Pregame

So now that Lindstrand Motorsports has my car, I’ve mitigated my bad luck of just getting to the track a fair amount..

On Thursday, my prep for the 3-day weekend involved grabbing my gear from the closet, throwing some spare parts in the truck that I forgot to send with the car, and driving the 400 miles (well, with a brief stop in Milwaukee Airport to pick up a friend, Christian, who flew up from Florida) from Dayton to Elkhart Lake.   Much less stress than loading and driving the truck and trailer setup….

This is a welcome change of the usual prep – which involves taking a day off work, getting the trailer from storage yard, loading it up, loading the car, fixing whatever breaks on the truck, etc etc…

The drive up was uneventful, other than Chicago traffic at 2pm in construction, and my first experience with Leinenkugel’s light beer, for two reasons -

First – this beer sucks.  I stopped at a grocer just outside the Milwaukee Airport while waiting for Christian’s delayed flight to arrive, and stocked up on beer, some snacks, etc.  I’ve had Leinenkugel stuff before – mostly Sunset Wheat and some other fruity variation – so I figured their light beer might be good.  The two lessons I learned in college but didn’t stick include: do not buy beer if it comes in 20-count cases, and don’t buy beer in a can.  I broke both of these rules with this crap….

….and Second – when drinking this imitation beer (if you haven’t associated this with something yet – think Keystone and Busch beer – ass in a can, good for putting out fires, etc), if you desire to pour it out because it inducing vomiting in your mouth, do not do this while in the cell-phone waiting lot at the airport.   With a laptop. And a camera.  In a big white truck with a tinted contractor shell full of boxes and gas cans.  It is frowned upon by airport police.

Anyhow. I digress. We get to the track around 5pm, where registration lines are surprisingly short.  I have to say, that, with hundreds of people coming in for this event – the SCCA volunteers really did a fantastic job of getting everything right (thanks for Kay Imig!) and done quickly.

As we drive through the paddock to the trailer – the place is covered with Formula Fords.  They’re everywhere from all levels of ‘investment’ – everything from small SUVs towing single-axle open trailers to 53′ race rigs that have more square footage than my house.

Friday practice

So onto racing, or least practice – Friday morning I arrive at the track to find my car under a tent at Lindstrand’s trailer.  I must say this is a nice way to show up at the track.

Until today, I have only driven two laps at Road America.  This was two years prior in my Porsche for some casual Sunday drive around the track at the KIC.   Luckily, there are a ton of newbies to RA like me; so, they are offering instructional-rides around the track in the morning.

It seems all the track vans were down at the river, so Bill Bonow offered up his stylishly-creepy, yet functional-as-seen-like-in-this-pic Sprinter van down to tote around us Road America virgins.  I had the priviledge to have Duck Waddle at the helm (no, really!), who has more years of racing than I do on this earth, and is an instructor with SCCA and Skip Barber at Road America.

He took us in a stop-and-go trip around the 4+ mile track for one lap, explaining and showing what to do at each corner.  Then, we took a faster lap (well, as fast as the sprinter will go without mimicking a tour bus on a cliff-edge road in Pakswanistany) bouncing around the track’s rumble strips.  It was very educational.

So, finally onto the track. Well…..maybe.  About 15 minutes before the first morning practice session started for Club Formula Ford, with a planned 100+ car count (as seen with my #171 – which you never see 100+ at an event), I got all suited up.  Jeff, with Lindstrand, strapped me in; which, I must say was much more accommodating in the seatbelt + nuts department than my girlfriend was at the last event.  I’m still unclear if it is because I’m a jackass to my girlfriend (you’re the best, Elizabeth! don’t pull so hard on that strap) or Jeff likes me too much (highly unlikely).

I fire up the already-warm engine, and Nick and Web start to push me out of the comfort of the trailer and tent into the paddock for the first time.  We get about 12 feet.

I hit the brakes, and, since no one can hear anything (I’m in a helmet, and they’re 2 feet from the tail pipe), frantically waive my arms (see picture below) and clap to get their attention.  I’m pretty sure I look like a retarded sea otter clapping at this point.  Nick runs up, and with a what-the-hell-is-your-problem look on her face, asks “What the hell is your problem?”

To which I reply, “Where do I go? I’ve never driven here before!”

It seems that during my brief drive around the paddock in my truck, and Bill Bonow driving me over to the track in the Sprinter for our morning tour; I had no idea where to get on the track, or even where pit lane was.   After a brief set of directions – go down here <points left>, go past the bathrooms, past the big white tent, then there is a chain link fence,turn before that, turn right, then you’re in pit lane.

So, I follow directions and get over to the pit lane entrace.  I am just at the end of the cars heading out (mildly late), which was somewhat planned and ok by me – this means I do not have to wait to go out on track.  And, in most situations mean that I will have a good amount of time to myself, at the back of the pack of cars out practicing, to learn the track at a tad slower speed.  Well, with probably 60 cars showing up for practice, this is a horrible idea.   I exit pit lane at about 50mph thinking that there will be no other cars around except the other late-arrival behind me, and quickly find my left mirror useful as a early-out car whizzes by me at 110+ mph going into corner one.

So, now I am out on track with all the fast guys that showed up early to practice.  At this point in authoring this thing, I looked at mylaps.com at the practice session – 87 cars!  That’s a ton of racecars in a 4 mile one-way road.

For those of you who read this for the racing and car content, my first lap was a 3:20 something (yeah, that sucks) and after 4 laps 2:50.  Thats an average speed of ~70mph up to 85mph, which is slow as congress but for a first time out with a ton of traffic (and I passed people!) I was happy. I should say now that this is the first time I’ve been out since Grattan with the Hawke, and Bruce and Nick did a baseline suspension job at their shop.  The car feels fantastic – at speed in a straight the car is much more stable, most likely attributed to having a negative rake setup before, and the car just being aligned properly.  And, most amazingly, the car turns equally left and right.  I used to think I should give up this road course thing and just goto ovals that turned left – as my car turned left mucho better than right, due to some suspension quirks (never the driver, promise).

My practice time was #82nd out of 97 cars.  I suck ass.

Rather than explain why I suck, I’ll just say I went out for the next session – an FF70/Vintage FF group – where I was running 23 out of 41.  Much better than 82/97, but still disappointing for some reason.   My best lap was a 2:48…with my two best laps only 0.039 seconds apart.  I felt I hit my best after maybe 10 laps around Road America.  Oh well.

Friday CFF qual 1

Around 2pm on Friday, I went out for qualifying.  This session – to my own little personal victory – I actually got to the track on my own.  I also had the awesomeness of having radio communication in my helmet back to Jeff w/ Lindstrand.  Bruce Lindstrand and Larry w/ Trackside Communications put a nice radio system in my car between the sessions – I’ve wanted radios for a while, and the price discouraged me.  However, once I get at the track that caution seems to go away – so without asking price, I decided it would be a good idea.

Two afterthoughts on this – first, it was a good idea – for the knowledge that a radio-equipped-crew-member can provide, including pit talk (including Bruce’s horrible jokes), speed (its hard to remember how to take a turn when there are 14 of them) and safety (flags, when to pit, what to do on a black flag, etc) – which reduced my retarded-sea-otter-clapping……. and second, you should know what you want and what you can afford; as, a setup that will work at every corner at Road America (a 4+ mile track with lots of woods and elevation changes) will cost $1500.  Ouch, says my 401k.

The qualifying was busy – real busy – while I will not complain that “I could get a clean lap out there, cars where everything” because I was the “everywhere car” for the fast guys – it was a blast.  I was surprised with the courtesy and smoothness of the operation.

I dropped only a little to a 2:47, which got me 80th out of 97 – not too thrilling.

Saturday FF70 qualifying

Summary: 15th out of 48 FF70/vintage cars.  My best time was 2:44.693.  Down 3 seconds from the last outing.  I’ll note that I was on heavier rims sporting Hoosier R35 tires (courtesy of Allen, thanks!), and not the usual CFF R60s.

In this qualifying session, I seemingly lost the idea that it was qualifying and not a race.  I believe I was following one of the Lenhart crew (Ian or his dad?) for a lap or two, and knew I could pass him.  So, on the carousel, I got a good run and decided to go out on the left to pass, about 200 feet before you return to the apex at the carousel.  I get out to the left of the track and realize why no one ever comes out here – its really slick – rubber curds everywhere, a cactus, some oil, a small fishing hut, etc, its all out here on the outside of the carousel.
Well, at this point in the top of 3rd gear I decide to slow down and get back into order before I go off the track and annihilate myself, which I think I’m doing about 85-90mph, I hear Bruce in my head saying “it only gets worse if you lift”.
So, in good order to learn from my elders (and I’ll tell you, Bruce is waaaaay my elder) I do not lift, but I do feather the throttle a little and let the car continue its direction.  This takes me off the left of the track, into the grass.  I believe I ran right over the outer yellow-and-red rumble strip, which I heard thrash and scrape the bottom of the car.
I now think it might be a good idea to slow down in the grass – but – I hear Bruce in spirit – “it only gets worse if you lift”. So, my right foot is somehow planted at this point.

For the folks who have been here – I exited about 100 feet before the Suziku bridge on track left.  I kept my right foot in it all through the grass.

I end up flooring the car all the way on the grass, and gradually move back onto the track well past the Suzuki bridge, only a short distance before the kink.  The best part is – the guy I went to pass that got me in this mess (yes, maybe you Lenhart crew!) was only a few inches in front of me when I reentered the track after my off-road excursion.

What did we learn here? Know when you’re just qualifying and not racing..and.. Keep the throttle on all the time. Grass is just a different colored track.  What’s the worst that could happen?

Saturday CFF qual 2

#78 out of 98 cars total (FF and CFF).. Here I will note that I am back on the harder (slower) R60s and ran a 2:42, which I’ve gone from an average of 85ish to 89mph – which is a sustantial fun difference when you’re ass is big-mac-height off the ground.

I am also 45 out of 58 cars in CFF.  It seems everyone is improving.

Saturday FF70 race 1

Late Saturday was my first real race this weekend.  Without going into all that mushy foofoo crap – I’ll say that coming up the hill and then the front straight at Road America with 35-40 other Formula Fords from 1965-1980 was awesome.  I’ll also throw out there that I ran a 2:38, 6 seconds faster than my previous time (!!) this race.  I ended up 7th place (both class and group) out of 43 cars.  While I’ll admit that most vintage guys were on less-sticky tires, my time were not that much better depending on r25 or r60 tires.  To most good drivers, there should be a difference. uck oh.

I’m now up to a 91.7mph lap.  At this point, I realize that practice and coaching does help – I’m dramatically dropping lap times.

Rock the Cat Box

After driving a ton Friday and Saturday, we finish up around Saturday 5:45pm.  I’ve not spent much time in Wisconsin before, but damn – its cold compared to “summer” elsewhere.

I think this is valid excuse to drink heavily.  Christian, my Florida-blood-like-friend, also agrees.  It seems that everyone agrees – as Saturday evening quickly turns into drinking a lot without much else to do.

I’ll note now that my car was not unscathed.  Lindstrand Motorsports spent a few hours on the car before imbibing on my car as well as a few others.  My Hawke was mostly OK except a few broken CV joint bolts – it seems to snap the left inner bolts. Maybe the heat from the exhaust on that side, maybe the stress being on the mostly-outside of the track, maybe I have no clue.  But, the bottom line is that I had no clue and it got fixed – I think this was the first time I really appreciated doing the whole prep-shop thing.

On this above-note, it was nice to be on the other side of fellow racers coming up to the Lindstrand trailer looking for help.  I’ve been there many times before; where I beg of their help to fix some quirky issue.  Not that I prefer drinking beer over working on racecars; but, after a day of racing – that math works out to desiring to drink beer rather than trying to figure out if its a 13mm or a 1/2 socket. I’m no good at that.

About now – you might ask (if you’re a good ADD-kid and taking your ritalin) why this section is called Rock the Cat Box.  Well, the entire race weekend is called the Cat.  You can find various reason for this – mostly because the following of the Brian Redman story (which, you can find a version  of here – http://www.september8th.com/news_br_cat.htm) which seems to be the most accurate.

Soooo…. the fantastic workers at this event, along with Mazda’s sponsorship of a beer-trailer, puts on the Cat Box Races.  You can read the rules here – http://www.scca-milwaukee.org/RoadRacing/2009/4th_Annual_Cat_Box_Races.pdf – which might be painful and boring if you’re used to the useful, strict SCCA rules and regs that keep us safe and in compliance.

Long story, that I honestly do not remember (see above: beer-trailer), includes Bruce Lindstrand and myself being on one team, against Nick Webb and Bill Bonow (of the aforementioned creepy Sprinter van, which you know this guys has issues to begin with).
Nick and Bill have one offspring from Jeff, in their LMI-tuned Cat-box, Annie-

And Bruce and myself have Aimee in tow, in a much more protective, well prepared, cardboard box…..

Which, this physical exertion of crazy proportions resulted in my only checkered-flag of the weekend

Checkered flag

You can view more pictures from the Cat Box Races here – http://www.tobinschuster.net/2009/catbox1/index.htm

And, you can watch this awesome video – note at 38 seconds into it where one of Jeff’s children goes.  Hopefully his wife doesnt find this – I think he told her everything was ok and she fell on the stairs.  Uck oh.

So, Saturday’s essay might be cut short because I don’t really recall everything. The things that we did do included having dinner courtesy of Mazda (and the beer trailer? they must have mis-funded it for the margarita-trailer for the spec-Miata guys) and the corner workers, including the really loud and big corner worker in the orange suit dropping the F-word around the kids every 4.23 seconds.  Yeah, you know him. He’s a fun guy, though.

I will say, as a driver – someone who doesn’t get to spend much time with the workers much (and I’m sure the same gig on Saturday nights at other tracks) – this is a great time.  I learned stuff from the guys and gals that watch me drive around, picked up some safety stuff, and learned some SCCA rules in the progress.

Sunday race

#62 out of 97 overall, or 35 out of 63 in CFF.

This race was fun. Then boring. Then fun.

We started out like family – similar to qualifying and the rest of the sessions.  Somewhere on lap 3 – a few guys got tangled up into turn 1.  Someone ended up on their head (anyone know who? I can’t recall) in the gravel, along with a few others immobile, which resulted in a black-flag for all of us.

We pulled into the pits, and waited for 35 minutes..

Then we went back out.  Luckily, they parted us in FF and CFF, so us CFF guys didn’t hold up the FFs.  I can’t recall the race -but I had a blast.  I do remember getting passed by a ton of FFs, and passing some other cars.  There is always action when there are 100 cars on the track.

More to follow…..

In the meantime, check out these pictures from the event –
Pictures of my car (the good ones by purple frog, who has a bazillion other pictures of the weekend if you want good pictures – purplefrog48@earthlink.net

Doug Carter/ApexSpeed pictures

Pictures of all groups, all days by (I think) Bill Valet

Sunday FF70 race 2 in the wet and DQ Cheese Curds

Why (do I write this)?

So, I feel obligated to state this up front.. If I didn’t, you’d get to the end and say “Wow, I want my 12 minutes of reading back.”.  So, yeah, this post isn’t that thrilling.  If you want the brief summary, see the following summary.  If you want the racing details, read the yellow text; if you want the details that I only write down here for my benefit in order to remember them in 5 years, read everything. But, regardless, don’t blame me if this one is boring. I warned you.

Summary;
Rear brake master cylinder is completely dry.  Fill it up. Miss test session.
Saturday…Race anyway. Seems to hold most of the fluid.
Qualify 6 out of 9.
Race, finish 6 out of 9 (Although I am pretty sure I got passed and maybe passed someone.. but ended up in the same place).
Sunday….Qualify with 3/4 engine near last (7th out of 8 in CFF)
Run race, finish 3rd out 7 (yay!)

Friday

getting there

As with the Indy event, I planned this time to try to run the test session on Friday.  I had done some minor tweaks to the car since Indy and wanted to make sure everything was good.  This meant I needed to leave early (I’m not a morning person).  The drive from Dayton to Grattan is around 330 miles, and it is Friday of Memorial Day weekend.

A few things to consider on my first long-trip with the truck and trailer.  I estimate average speed of about 65 – and maximum warp speed in overdrive of, well, about 65 – this means well into 5 hours.  But, at 8mpg towing and only 30 gallons of fuel this means a fuel stop too.. So I figure 6 hours.

The truck and trailer have been packed and ready to go since last weekend, so my sucker-passenger-of-the-day, Kate, and I get off at about 7am without incident.  Other than the check engine light occasionally coming on (bad O2 sensor eventually found – replaced and went from 8-9mpg to 15!), and there being a bit of a cross-wind, the drive up was without much traffic or complication.

We get to Grattan: Weather is great, find a good parking spot (well, the spot finds me acceptable after trying to park the damn thing straight unsuccessfully) near Lindstrand’s trailer (because you know I’ll need parts and beg for help in, uh, about an hour?) and across from a team of 4 Corvettes.
Take note: If you want your ears to be functional for the next month, do not paddock up near a team hoarding 32 cylinders and open exhausts.  Wow. Loud.   That said, their crew chief was very helpful in helping me with a plug wire issue in my first test session (thanks, Danny!).

driving

So onto the car… Kate and I unloaded the car and put the awning up.  I started the checklist on the car.  Everything was going great until I checked the brake fluid.  The rear master cylinder was empty. Empty!  Mike (forgive me, I forgot your last name), that runs an F500 and attended the same SCCA school as me, was walking by and offered to help bleed the brakes.  We bleed them, everything holds pressure.  So I make a note to check on that when I return.

I miss the first afternoon test session, but make it out for the second one.   This is my second time on the track (I had driven a FormCar Formula Vee about a year prior) and only the third in the Hawke.  I head out and check the brakes – things feel good. I use the session to learn the track (Grattan is amazingly fun.. always busy) and adjust the brake bias.  I come in and check the brake fluid.  I’ve lost about half of the rear master cylinder.  I fill it up and head out for the last test session (dammit, I paid $120 and I’m going to use it!).  The brakes are fine, I finally heat up the tires (it is only about 70f out), and enjoy learning the track.

I pull in after the test session, and the rear brake fluid reservoir is about 1/4″ from being empty. That is bad.

A quick visit to my urgent-care-clinic-at-the-track-Lindstrand Motorsports reveals that the seals are most likely bad.  I find this odd, because the master cylinders are less than 20 events old.  I pull the rear master and bring it to Nick w/ Lindstrand.  I suggest to just give me a new one, but she says that rebuilding is a $19 kit and new is $80.  I agree lets try to rebuild the seals.  About 30 minutes later, she comes over with two masters in-hand. Nick explains that the cylinder from the car has a defect – clearly visible when you look down the bore – about a 1/32″ deep by 3/8″ casting imperfection (like a fingerprint size) – that, when the piston sits in a specific position, will let all the fluid seep out.  The other Girling #G70 nick had in her hand was a new one, which took about 3 minutes to install and bleed.  Everything is happy now!

Saturday morning qualifying

Being group 6 – qualifying starts around 11am. This is fantastic for me, for a few reasons.  First, this is Saturday morning and I dont wake up early.  And, second, the track is heated up a bit.  I recall the days of Blackhawk at 8am with frost on the track.  Uhh, I’ll pass, thanks.

I head out for qualifying.  The group of Formula Fords and Club Fords is only 11 total (damn you, economy! damn you, lack of disposable income!): 2 FFs and 9 CFFs.  I qualify 6 out of 9 CFFs.

Fun time.  No issues, other than I am dreaming that the car turns better to the right than left. Odd. I chalk it up to my inexperience of driving.

Saturday race

Saturday afternoon we have our first race, late in the day, about 4pm.

Charles hunting in the bowl

This race was uneventful for me, as I was the lower side of a large speed differential I think.  Charles Smith, a friendly gentlemen I met at Indy running on tires with more heat cycles than years I am old (no, really, thats not a joke..), tailed me the whole time, and I kept struggling to find Steve Beeler but he ended up way ahead of me. Oh well.

I will note that I foiled my start strategy completely.  Someone, whom I won’t mention (that drives a green RF98k Van Diemen with a yellow stripe possibly numbered 9), had mentioned Friday evening to me, that, if you aren’t in your power band at the start, slip the clutch to get the car into 6-thousand-something-RPM and you’ll launch much better.  Well, when you have no experience doing this, and there is a fine line between slipping and burning and missing the whole point, you can really bog the car down + piss off the guy behind you + not really gain much on the start. Oh well.  Maybe next time. Oops.

But, the race was fun.  I learned a lot.. Didn’t run off the track. Didn’t hurt anything. And, all the brake fluid stayed in the car.  Yippiee!

Saturday evening, dinner and an alignment?

Before I owned the Hawke, Tod had not touched the suspension (but had done real well with the car).  So that meant the car had almost 20 sessions without an alignment or change.  I had decided to get that looked over.

I had inquired to Lindstrand Motorsports, who has helped me out many times in the past (with such great advice like “You know, after drinking 13 beers and not having any experience with separating the engine from the transaxle before, it is a great idea to take everything apart and replace the throwout bearing in 40 degree weather at 2am”), via email about aligning my car at Grattan.  Even though I never got a reply (have you noticed how racing and email doesnt really go together? I find it best if you just show up and/or drop off your car with post-it notes on all the broke stuff) , Bruce does read email and offered to align the car.  Fantastic!

I send off my girlfriend and guests for the weekend to dinner in Grand Rapids (where our hotel is), and do the usual “it’ll be an hour or so”.  I believe it is 6pm at this point.  Then I push the car down the the Lindstrand trailer.  Well, not actually into or near it – I think Bruce still considers me and any car I am around a liability, so we setup scales and such in the middle of the paddock-road.  That way, if things go downhill, he can claim he doesn’t know me and probably have me arrested.  Good decision.

Luckily for the car and physics, after helping setup the scales, I am told by Bruce to stuff myself into the car with some verbal propaganda about having accurate weight in the car (I think he just wants me to stop poking around and asking questions…).  After a few minutes, Nick returns from Grattan’s finest show facility.  I say finest not because it is really fine, but, because the mens’ shower at Grattan is dismal, so the womens’ must be better. And, “better” there at the track must be the best. Finest, even.  Well, finest-but-I-still-recommend-wearing-flip-flops-to-the-shower type finest, yeh?
I say all this to help you visualize the look on Nick’s face when she returns from cleaning up after a day of working at the track (I’ll note in retrospect that she was working with Allen, #9, which is a tough cookie to support all day for many reasons not including lack of an air freshener when strapping him in).   Nick is not expecting to help with aligning a car (that is way out of alignment), but, in normal team player fashion she hangs around for over 2 hours to help align my car.

The bottom line is, my car was running almost 1/2″ of negative rake (bad), toe was way out (bad), corner balance couldn’t be achieved (bad, again), and the chassis wasn’t level (uhm, good? nope. drat. bad…).  They did the best they could trackside, and agreed to it completely baselined soon.

At this point, you’re thinking I must have been bored out of my mind.  You’d think sitting in a car getting aligned for two hours is boring, but, with these folks doing the work it is pretty much like an alignment and a show.   A few notables:

1 – I’ll first note that Cindy Lindstrand had a broken ankle.  Apparently, breaking bones qualifies you for narcotic-level drugs in some states.   I think hydrocodone was the flavor of the evening.  And wine.   I don’t think the wine was actually prescribed.  Hilarity ensues.

B – When Bruce takes his hat off to scratch his head (which is often, when he works on a car with negative rake, different springs on each corner, and a driver who might cumulatively be an entire peanut gallery), Nick will find copious amounts of fallen hair, normally all over the suspension, and she’ll attempt to save the hair in hopes to return it to Bruce’s head.  Alas, Bruce does not want this back – or, at least, he doesnt want Nick to know this as he goes back to the road at 3am and picks up all these lost hairs.  You got issues, dude, they can’t put that stuff back in.

Bottom line – lots of changes to the car. I honestly can say there was a difference in pushing the car 150 feet back to my trailer.   Much faster. Really.

Sunday qualifying race

The brief qualifying race (its a 7 or 8 lap ‘race’ to determine your starting position in the race later in the day) was bad for me.   I will note that it (the race, not my time) was marred by Dave Harmison having an incident uphill at turn 11/12.  You can see the video from his car (rollbar facing rearward) here – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e1Ei8cD-_Y
While it was a a really violent wreck, Dave fixed the car and raced since.  Rumor has it he is 2″ shorter after a broken back, which means Dave is still something like 6’14″ tall….

My times were screwed up by only running with 3 out of 4 cylinders firing in the engine.  If you don’t put on all 4 plug wires, all 4 will not fire.  3 is not really good. Oops.

If we consider Dave ‘in the race’ I placed 9 out of 10. If we exclude Dave, well, I placed last. Check yer plug wires.

That all said – I really couldn’t compare suspension feel to yesterday because I didn’t get to push the car that fast (was limited to about 5,300RPM).  We’ll see about tomorrow.

Sunday race

I dropped more than a second, on a 2 mile course.  Which, while isn’t too impressive time-wise – the car was much better on the track.  It was more predictable, more stable down the front straight, and it actually turned in when going left.

Getting around ducky

If I had known the car was that much more stable and I was .5-1 second quicker, I would have pushed it harder.  I didn’t push it and kept it just a bit quicker than yesterday.    Not once did I lock up a tire on Sunday, but clicked all my lap times quicker than yesterday, where I had locked up a tire (rear, mostly – but sometimes an inside front) often.

I ended up 3rd out of 7 CFF cars that started – beaten only by Jason Byers and Phil Kingham, which I can deal with all day as they are awesome drivers with very nice cars.  If I felt inadequate about this situation – I would respectfully say I was beated by Magnum PI and Billy Mays. Which, if you’ve met these guys, might be accurate.   I am pretty sure if they ever read this, I will get my ass kicked at the next race.

So I will keep this one short (hah!).

I planned to shake down the car last Friday at Mid-Ohio, but, wrecking the tow and trailer does not lead itself to doing much testing.

Then I planned to do the full test day (Friday) at Indy Raceway Park just outside of Indianapolis, Indiana (O’Reilly Raceway Park for those corporate types).   Well, if you read the prior Mid-Ohio post, you’ll know that you can’t test unless you get to the track (on-time).

I started out Friday with a desire to replace all 4 trailer brakes on the 28′ trailer I now have.  I had an adjuster spring distenigrate after the panic stop last week, and one shoe separated from the shoe-housing-thingy inside the drum. So, $230 later I have 4 new 12×2″ Dexter self-adjusting (and yes, they work!) electric brakes.  I just have to install them. On Friday morning before heading to the track.

In the first time in my life, I actually finish a job in the time I thought it would take – I finish replacing all 4 brake housings/etc by 11am on Friday (after getting off an airplane from Dallas at 12:30am the night prior, no less).

I hook up the trailer and am off by noon.

After a few eventful wrong turns, based on some “new exits” off the interstate that apparently were not on the interstate I was taking, we make it to the track around 2:45pm (its a 2.5hr drive…. so not all that bad).

I am now hoping that I can park the trailer, get the car out, quickly get it ready and be on the track by 3:30 to run the test sessions until 5pm.  It starts pouring. It has been pouring rain for a while.  The paddock is pretty empty, so I decide to dock this rig in a grassy area between two gravel roads. I get out, walk the area and make sure it is somewhat stable and dry.  My flip-flopped feet with 200lbs (ok, 208) think its okay.

I get about 15 feet into the grass and stop. Not voluntarily. But something else stopped me.  I give it some gas. Stopped. Backup? Nope! We’re stuck.

At this point, Jim from Colletti Motorsports (also from Dayton) comes over and tells us that the folks in the corner of the paddock had to pull him out of the mud/grass earlier.So, 10 minutes later, with the help of a V10 4WD Ford Excursion I am out of the mud and back on gravel.  We park in an area with light-grass-coverage, but with little water and good drainage.

As good as this spot looks, it is terrible. The trailer sunk in 2″ into the ground.  I decide at this point there isn’t going to be any testing today.  I’ll just do the practice in the morning, qualify and then race.
Friday evening is uneventful – unloading and prepping.  I find out through the schedule that there is no practice session on Saturday morning like I had thought.  This means that I will be on a new-to-me-Formula Ford, with brand new brake rotors (not broken in!), on a track I have never seen or walked, much less driven on. Awesome.

Saturday morning comes around and Elizabeth helps me prep the car. I still need to adjust brake bias, the belts, make sure the new HANS fits good, and some other little things.

Qualifying

About 20 minutes before qualifying, I think its a good idea to actually drive the car for the first time around the paddock.  I get in, and find the clutch is not working at all. Uck oh.  A quick bleed and adjustment gets that going (hopefully it is resolved, but sounds like the pilot bearing is grabbing a little still).

I get out to the qualifying grid.  I am about ready to throw up at this point. I haven’t been in a racecar since the October Looong Race with Midwestern Council at Blackhawk (where I still need to write the blog write up… i know… racing in sleet gets to you), and I’ve never been in this car, and the thoughts are going thru my head – will the brake pedal go to the floor?  Will the transmission even shift (I swapped all the gear sets and dogs)?  Is the car timed right (if I rev this thing to 5k in my neighborhood to time it, I think the local yokels will shoot me on sight)? Does the new transpoonder work? etc etc…

Well – I headed out to qual – I waved a few folks by and then went at it.  The car is amazingly easy to drive.  I set the sway bars are near full-soft for this first time out.. and the car was great. I ended up qualifying 9th out of 13 or 14 cars in the FF/CFF/CFC/F5/FV group.

I come in without indicent.  Things are looking good.

Race

Since I am in group 6, I have a few hours before I race.  We make some lunch, fuel the car ($8.50 a gallon! I’m glad I run $2.85 AvGas) and run thru the checklist.  It is amazing how many locktite’d things come undone on a racecar.  I check everything I can – an, in general, at least 3-5 hose clamps or nuts need tightening between sessions. Given my record of finishing races last year – it is important to do this every time you can….

As I am casually getting ready to run the race, I hear the annoucer call group6 (me!) to the grid for the second call. None of us heard the first call.. So, I quickly get dressed in all my fireproof goodies – which could be misinterpreted as my durka durka outfit.  No, I do not board planes dressed like this.

I hop in the car (already warmed up) and drive over to the grid, expecting to the be the last one there and late.

Well, they screwed up – it was first call to the grid.  I was there with about 3 other cars.  Everyone else is out of the car milling about.  I am sitting in the car baking in the sun. Luckily, it is only about 70 out.  And, I have an umbrella courtesy of my pseudo pit crew.

I will note now, that this is the only checkered-colored thing I’ve ever held in a race car. (sniff, sniff).

The pace lap was uneventful, other than this F500 dude next to me pointing at me to get behind him.  Last I checked, we grid up the same way we drive out, so maybe he was missing something or I was.. but, Once he got behind my at the start, I never saw him again.

The start was easier than I expected – as we came onto the drag strip and got 2-wide, the green flag dropped and we all took off.  The right side of the grid seemed to slow down, with a yellow Formula Ford or similar slowing down real quick and pulling off to the right.  There were 4 cars in front of me at the time, and they took off (damn good drivers!).  I kept seeing glimpses of them for about 2 laps, and then never saw them again.

I saw a few cars in my mirrors on the first 2 laps, then about lap 7 a silver FF got up close when I screwed up twice on the same lap, and promptly passed me.

It took me up to lap 4 to realize that I can go around turn one in 4th gear with my foot on the floor, but I still did about a 1/4-second chicken-lift on the throttle to get the nose pointing in the right direction.

Now is a good time to point out 6,500rpm in 4th (24:26 gear) is 117mph.

On lap 6, however, I got a little ballsy and didn’t lift.  Well, lap 6 is when I say I got stupid.  I ended up sliding the tail of the car out, and the counter steer took me to the inside of the turn at 100mph where it is really, really, really really really (x5) rough.  This shook the hell out of me and bounced the car across to the other side of the track (the outside, near the safe haven of lush green grass hiding nasty mud).

After lap 6, I decided to lift a little on the throttle to prevent having to dry clean my race suit.

The rest of the laps I spent trying to figure out the track – I’ve never been on it, and there are tons of open areas where you can really try 3 or 5 different ways thru a corner before you know what is fastest.

I ended up running 4th out of the whole group 6 of 15 cars or so. The 4 that took off ahead of me at the start almost lapped me (I saw the yellow CFC in my mirrors on the last lap), but one ran off or didn’t finish so I ended up with 4th place; and 1st in CFF.  Fastest lap was 1:48-something.

Full grandstands! yay!

Overall, a successful day. I would have preferred to run the test day on Friday (if it wasn’t raining donkeys and elephants), and run the national race on Sunday (if I could…but I haven’t applied for my national license yet – which I am this week).

Thanks for reading this far. Really. Who does read this far? You should email me and I’ll send you something for doing so….

-Mike