The past few years are a bit of a blur. Although they mostly dragged on endlessly, they also flew by in spots.
After a rocky start, 2011 was highlighted by the replacement of the old open trailer with a small enclosed trailer. The thought of staying dry when it rained and having the option not to unload at the end of a long weekend were just too appealing. I shopped the classifieds for several months before falling into a deal that I could not pass up. A vintage racer (who has a well-earned reputation for being meticulous about everything) was about to trade in his trailer for a larger model. Such a nice person -- he actually emailed me photos and invited me to come see the trailer at his house before he traded it in. He wasn't selling it directly to me, he was going to sell it back to the dealership. Anyone else would have told me to go bother the dealer.
An almost-full racing schedule followed, during which the trailer and I got to know each other quite well.
The first outing for car and trailer was to Blackhawk on Memorial Day. The car arrived at the track unfinished -- shame on me -- as the plan was to pick up my freshened radiator at the track. That went well enough, but it immediately put me on the back foot. I made it out just in time to get one lap of practice. It started raining prior to qualifying, so on went the rain tires. The crew was kind enough to take care of that chore while I rested in the trailer (nice!). Unfortunately, when I came out I was greeted by the sight of a car wearing all four wheels mounted backwards. The treaded rain tires are directional, so they must face forwards to shed water. Installing them backwards would actually pump water under the tread. Not good. There wasn't time to fix it before the end of that session, so I had to apply for permission to start the afternoon's race at the back of the grid. Luckily the rain eased off during lunch and the track was drying, so I started the race on slicks. I managed to work my way up to second before the checkered flag. I must have made a bit of an impression at the start as well: Burt Levy, driving a rented Lola T-540, actually mentioned it in an article in Vintage Motorsports magazine.
June took us back to the north track at Autobahn Country Club in Joliet. The north track is still a favorite of mine. The first two corners are a challenging left-right that makes you think twice, followed by a beautiful, rewarding downhill run through a canopy of trees into a right-hander taken flat-out at the top end of 3rd gear. The rest of the lap is spent looking forward to that bit... sort of the way November through March are spent looking forward to racing season.
Early July saw a combined Regional/National weekend at GingerMan in Michigan. I took advantage of the track time on offer and entered both events. Unfortunately, some gremlins had other ideas. I learned what a failing master cut-off switch feels like, but I made it to the end of the weekend without any further issues. The ride home was another matter. A bit of heat exhaustion struck a crew member, which led to lunch striking the inside of the truck before I had a chance to pull over.
Another mechanical issue that popped up at the next race plagued us until nearly the end of the season. The car would run perfectly in morning practice and qualifying, but as soon as the race started it would act as though it had no fuel. The only consistent cure was to remove the engine cover, after which the car ran perfectly again. We tried to blame it on a pinched fuel cell vent line, a vacuum in the engine bay, too much pressure in the engine bay, the rain, Rio... In the end it was pointed out to us that the engine cover was mashing down the foam air filter. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, except for the fact that the Weber DGV carburetor can't breathe if anything gets within an inch or so of the top inlet opening. Even though the filter was porous, getting it too close to the carb caused it to completely choke. Changing to a filter with an inner support cage in October finally solved the problem.
Somehow I managed to cough and sputter the car to another championship.
2012 and 2013 were less inspiring.
Friday, November 14, 2014
Under the Radar
No, I haven't disappeared completely -- just a bit of radio silence for a while. A few posts ago I hinted about having a bad year. It turned into a bad couple of years, which saw the fan base reduced by 2. At the risk of sounding maudlin, they were two who have been pretty central to the racing effort. Blogger tells me that people all over the world read this, but for a time it felt like I was writing for the two of them.
Enough about that now. Happier posts are on the way.
Enough about that now. Happier posts are on the way.
Monday, October 25, 2010
That Loooong Race #40
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."
-- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
Well, no, it wasn't the worst of times by a long shot. More like, "it was the best of times, it was the wettest of times." It wasn't raining when I got to Blackhawk on Sunday morning, but a big storm had rolled through Saturday night, dumping enough water to break several canopies around the paddock (including one of mine) and to flood my paddock area. Everything I owned was wet, and before I could get anything sorted out, it started raining again.
It continued to rain -- hard -- during the first practice session. The track was underwater in a few spots, creating a new racing line that was less about finding traction and more about not drowning. I was happy to bring the car back in one piece, delighted that it was once again running perfectly, and surprised that I managed to get below a 2 minute lap time.
The rain eased up a bit for qualifying, so I was able to take a couple of seconds off of my practice time (still a 1:50, 11th on the grid). The car was running strong, but at one point when I opened the throttle, the exhaust note suddenly changed dramatically. It sounded a little like a blown exhaust header gasket, so I stayed out just long enough to ensure that I got enough laps to start the race.
When I pulled the engine cover, the gasket was still in one piece. The 4-year-old crack in the header looked worse, but there was still no evidence that it had cracked through. I started the engine again to try to find the leak, but there was nothing -- no visible smoke and no gas escaping anywhere -- just that weird noise that didn't sound so much like a header gasket after all. Luckily, Nicole Temple walked over from the Lindstrand Motorsports trailer just in time. She listened for just a few seconds, looked it over for a moment, and spotted the problem. One of the tabs which holds the exhaust collector to the header primary tubes had broken. The collector slipped off just enough to allow the #2 pipe to pop out, creating the bizarre, lumpy-cam-V8 racket. (Yes, she's better at this stuff than I am, but to be fair, she was standing on the other side of the car, so she could see the collector.)
The rain stopped soon after qualifying, and the sun came out. It was like a Christmas miracle. The flood waters began to recede, and we all changed from rain tires to dry tires, from clear and amber face shields to smoked and mirrored shields. Of course, just before the first call to grid, the sky clouded over again, and we all began to wonder if we had made a terrible miscalculation.
We hadn't. The rain held off, and the sun even peeked out a few more times during the afternoon. The track had drained somewhat before the start of our race, but it was still wet everywhere, and there were still puddles on the front straight. I got a great start, passing a CFF and an FC going into corner 1. Someone spun in either corner 2 or 5 (or both??), and cars went off both sides of the track. I picked my way through the group and found myself 4th overall! One of the cars still in front of me was Matt Lagessie (usually a big V8 sedan driver) in Jack Bartelt's Lola CFF. I caught up to him a few laps later, just in time for a front-row seat when he spun in corner 2. We narrowly missed each other as I passed, taking over the CFF lead. I tried to get some distance on him before he could recover.
The track conditions were tricky to say the least. It started out wet, but within 10 laps some of the corners were visibly drying. I worked on increasing my cornering speed in those corners, trying to take advantage of the increase in traction. The hard part was trying to keep from turning on "full dry" mode. Corners 2 and 5 and the dogleg between 3A and 4 are the last sections of the track to dry. Even when all of the other corners dry completely, you still have to take it easy through those areas. You're not driving a rain race, but you can't drive like it's a dry race either. It's hard to build a rhythm that way, and a lot of very fast drivers struggled with having to switch back and forth from corner to corner.
I ran as hard as I dared, trying a little harder each lap until I was at full dry speed in almost every corner. I managed to get down to a 1:19.14, just a second off of my best dry time. Soon I recognized the white Hawke of Mike Green in the distance ahead of me. Putting him a lap down would take a lot of pressure off of my pit stop. I turned up the heat a bit to catch up to him. Braking for corner 7, he briefly locked a wheel, and like a fool I started thinking that I had pressured him into a mistake... until I felt my own tires sliding, and I realized he had snookered me into a mistake! Fortunately I recovered from it -- and from the same mistake entering corner 1, and from another mistake in corner 2 (boy, was I getting greedy). The next time down the back straight, I was almost ready to set up for a pass, but he stayed to the right exiting the kink... and ducked into the pits. He later told me they had planned it that way. Clever, but he might have done better to drive defensively for another lap or two. He could have easily kept me behind him, maybe drawing me into a bigger mistake that I couldn't recover from.
"That Loooong Race" (yes, officially 4 "o"s) is a 100-mile race. Back in the day, the Formula Ford rules (at least in England, or someplace) actually specified that the fuel cell could be no larger than 5 gallons. Making some assumptions about fuel consumption, that means a Formula Ford has an expected range of about 30 minutes, which is about 50 miles at Blackhawk. In reality, I have had about 1 1/2 to 2 gallons left after a 30 minute race. The TLR rules allow auxilliary fuel tanks, but I've never come up with a design that I'd be proud of. I would need to stop for fuel too.
Of course, this isn't NASCAR or Formula 1 or CART. Our pit stops take a little longer. We don't have the high-dollar quick-refuelling rigs. We also don't have safety crews stationed up and down pit lane, so we have to be more cautious when it comes to refuelling. Our rules require the driver to be out of the car with the engine off, with a crew member standing by with a fire extinguisher. The person doing the fuelling is also required to wear so much safety equipment that it makes sense for the driver to do the actual fuelling.
With Mike in the pits, I drove as hard as I could to try to maximize the number of laps between us. I had told my crew to expect me around lap 30, so I waited for the right combination of traffic, lap number, and... something else, which I hadn't quite decided on yet. Soon enough, I got a sign. My water temperature gauge had reached 210 and was edging towards 220. I wasn't hot outside by any means (maybe high 60s), but I knew right away what the problem was. It's late fall in Illinois at a track with a thick canopy of trees. I noticed on the pace lap that corner 2 was covered in leaves, and of course I had scooped some huge amount of them into the radiator intake. It was only strange that it had taken 30 laps for it to run this hot.
I pulled into the pits for my fuel stop. Before I could get out of the car, Jack Bartelt had already cleaned the leaves out of the radiator intake for me. I dumped in the 2 gallons we had left in the fuel jug and got back in the car. I saw Matt and Mike both pass while I was buckling in, but were they already lapping me or just unlapping themselves? I asked my dad how long Mike had been in the pits, and I think he said that our stop was faster.
With the leaves out of the radiator, the track drying off, and fewer than 20 laps to go, I tried to drive like it was a sprint race. I tried to keep the lap times in the :19s, which was tough with so much traffic, both slower and faster. I have a new empathy for the drivers at LeMans, and the wide mix of cars and speeds they deal with. The fastest 5 cars in our group had fast lap times between 1:10 and 1:16; the slowest were between 1:29 and 1:35. The fastest car must have been passing the slowest car every 3 laps! And there I was in the middle, alternately lapping slower traffic and being lapped by faster cars.
I passed Matt in the Lola once more after my stop, getting back a lap I had lost during my pit stop. But how many laps he had already done was a mystery to me. Was he now behind me or still ahead of me? Were we on the same lap now?
As it turned out, we weren't. I forgot that Jack had constructed an auxiliary fuel tank for that car long ago, which meant that Matt didn't need to pit for fuel. I was only unlapping myself, but I still had another lap to make up before we would be on the same lap! He won CFF with 47 laps (finishing 5th overall), and I took second (9th overall) with 46 laps. I was catching him at a rate of about 4 seconds a lap, and at the end I was only about 20 seconds from getting back on the same lap as he was. But then I would have needed another 20 laps to make up the rest of that lap, which would have required another pit stop.
I am very proud of how I did, not just the finishing position and lap times, but I really felt like I drove better than I ever have. I was more confident under braking, I carried more speed through the corners, and my line took advantage of every bit of traction I could find.
Now if I could just start the 2011 season with a drive like that, we might really have something.
-- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
Well, no, it wasn't the worst of times by a long shot. More like, "it was the best of times, it was the wettest of times." It wasn't raining when I got to Blackhawk on Sunday morning, but a big storm had rolled through Saturday night, dumping enough water to break several canopies around the paddock (including one of mine) and to flood my paddock area. Everything I owned was wet, and before I could get anything sorted out, it started raining again.
It continued to rain -- hard -- during the first practice session. The track was underwater in a few spots, creating a new racing line that was less about finding traction and more about not drowning. I was happy to bring the car back in one piece, delighted that it was once again running perfectly, and surprised that I managed to get below a 2 minute lap time.
The rain eased up a bit for qualifying, so I was able to take a couple of seconds off of my practice time (still a 1:50, 11th on the grid). The car was running strong, but at one point when I opened the throttle, the exhaust note suddenly changed dramatically. It sounded a little like a blown exhaust header gasket, so I stayed out just long enough to ensure that I got enough laps to start the race.
When I pulled the engine cover, the gasket was still in one piece. The 4-year-old crack in the header looked worse, but there was still no evidence that it had cracked through. I started the engine again to try to find the leak, but there was nothing -- no visible smoke and no gas escaping anywhere -- just that weird noise that didn't sound so much like a header gasket after all. Luckily, Nicole Temple walked over from the Lindstrand Motorsports trailer just in time. She listened for just a few seconds, looked it over for a moment, and spotted the problem. One of the tabs which holds the exhaust collector to the header primary tubes had broken. The collector slipped off just enough to allow the #2 pipe to pop out, creating the bizarre, lumpy-cam-V8 racket. (Yes, she's better at this stuff than I am, but to be fair, she was standing on the other side of the car, so she could see the collector.)
The rain stopped soon after qualifying, and the sun came out. It was like a Christmas miracle. The flood waters began to recede, and we all changed from rain tires to dry tires, from clear and amber face shields to smoked and mirrored shields. Of course, just before the first call to grid, the sky clouded over again, and we all began to wonder if we had made a terrible miscalculation.
We hadn't. The rain held off, and the sun even peeked out a few more times during the afternoon. The track had drained somewhat before the start of our race, but it was still wet everywhere, and there were still puddles on the front straight. I got a great start, passing a CFF and an FC going into corner 1. Someone spun in either corner 2 or 5 (or both??), and cars went off both sides of the track. I picked my way through the group and found myself 4th overall! One of the cars still in front of me was Matt Lagessie (usually a big V8 sedan driver) in Jack Bartelt's Lola CFF. I caught up to him a few laps later, just in time for a front-row seat when he spun in corner 2. We narrowly missed each other as I passed, taking over the CFF lead. I tried to get some distance on him before he could recover.
The track conditions were tricky to say the least. It started out wet, but within 10 laps some of the corners were visibly drying. I worked on increasing my cornering speed in those corners, trying to take advantage of the increase in traction. The hard part was trying to keep from turning on "full dry" mode. Corners 2 and 5 and the dogleg between 3A and 4 are the last sections of the track to dry. Even when all of the other corners dry completely, you still have to take it easy through those areas. You're not driving a rain race, but you can't drive like it's a dry race either. It's hard to build a rhythm that way, and a lot of very fast drivers struggled with having to switch back and forth from corner to corner.
I ran as hard as I dared, trying a little harder each lap until I was at full dry speed in almost every corner. I managed to get down to a 1:19.14, just a second off of my best dry time. Soon I recognized the white Hawke of Mike Green in the distance ahead of me. Putting him a lap down would take a lot of pressure off of my pit stop. I turned up the heat a bit to catch up to him. Braking for corner 7, he briefly locked a wheel, and like a fool I started thinking that I had pressured him into a mistake... until I felt my own tires sliding, and I realized he had snookered me into a mistake! Fortunately I recovered from it -- and from the same mistake entering corner 1, and from another mistake in corner 2 (boy, was I getting greedy). The next time down the back straight, I was almost ready to set up for a pass, but he stayed to the right exiting the kink... and ducked into the pits. He later told me they had planned it that way. Clever, but he might have done better to drive defensively for another lap or two. He could have easily kept me behind him, maybe drawing me into a bigger mistake that I couldn't recover from.
"That Loooong Race" (yes, officially 4 "o"s) is a 100-mile race. Back in the day, the Formula Ford rules (at least in England, or someplace) actually specified that the fuel cell could be no larger than 5 gallons. Making some assumptions about fuel consumption, that means a Formula Ford has an expected range of about 30 minutes, which is about 50 miles at Blackhawk. In reality, I have had about 1 1/2 to 2 gallons left after a 30 minute race. The TLR rules allow auxilliary fuel tanks, but I've never come up with a design that I'd be proud of. I would need to stop for fuel too.
Of course, this isn't NASCAR or Formula 1 or CART. Our pit stops take a little longer. We don't have the high-dollar quick-refuelling rigs. We also don't have safety crews stationed up and down pit lane, so we have to be more cautious when it comes to refuelling. Our rules require the driver to be out of the car with the engine off, with a crew member standing by with a fire extinguisher. The person doing the fuelling is also required to wear so much safety equipment that it makes sense for the driver to do the actual fuelling.
With Mike in the pits, I drove as hard as I could to try to maximize the number of laps between us. I had told my crew to expect me around lap 30, so I waited for the right combination of traffic, lap number, and... something else, which I hadn't quite decided on yet. Soon enough, I got a sign. My water temperature gauge had reached 210 and was edging towards 220. I wasn't hot outside by any means (maybe high 60s), but I knew right away what the problem was. It's late fall in Illinois at a track with a thick canopy of trees. I noticed on the pace lap that corner 2 was covered in leaves, and of course I had scooped some huge amount of them into the radiator intake. It was only strange that it had taken 30 laps for it to run this hot.
I pulled into the pits for my fuel stop. Before I could get out of the car, Jack Bartelt had already cleaned the leaves out of the radiator intake for me. I dumped in the 2 gallons we had left in the fuel jug and got back in the car. I saw Matt and Mike both pass while I was buckling in, but were they already lapping me or just unlapping themselves? I asked my dad how long Mike had been in the pits, and I think he said that our stop was faster.
With the leaves out of the radiator, the track drying off, and fewer than 20 laps to go, I tried to drive like it was a sprint race. I tried to keep the lap times in the :19s, which was tough with so much traffic, both slower and faster. I have a new empathy for the drivers at LeMans, and the wide mix of cars and speeds they deal with. The fastest 5 cars in our group had fast lap times between 1:10 and 1:16; the slowest were between 1:29 and 1:35. The fastest car must have been passing the slowest car every 3 laps! And there I was in the middle, alternately lapping slower traffic and being lapped by faster cars.
I passed Matt in the Lola once more after my stop, getting back a lap I had lost during my pit stop. But how many laps he had already done was a mystery to me. Was he now behind me or still ahead of me? Were we on the same lap now?
As it turned out, we weren't. I forgot that Jack had constructed an auxiliary fuel tank for that car long ago, which meant that Matt didn't need to pit for fuel. I was only unlapping myself, but I still had another lap to make up before we would be on the same lap! He won CFF with 47 laps (finishing 5th overall), and I took second (9th overall) with 46 laps. I was catching him at a rate of about 4 seconds a lap, and at the end I was only about 20 seconds from getting back on the same lap as he was. But then I would have needed another 20 laps to make up the rest of that lap, which would have required another pit stop.
I am very proud of how I did, not just the finishing position and lap times, but I really felt like I drove better than I ever have. I was more confident under braking, I carried more speed through the corners, and my line took advantage of every bit of traction I could find.
Now if I could just start the 2011 season with a drive like that, we might really have something.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Mid-Ohio
The last time I tried to drive Mid-Ohio, the trip did not go well. I got about 3 or 4 laps in (during the $850 Mid-Ohio School, the only "test day" available) before my pro-built engine decided it was ready to die, and it wanted to be buried all over the back straight. But it wasn't the track's fault, so I was determined to go back there and have a better race weekend.
The WOR Games race weekend format has changed in recent years. It had been a 2-day double Regional race weekend, but this year they tried a 3-day, 3-event format: PDX (Performance Driving Experience) on Friday, an 8-hour sedan enduro Saturday, and a one-day double "restricted" Regional Sunday. This ended up being perfect for me. Since I couldn't take Friday off, I would have to tow the 8 hours (plus one hour for the time zone change) after working all day Friday. Following that up by getting into the racecar to bomb around an unfamiliar track would have been crazy. I still towed there Friday night, but I spent Saturday leisurely unloading, setting up, and trying to find where things were (I vaguely remembered where the grid was, but I needed a map to find the restrooms!) before checking in at the hotel for an early night.
The hotel, by the way, was excellent. Hampton Inn & Suites Mansfield South @I-71 is one of the nicest, cleanest, quietest, and best-run hotels I've stayed. That's not a free plug -- they earned it! The price wasn't bad, the room was very nice and very clean, and everyone who worked there was genuinely friendly and eager to help. Even the complimentary breakfast -- which is what other hotels call the mess of reconstituted eggs, soggy bacon, and warm OJ -- was much better than I've seen anywhere else. I'm sorry I was only there the one night.
I had to get up early Sunday morning because we were Group 1. The schedule was tight (qualifying at 8am), but the really unnerving thing was that it was still dark. The sun was just coming up while we were on track, which of course meant some glare in certain areas.
 |
| Find the Van Diemen in this picture. For that matter, find the track! |
I hopped out of the car and headed for the Keyhole to watch the next group. Being a restricted Regional, there were only 4 groups (small formula cars, large formula/sports racers, small production, and big GT), so I couldn't afford the time to visit any other corners. I kicked myself for not staying to watch the enduro on Saturday.
 |
| An FV setting a good bad example. |
The second race didn't go as well. I passed the other FV on the first lap, but then I held him up badly from corner 7 through the Carousel. He finally squeezed past me on the inside of the Carousel, and I decided it would be wise to stay behind him for a lap to try to learn from a master. Unfortunately, the very next lap, my car started shutting down at the end of the back straight. It was acting as though it wasn't getting any fuel. A quick lift off the throttle brought it back to life, which is consistent with fuel starvation. At first it only happened at the end of the long straight, but it rapidly deteriorated. By lap 5, I couldn't make it through a corner without the car sputtering. It was obvious that I wouldn't make another lap, so I pulled in and called it a day. Is that my first DNF in this car?
This week has been spent trying to diagnose the problem. Every part of the fuel system is working properly, which is frustrating. The fuel cell vent line may have gotten pinched, but it's terribly unlikely. We changed the tachometer since the last race, and since that's the only change we made, we're wondering if this tach has an internal short that's cutting the ignition.
And then there's always the ignition coil. An internal short (which usually starts when the coil heats up, as it does when the car is run hard) would make the car falter. Lifting off the throttle decreases demand on the coil, which allows it to cool off enough that it would work better for a few seconds. Since this problem got so much worse so quickly, I'm inclined to believe that the coil -- which was either on the car when I got it, or else new in 2004 -- might be to blame. Ignition coils are cheaper (and easier to deal with) than lost track time, so a new one goes in tonight.
If the problem continues, I plan to pull into the pits and unplug the tach. And if the problem still persists, I'll find the nearest brick wall and commence beating my head against it.
The tow there and the tow home Sunday night were just excellent. You couldn't ask for better. We screwed up the directions a little on the way down (jumped the gun exiting I-90 and wound up driving through downtown Merillville), and we hit Chicago traffic on the way home, but the truck and trailer performed flawlessly. I still pinch myself that I can use cruise control (and the A/C) while towing a trailer. It is actually relaxing to drive that rig to and from the track.
Gee, maybe next year I could tow the 8 hours overnight and then hop in the race car in the morning...
Monday, October 11, 2010
Back In It, Again
Yes, a year. It's been a year. And not a good one. Not racing hasn't helped.
Fortunately, I finally overcame my acute case of inertia and started working on racing things last month. The car was still in good shape from the last race in October 2009 (much better than I was). It was almost ready to go. Just a few issues needed to be addressed.
First, the restraints had expired at the end of last year. Even if they hadn't, they would have been too short to get around me (I'm twice the driver I once was), and the right shoulder strap had been rubbing on the fuel cell outlet fitting. The fraying was minimal, but it wouldn't make a tech inspector happy. Replacing the harness means removing the sidepods, which exposed Problem #1: The fire system tubing was broken. Way back in 2004, the fire bottle had broken out of its mount (since replaced with a stronger mount) and spent some unknown number of laps at Grattan -- plus the ride home from Grattan -- hanging by the tubing. The tubing managed to hold for a few years after, but the stress was finally too much. This gave me an opportunity to reroute the tubing a little more directly and securely, but it required a few pieces from the hardware store. Problem #2: The fuel cell fitting was still in the way of the shoulder strap. This was easy to solve. The fitting is offset on a round plate held in place by 6 screws. Unscrew, rotate the plate 2 positions (120 degrees), and the fitting is out of the way. Both of those jobs gave me a great sense of accomplishment, but also a real "duh" feeling -- why didn't I notice the easy solutions before they became problems?
Once the belts were in and the sidepods were back on, I changed the oil filter, put in fresh Red Line oil, and charged the battery. The car cranked eagerly and fired up pretty quickly. It sounded just as good as ever.
In the Sunday paper on September 26, I found out that the Classic Thunderbird Club of Wisconsin would be holding a car show at a Ford dealership just down the road from me to benefit Children's Hospital of Wisconsin. A good cause, at a Ford dealership, just a mile or two away -- how could I not go? Plus, I enjoy showing the car. Car shows are like very very low-stress race weekends. You get to take the car out and be around car people; you just don't have the stress (or enjoyment) of actually racing. The short tow also revealed two more problems that needed to be addressed. The trailer lights were only working at about 25% -- I had just one taillight and one brake light. And the trailer was making this weird "rongrongrongrong" noise going down the road. The bearings were toast. Rust, actually. The long, wet winter had corroded the bearings badly. It took a few days (and 5 trips to 3 different parts stores) to get the trailer rewired with new lights and to replace all of the bearings, but it was all done and ready to roll by midweek before the race.
The last problem standing in the way of me racing again was the small issue of a suit. Despite almost-daily exercise, I still couldn't fit into either of my driver's suits. Bruce Lindstrand offered to lend me his for the weekend, but since I really didn't know if it would fit, I decided to just buy a new suit. Yes, that's 3 now. But at least one of them fits me.
Like last year, this race was a 4-race weekend, with a qualifying session Saturday morning, two 8-lap sprint races Saturday, another 8-lap sprint on Sunday morning, and an 18-lap "feature" race Sunday afternoon. The lack of downtime worried me, but I figured that the short sprint races would be a good way to work myself back in.
I was right. For qualifying, I tried to find another car to follow (Formula Vees especially are a great car to warm up behind -- they're all about corner speed and smoothness; the relative lack of outright speed helps to calm the nerves and get you out of your own head), but I was all alone. The best lap I managed was a 1:24.5 -- not embarrassing, reasonable for the first session after a 363-day hiatus, and close to my weekend goal of a 1:21. That put me behind an F500, two FVs, and a Formula First, ahead of several other Vees and at least one Formula Ford, but separated from the other CFFs and FFs by those few VW engines.
I didn't realize how badly I had needed a car to follow during qualifying. I think it was the second lap of the race (the first chance I had to glance at my lap timer), I turned a 1:20, and it felt easier than the :24 I had done in qualifying. I passed the FVs and the FST, and settled in to follow the F500. He was fast on the straights but slower in some corners -- not all of them, but where it mattered to me: I got a good run out of corner 6 and passed him exiting the silo turn. My best lap time ended up being a 1:19.2 -- just half a second away from my best.
When I started the car for the second sprint race, something weird happened with my tachometer. It said the car was idling at 5000rpm. I knew that wasn't right (or helpful), so I switched the car off and tried again. Then I saw what had happened. On this brand, when you turn on the ignition, the needle goes backwards and bumps against a stop pin located between 0 and 8000, then it comes back to rest at zero. The little stop pin had fallen out, so the needle swung all the way around to 4000, then settled back at 5000. The second time I switched on, the needle swung to about 5000, then settled around 6000. A few more clicks on and off, and it came back to just a bit below zero. Close enough!
The grid for the second sprint race was set by finishing positions from the first race, so I had improved my starting position considerably. I was in front of the Vees and next to the F500, with the other CFFs in sight ahead of me. But a few fast cars DNF'ed in the first race, so they would start at the back. I forgot all about that part. Fortunately I hadn't moved over too far to let the yellow blur that was Dan Cobb's F500 squeeze between me and the pit wall on the start. That startled me enough that the other F500 next to me got ahead of me going into corner 1, but I passed him a few laps later in the silo turn again. With the tach reading inaccurately, it was tough to really push the car hard for fear of over-revving. I did discover that the shift light still worked, but I would have given anything for a rev limiter.
I was also using that session to scrub in a new set of tires, but for some reason I just couldn't break out of the 1:20s. Rolling through the scales at impound, I found the culprit. The wheels I chose for the new tires weigh some 30 pounds more than the other set I was using! That's 7 1/2 extra pounds of unsprung, rotating mass on each corner. I immediately felt better about my driving -- and worse about my equipment.
For several laps we were nose-to-tail, with Mike threatening Tom in a few corners. Mike and I pulled out to draft past Tom on the front straight, but we couldn't quite make it work. (Now I'm wondering if I should have kept trying -- I had to lift to stay behind Mike...) They pulled away from me a little bit by the end, but I was close enough to see that Tom spent the last lap on defense. He played it brilliantly, and so did Mike. Tom somehow made his car very very wide, but Mike kept looking for an opening and trying to force Tom into a mistake. The most brilliant part is that neither one pressed the point too hard, and they both finished in one piece. It was just exciting to watch. The 1:18.571 on my lap timer didn't hurt either. That beat my personal best by 0.137 second!
The only other problem of the weekend cropped up in impound. When I hit the starter button to drive back to my paddock spot, all I got was a "CLUNK". Something was wrong with the starter... or the relay... or the battery... I would call it unlucky except for one very important thing: All day Saturday, we pushed the car back from impound. Sunday morning, we were not directed to report to impound, but most of us went anyway. If I hadn't gone to impound, or if I hadn't decided to try to drive the car back, my first warning could have been when I tried to start the car on the grid for the feature. As it happened, the two starter mounting bolts both fell out, leaving the starter hanging by the power cable. The pinion gear end was just supported in the bellhousing. The pinion was just clear of the flywheel ring gear, and the positive terminal was just barely not touching the frame. That was the other lucky thing. Half an inch in either direction would have been disastrous: a shorted terminal would have burned out the starter at least; hitting the flywheel would have ground the ring gear off the flywheel (so replacing the starter wouldn't make a difference); a broken cable could have let the starter fall out on the track and really ruin someone's day. And then, I had just 2 of the correct size bolts in my spares. Maybe I should have packed up and gone home. I had certainly used up all of my luck for one day!
The feature race on Sunday afternoon was exciting, but for the wrong reasons. I got stuck in traffic a few laps in, so I didn't get close enough to see the CFF battle in front of me. Still, there was still plenty to keep my eyes occupied. The FST was stopped on the outside the silo turn, maybe after spinning. Corner 7 was yellow for an incident I couldn't spot. The next lap, I saw a rescue truck on the side of the track at 7, again for no apparent reason. Then I finally saw a flash of red deep in the weeds -- I couldn't identify the car, but someone had gotten stuck off-track. A few cars did some really amazing things (amazing in a bad way) in front of me. It seemed that every corner had a debris flag up at some point, and the yellow flags got quite a workout as well. A tailpipe was left sitting on track in front of the corner 6A station. But perhaps most importantly... I passed Tom Tipsword as he was limping his car back to the pits. He had blown a water hose in his battle with Mike, which gave Mike an easy win and me an unearned second place.
If you don't count the bruises, sore muscles, sore lungs, and pounding headache, I feel pretty good about the weekend.
Next stop: Mid-Ohio.
Fortunately, I finally overcame my acute case of inertia and started working on racing things last month. The car was still in good shape from the last race in October 2009 (much better than I was). It was almost ready to go. Just a few issues needed to be addressed.
First, the restraints had expired at the end of last year. Even if they hadn't, they would have been too short to get around me (I'm twice the driver I once was), and the right shoulder strap had been rubbing on the fuel cell outlet fitting. The fraying was minimal, but it wouldn't make a tech inspector happy. Replacing the harness means removing the sidepods, which exposed Problem #1: The fire system tubing was broken. Way back in 2004, the fire bottle had broken out of its mount (since replaced with a stronger mount) and spent some unknown number of laps at Grattan -- plus the ride home from Grattan -- hanging by the tubing. The tubing managed to hold for a few years after, but the stress was finally too much. This gave me an opportunity to reroute the tubing a little more directly and securely, but it required a few pieces from the hardware store. Problem #2: The fuel cell fitting was still in the way of the shoulder strap. This was easy to solve. The fitting is offset on a round plate held in place by 6 screws. Unscrew, rotate the plate 2 positions (120 degrees), and the fitting is out of the way. Both of those jobs gave me a great sense of accomplishment, but also a real "duh" feeling -- why didn't I notice the easy solutions before they became problems?
Once the belts were in and the sidepods were back on, I changed the oil filter, put in fresh Red Line oil, and charged the battery. The car cranked eagerly and fired up pretty quickly. It sounded just as good as ever.
In the Sunday paper on September 26, I found out that the Classic Thunderbird Club of Wisconsin would be holding a car show at a Ford dealership just down the road from me to benefit Children's Hospital of Wisconsin. A good cause, at a Ford dealership, just a mile or two away -- how could I not go? Plus, I enjoy showing the car. Car shows are like very very low-stress race weekends. You get to take the car out and be around car people; you just don't have the stress (or enjoyment) of actually racing. The short tow also revealed two more problems that needed to be addressed. The trailer lights were only working at about 25% -- I had just one taillight and one brake light. And the trailer was making this weird "rongrongrongrong" noise going down the road. The bearings were toast. Rust, actually. The long, wet winter had corroded the bearings badly. It took a few days (and 5 trips to 3 different parts stores) to get the trailer rewired with new lights and to replace all of the bearings, but it was all done and ready to roll by midweek before the race.
The last problem standing in the way of me racing again was the small issue of a suit. Despite almost-daily exercise, I still couldn't fit into either of my driver's suits. Bruce Lindstrand offered to lend me his for the weekend, but since I really didn't know if it would fit, I decided to just buy a new suit. Yes, that's 3 now. But at least one of them fits me.
Like last year, this race was a 4-race weekend, with a qualifying session Saturday morning, two 8-lap sprint races Saturday, another 8-lap sprint on Sunday morning, and an 18-lap "feature" race Sunday afternoon. The lack of downtime worried me, but I figured that the short sprint races would be a good way to work myself back in.
I was right. For qualifying, I tried to find another car to follow (Formula Vees especially are a great car to warm up behind -- they're all about corner speed and smoothness; the relative lack of outright speed helps to calm the nerves and get you out of your own head), but I was all alone. The best lap I managed was a 1:24.5 -- not embarrassing, reasonable for the first session after a 363-day hiatus, and close to my weekend goal of a 1:21. That put me behind an F500, two FVs, and a Formula First, ahead of several other Vees and at least one Formula Ford, but separated from the other CFFs and FFs by those few VW engines.
I didn't realize how badly I had needed a car to follow during qualifying. I think it was the second lap of the race (the first chance I had to glance at my lap timer), I turned a 1:20, and it felt easier than the :24 I had done in qualifying. I passed the FVs and the FST, and settled in to follow the F500. He was fast on the straights but slower in some corners -- not all of them, but where it mattered to me: I got a good run out of corner 6 and passed him exiting the silo turn. My best lap time ended up being a 1:19.2 -- just half a second away from my best.
When I started the car for the second sprint race, something weird happened with my tachometer. It said the car was idling at 5000rpm. I knew that wasn't right (or helpful), so I switched the car off and tried again. Then I saw what had happened. On this brand, when you turn on the ignition, the needle goes backwards and bumps against a stop pin located between 0 and 8000, then it comes back to rest at zero. The little stop pin had fallen out, so the needle swung all the way around to 4000, then settled back at 5000. The second time I switched on, the needle swung to about 5000, then settled around 6000. A few more clicks on and off, and it came back to just a bit below zero. Close enough!
The grid for the second sprint race was set by finishing positions from the first race, so I had improved my starting position considerably. I was in front of the Vees and next to the F500, with the other CFFs in sight ahead of me. But a few fast cars DNF'ed in the first race, so they would start at the back. I forgot all about that part. Fortunately I hadn't moved over too far to let the yellow blur that was Dan Cobb's F500 squeeze between me and the pit wall on the start. That startled me enough that the other F500 next to me got ahead of me going into corner 1, but I passed him a few laps later in the silo turn again. With the tach reading inaccurately, it was tough to really push the car hard for fear of over-revving. I did discover that the shift light still worked, but I would have given anything for a rev limiter.
I was also using that session to scrub in a new set of tires, but for some reason I just couldn't break out of the 1:20s. Rolling through the scales at impound, I found the culprit. The wheels I chose for the new tires weigh some 30 pounds more than the other set I was using! That's 7 1/2 extra pounds of unsprung, rotating mass on each corner. I immediately felt better about my driving -- and worse about my equipment.
For the first sprint on Sunday I was gridded with only one car between me and the other CFFs. When we lined up on the track, I was directly behind Mike Green in the Hawke, with Tom Tipsword's Van Diemen next to him and Alan Murray in Tom Stillwell's Swift FF next to me. I almost got Alan on the start, but by the end of lap 1 we were in grid order again: Tom, Mike, Alan, me. Tom had been running very fast times on Saturday, but he was getting balked by a slower car. meanwhile, Alan tried to pass Mike -- who wasn't having any of it -- and spun off in corner 3. I was close behind Mike, but I knew that we would never have a chance if we battled with each other, so I vowed to stay in 3rd and try to help Mike catch Tom.
 |
| Narrowly avoiding a 3-car pileup in corner 6 |
For several laps we were nose-to-tail, with Mike threatening Tom in a few corners. Mike and I pulled out to draft past Tom on the front straight, but we couldn't quite make it work. (Now I'm wondering if I should have kept trying -- I had to lift to stay behind Mike...) They pulled away from me a little bit by the end, but I was close enough to see that Tom spent the last lap on defense. He played it brilliantly, and so did Mike. Tom somehow made his car very very wide, but Mike kept looking for an opening and trying to force Tom into a mistake. The most brilliant part is that neither one pressed the point too hard, and they both finished in one piece. It was just exciting to watch. The 1:18.571 on my lap timer didn't hurt either. That beat my personal best by 0.137 second!
The only other problem of the weekend cropped up in impound. When I hit the starter button to drive back to my paddock spot, all I got was a "CLUNK". Something was wrong with the starter... or the relay... or the battery... I would call it unlucky except for one very important thing: All day Saturday, we pushed the car back from impound. Sunday morning, we were not directed to report to impound, but most of us went anyway. If I hadn't gone to impound, or if I hadn't decided to try to drive the car back, my first warning could have been when I tried to start the car on the grid for the feature. As it happened, the two starter mounting bolts both fell out, leaving the starter hanging by the power cable. The pinion gear end was just supported in the bellhousing. The pinion was just clear of the flywheel ring gear, and the positive terminal was just barely not touching the frame. That was the other lucky thing. Half an inch in either direction would have been disastrous: a shorted terminal would have burned out the starter at least; hitting the flywheel would have ground the ring gear off the flywheel (so replacing the starter wouldn't make a difference); a broken cable could have let the starter fall out on the track and really ruin someone's day. And then, I had just 2 of the correct size bolts in my spares. Maybe I should have packed up and gone home. I had certainly used up all of my luck for one day!
 |
| This is what it looks like when you have to work on the starter. |
The feature race on Sunday afternoon was exciting, but for the wrong reasons. I got stuck in traffic a few laps in, so I didn't get close enough to see the CFF battle in front of me. Still, there was still plenty to keep my eyes occupied. The FST was stopped on the outside the silo turn, maybe after spinning. Corner 7 was yellow for an incident I couldn't spot. The next lap, I saw a rescue truck on the side of the track at 7, again for no apparent reason. Then I finally saw a flash of red deep in the weeds -- I couldn't identify the car, but someone had gotten stuck off-track. A few cars did some really amazing things (amazing in a bad way) in front of me. It seemed that every corner had a debris flag up at some point, and the yellow flags got quite a workout as well. A tailpipe was left sitting on track in front of the corner 6A station. But perhaps most importantly... I passed Tom Tipsword as he was limping his car back to the pits. He had blown a water hose in his battle with Mike, which gave Mike an easy win and me an unearned second place.
If you don't count the bruises, sore muscles, sore lungs, and pounding headache, I feel pretty good about the weekend.
Next stop: Mid-Ohio.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Is that 4, or is that 5?
For the Fall Sprints, the last CenDiv Regional race of the season, Chicago Region decided to spice things up a bit. Instead of a single race spread out over two days, or 2 races (one race each day), they put together a 4-race schedule. The first three races would be 8-lap sprint races, with each race setting the grid for the following race. The last race would be an 18-lap "feature" race. The feature race would be the only one that counted towards the Regional championship, but each of the four races would count towards a "weekend" championship.
When we got to Blackhawk Farms Raceway Saturday morning, a layer of frost covered everything (sound familiar?) and the track was a little wet, but the sun was peeking out from behind the clouds. The morning qualifying session was difficult because the cold weather made for some great horsepower, but it also took away a lot of traction. On top of that, the track was wet in several spots, including the front straight. Any heat that built up in the tires would be rinsed away before corner 1, which made braking dicey. I got a little spooked after locking the brakes a few times. That plagued me for the rest of the weekend, and I braked too early every lap. Still, the lap times were promising for such challenging conditions. 1:31, 1:27, 1:28, 1:26... then a 1:24.6 on the last lap! That last lap was good enough to catapult me to the CFF pole. (Mike Green had tried using tire warmers before the session. He warmed the tires up to 170 degrees before going out. When he came back, the tires were all at 80 degrees.)
With Johnson out, that put me on the front row. We went out for the pace lap(s) and we all proceeded to toss the cars back and forth, trying to scrub some heat into the tread. Back and forth, back and forth... but as we exited corner 5, I realized just how tired I was. My arms were completely exhausted! I didn't know how I could make it through a second pace lap, much less 18 race laps.
I was looking forward to the quick sprint races, but not to the weather. Friday (towing day) was cold and rainy all day, and the forecast for the weekend called for highs in the 40s and overnight lows below freezing. I pulled out the long underwear, gloves, and winter coats.
When we got to Blackhawk Farms Raceway Saturday morning, a layer of frost covered everything (sound familiar?) and the track was a little wet, but the sun was peeking out from behind the clouds. The morning qualifying session was difficult because the cold weather made for some great horsepower, but it also took away a lot of traction. On top of that, the track was wet in several spots, including the front straight. Any heat that built up in the tires would be rinsed away before corner 1, which made braking dicey. I got a little spooked after locking the brakes a few times. That plagued me for the rest of the weekend, and I braked too early every lap. Still, the lap times were promising for such challenging conditions. 1:31, 1:27, 1:28, 1:26... then a 1:24.6 on the last lap! That last lap was good enough to catapult me to the CFF pole. (Mike Green had tried using tire warmers before the session. He warmed the tires up to 170 degrees before going out. When he came back, the tires were all at 80 degrees.)Sprint 1 Grid (top 10):
FF 22 John Spinello 1:21.6
FF 38 Dan Johnson 1:22.1
FF 10 Steve Barkley 1:23.8
CFF 65 John Haydon 1:24.6
CFF 7 Mike Green 1:25.3
FV 88 Hal Adkins
FV 19 Matt King
FF 49 John Luxon
FV 70 Daniel Eick
CFF 15 Bruce Drenth
When the green flag came out for Sprint 1, I got a jump on Mike and took a defensive line into corner 1. He tucked in behind me, but somehow I carried more speed and managed to open up a comfortable gap before corner 3. When I stopped watching my mirrors, I realized that I was close enough to the three lead FFs that I was in a good position to challenge Spinello for 3rd overall! Just as I was trying to talk myself into settling for 4th overall and the class win, Spinello dropped out. A lap later, William Cobb in a F500 passed me for 3rd overall. I would have liked to finish higher overall, but as my dad said later, "You won your class, and you can't get any firster than first!"
Many of us (including me) had assumed that the finishing order from each sprint would set the grid for the next race. We were a little surprised to learn that the grid would actually be set by fast lap time during the race, not by finishing position. Clever -- but it cost me a grid spot! While I settled in and cruised to the finish, Mike had actually turned a faster lap trying to chase me down. Touche'.
Sprint 2 Grid (top 7):
F500 28 Cobb 1:17.9*
FF 38 Johnson 1:18.6
FF 10 Barkley 1:18.9
FF 22 Spinello 1:21.5
CFF 7 Green 1:22.3
CFF 65 John Haydon 1:22.5
FF 49 Luxon 1:22.8
*Cobb did not go out for the morning qualifying session. He started Sprint 1 at the back of the grid and worked his way up to 3rd overall, setting fast lap of the race in the process.
When I saw the results from Sprint 1 and the grid for Sprint 2, it struck me how well I was 
keeping up with the FFs. These cars usually run soft-compound tires, which offer better traction than the hard spec tires that CFFs run. Then it dawned on me: The FFs couldn't get an advantage because the cold weather prevented their tires from getting warm enough to be effective. (Cold? It snowed during the lunch break!) The CFF hard tires, on the other hand, never get very sticky, so their behavior in the cold is about the same as it is on a hot day. Another thing working to my advantage is the fact that I have spent the majority of my racing career on old, used tires which have very little stickiness left. For the first several years, I actually raced on street tires. I'm not used to relying on sticky tires.
keeping up with the FFs. These cars usually run soft-compound tires, which offer better traction than the hard spec tires that CFFs run. Then it dawned on me: The FFs couldn't get an advantage because the cold weather prevented their tires from getting warm enough to be effective. (Cold? It snowed during the lunch break!) The CFF hard tires, on the other hand, never get very sticky, so their behavior in the cold is about the same as it is on a hot day. Another thing working to my advantage is the fact that I have spent the majority of my racing career on old, used tires which have very little stickiness left. For the first several years, I actually raced on street tires. I'm not used to relying on sticky tires. Before Sprint 2 started, Dan Johnson told me that he had one shock absorber that had failed. I was a little surprised that he decided not to run in Sprint 2 (he had set the fastest FF time with the failed shock, after all) and at least set a time so he wouldn't have to chase from the back in Sprint 3. But he decided to try to locate a replacement shock, probably because he would only have to set a good lap time in Sprint 3 (not finish well) to grid well for the feature.
When Dan didn't show to the grid, that put me one row behind Mike. He got a good jump on me and led me for the first 3 laps. I stayed on his tail to try to find an advantage. Finally I got a good run coming out of corner 6 and managed to get in front of him before corner 7. I wasn't able to catch the leaders this time, but I got down to a 1:21.5 and once again settled in for a 4th overall finish and another class win.
Sprint 3 Grid (top 8):
F500 28 Cobb 1:16.9
FF 22 Spinello 1:18.6
FF 10 Barkley 1: 19.0
FF 49 Luxon 1:20.4
CFF 65 John Haydon 1:21.5
FV 81 Bertolucci 1:22.1
CFF 7 Green 1:22.5*
CFF 15 Drenth 1:22.5*
*Green's and Drenth's fast lap times matched to 0.001 second. They were actually gridded by their second-fastest lap times, which differed by 0.041 seconds.
Sunday morning dawned just as cold and frosty as Saturday. It was so cold, the Stewards decided that we should have two pace laps for each race, so we could have more of a chance to warm up engines and tires. That was a good decision, in my opinion. I even came up with a plan: The first lap would be spent warming the engine and tires; the second lap would be just for warming the left front tire and the brakes -- in anticipation of the right-hand corner 1.
When we gridded for Sprint 3, we were surprised to watch Cobb take the pole position and then drive back to his paddock spot. I'm not sure what happened there, but I'm assuming the cold was making his car misbehave. Which is odd, considering that F500s have snowmobile engines. That meant that the fastest car in the group would start the feature race at the back. Meanwhile, Johnson had found a new shock and was ready to start Sprint 3 from the back.
Once again the race start worked out in my favor. I accelerated away, but Green got balked by another car going into corner 1. That let me open up a comfortable lead on Green before the end of the first lap. Meanwhile, Johnson had made his way through the pack. He passed me in corner 1 on the second lap and passed Spinello soon after. He challenged Barkley for the overall lead, pulling out to pass in several corners, but he wasn't confident that he could make the pass, so he backed out and pulled back in line at the last moment. That dicing was slowing Barkley down enough that I caught up to the lead pack within a couple of laps, and three laps in a row I watched Johnson try to pass in corner 7, only to back out and concede the corner. Finally, he decided that he would make the pass, even if it meant forcing Barkley to back out. He pulled out to pass Barkley going into corner 7 again and tried to outbrake him. Unfortunately, he miscalculated and the car began a slow spin onto the grass on the inside of the corner. Spinello and I both saw this and backed off to let things unfold before we got to the corner. Johnson slid sideways through the grass, hit the curbing at the inside edge of the track... and his car barrel-rolled onto the track, sliding upside-down across the corner exit. Barkley came to a full stop to avoid him, but Spinello and I were both able to sneak around the mess, passing Barkley in the process.
Actually, I didn't quite make it. Barkley got going again just as I was next to him. He looked over and recognized that I wasn't in his class, so he was ready to let me go. Then he realized that Spinello was also in front of him, so he put his foot down to try to get the lead back. Unfortunately for him, this was the last lap and he didn't have enough time left to chase him down. I finished 3rd overall and got another class win.
Feature Race Grid (top 6):
FF 22 Spinello 1:23.1
FF 38 Johnson 1:23.5
CFF 65 John Haydon 1:23.8
FF 10 Barkley 1:23.8
CFF 7 Green 1:24.7
FF 49 Luxon 1:25.6
With Johnson out, that put me on the front row. We went out for the pace lap(s) and we all proceeded to toss the cars back and forth, trying to scrub some heat into the tread. Back and forth, back and forth... but as we exited corner 5, I realized just how tired I was. My arms were completely exhausted! I didn't know how I could make it through a second pace lap, much less 18 race laps. Thank goodness for adrenaline. The green flag flew and Spinello and I dashed for corner 1. Luxon and Cobb both passed Green on the first lap, giving me a bit of a gap. Barkley passed me somewhere in the first lap as well, but I still had the CFF lead. About halfway through the race I caught up to a Formula Vee and lapped him just before corner 7. Once I was past him (and just before Green and Luxon had passed him), he spun. That opened up my lead a little, and I was able to relax a bit. I tried to be conservative, telling myself that steady 1:21s should keep me in front. When I looked at my lap timer several minutes later, I saw that I had done a 1:20.9. Then a 1:19.9. 1:19.8. Finally, I got down to a 1:19.007 -- just 0.3 seconds slower than my best time ever. I finished 4th overall, with another class win.
Winning my class in each of the four races secured the "Weekend Championship", which was an excellent way to finish off another Regional Championship in CFF.
So that's 2 Midwestern Council championships and 2 Regional Championships. Can I count the Weekend Championship as a 5th?
Monday, August 24, 2009
No Stick, No Go, No Stop, No Clue... No Problem!
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.
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.
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.
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