualifying, since winning this race would not earn me any points. Only one other CFF was running (Schindlbecks), and I would still get a trophy for second place. They would probably beat me in the pits anyway, since they have co-driven this race in their car more times than I have in all the cars I've driven. But I didn't come to finish second. I worked hard during qualifying, turning a 1:19.7 to Paul Schindlbeck's 1:22.5.
Paul told me during lunch that they had found their two and a half seconds -- the ignition points were badly burned out, keeping the car from making any power above 5000rpm. With the new set of points, he predicted he'd be right on my tail. I didn't doubt him. But what he didn't tell me is that they wouldn't need to refuel. They would only change drivers. That would be a big advantage for them.
The pace lap was incredibly fast. I don't remember the last time I was in 4th gear during a pace lap. (That may have been my fastest lap of the race.) Once the green flag dropped, I tried to settle in to a conservative pace, turning 1:22 laps and driving as smoothly as I could. Traffic spread out almost immediately, which was surprising after the clumps in the morning practice session. Soon I was all alone. No faster cars in sight in front of me, but more surprising, no cars in my mirrors either. Where was Paul, and when would I see him flying past me? I started cursing my decision not to burden my mother with the stopwatch and pit board. I really wanted to know what was going on around me!
A peculiar thing happens when you're all alone with your thoughts in a noisy racecar. The noises seem to change, though it may only be your interpretation of the noises that changes. Every click, every buzz, every pop, and every rattle worries you. Is that clicking sound new? Was that pop the sound of something breaking? Is something wearing out? Is this car going to last the entire race? You can go crazy listening for new sounds, trying to picture just what the sound is, and trying to calculate how much longer you can afford to push it before the sound turns into an explosion.
I started to worry about the gearbox. This was the same race that cost me a transmission in 2005. I had checked the oil level before this race, though, and it was fine. I kept telling myself to concentrate on the track, on the steering, the throttle and brake. But I kept hearing a rattling, popping noise. I kept picturing a tooth broken off of a gear, bouncing around inside the transmission, waiting for just the right moment to jump between two meshed gears and jam everything solid. I actually stopped using first and second gears, thinking that shifting less often would be less strain on the gearbox. Not that it would have helped. If something had broken off and was rattling around, it could have jammed everything regardless of what gear I was in at the time.
I had a very loose plan in place to stop for fuel somewhere around the 25 lap mark. On my 22nd lap, I recognized my fuel jug being waved in the air at the pit wall. But the person waving it was wearing a helmet, and I couldn't figure out who it was! The next lap, the person had taken his helmet off, and I recognized that it was David Cox. I pulled in the next time around and hopped out of the car. I found out later that David had approached my father and offered to do the fueling so I could rest. I'm so thankful that he did. I had forgotten how tiring it is to race for that long.
I pulled out of the pit lane and saw that my lap timer showed a time of 5:49.5. I had lost 4 minutes in the pits -- most of it spent struggling to buckle myself back in the car. I found out later that the Schindlbecks had changed drivers in less than 30 seconds, and their total pit stop, including entering and exiting pit lane, cost them only about one minute. After both pit stops, I was one lap down. I would really have to turn some seriously fast laps to catch them.
Or I could rely on luck. The next thing I knew (which was about 15 laps later), I passed Mike on the track. He was going very slow, and the car didn't sound right. Even with a helmet on, I could see he wasn't happy. Shortly after they had changed drivers, Mike spent about 5 minutes in the pits because the car was overheating. Several laps later -- probably shortly after I passed him -- he pulled back in with a blown head gasket. Their race was done after 35 laps.
I nursed the car to the finish, turning a best lap of 1:21.5. This was my first time ever winning The Looong Race (and only my third time making it to the checkered flag) in 9 tries. I was so worn out at the end, I know the car was in better shape than I was. I could barely hold the checkered flag because my hand was so sore from gripping the steering wheel. I couldn't push the clutch pedal because my foot hurt so badly from bracing myself against the footrest. My eyes were as dry as the Sahara and I could barely hold my head upright. But it felt great.
Now I need to open the gearbox and find out what is going on in there before the last SCCA Regional race of the season at Blackhawk this weekend. Wish me luck.
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