It drizzled rain at about 4AM so I got up and pulled a tarp over the trailer, tools, and me. The car was already under a canopy.
Early morning again, everything was wet, but it wasn't raining. You'd think that with a race starting at 10 AM that three hours would be plenty of time to get ready to grid up. Not so. All that little stuff takes time, plus there was the drivers meeting, which is probably unlike driver's meetings at any other type of race. This series provides plenty of material for jokes, and we got plenty of that, but it is also serious, and the law was laid down on things like kids running free in the paddock, fueling procedures, and the three-strikes (three hour penalty) and four strikes (put it back on the trailer) rules. With all that said, and just one hour left before the green flag drops, the mood changes from silly-jovial to serious-jovial. It's time to suit up, and have fun.
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| Cold, wet, and 170+ cars on track. This would be interesting. |
I would take the first stint. I hadn't been on this track in years, and then we drove it in the other direction, and I did not drive in practice on Friday, but I was the most experienced driver among us. This race would be starting on wet pavement, with over 170 cars on track, so senior wisdom, or timidy, was needed. My goal, survive the start, so we could finish the weekend.
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Yes, that's 170! That leaves about 50 feet per car. Turn 1 after the green flag could be a real mess. After a few laps under caution while cars filed out on track I started looking around, and there were cars as far as I could see front, rear, and around the bend and going the other direction. What a circus! And behind me was the Maserati. The big, old, Maserati. I wondered what kind of brakes it had and if the driver knew how to use them. During the remaining yellow flag laps I would survey the course for good bail-out areas to use if the traffic behind me looked like it was going to crush the little yellow Opel.
Then Zep came on the radio, "Green flag!". I was stuck in the esses, in third gear. I wasn't going anywhere just yet. One car did bolt and passed a few of us. I stayed in traffic as we picked up speed.
First turn, everyone was cautious. The track had dried a bit, but the cars and drivers were cold. Second turn, turn 1, at the end of a long straight, the perfect place for testing crumple zones, which the Opel does not have, and it was all good. No one that I saw was trying to win the race yet. Turns 2 and 3, a kink to the left followed by a really tight banked 180 degree left turn, a place where all weekend people would try to stuff as many cars into as could fit, was good. Everyone was giving everyone else room. Weird. Either I am stuck in a pack of scared ****less rookie drivers or a pack of seasoned pros, because this was good clean endurance racing. So far.
I took it easy for the first hour. The track was still drying out and the car bogged really badly, bad enough to keep me from finding any rhythm or even feeling like I could count on the car. Odd how a sick engine can make you drive like the whole car was sick. But I stuck with it, rolling through the turns quicker, going easy on it in the braking zones, and pretty much just letting everyone pass me. I'd just let this be my practice day, and I'd try to diagnose the engine.
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About an hour or so in I picked up my pace. My early laps were in the 2:50-3:00 range, which is really slow, and a bit depressing. Just the fact that you spend so much of your time in the mirrors and staying out of people's way keeps you from finding your own pace. But a lot of the early slow lapping that was due to the many cautions. The field was thinning quickly. Two or three cars didn't even make it to the green flag and had to be towed off, never to be seen on track again. During the first few laps I'd guess about 8-10 more cars got towed off, but many of them would return to racing after making repairs. There was rarely a lap that didn't have a caution flag out at some corner.
Note to potential LeMons drives, if you miss a yellow flag and pass someone, you get black flagged. Get three of them and you park the car for three hours. Get four and the whole team is out of the race. So with so many yellow flags flying, this was a pretty treacherous part of the race.
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| Photo by racinricpix. |
At some point the engine bog didn't bother me any more. And traffic had thinned. And there weren't so many caution flags. And I picked up the pace, dropping it to as low as 2:33, our team's best lap time. And I was having fracking fun! Man this car is balanced, and it sticks. Hard braking into the kink at Cotton Corners, letting turning slow the car further, grab second and shot over the rise, drifting it momentarily through Grapevine, grabbing third, full throttle through the right turn at Club Corner, wide arc and just a slight lift for the next left into the Bus Stop, knock off some speed for the left kink exiting the Bus Stop and into Riverside, holding the throttle open in third through this long banked turn, and really feeling the G's. Hold it as the banking ends, wary of how that would affect grip, grab fourth and fly down the Drag Strip to the next turn Sweeper, a tight right-hand 180, but with pavement continuing straight if you screwed up and needed a safe run-off area. Hard braking, blip and downshift into third, trail brake my turn-in, enter on the inside and sweep out so that I could hold my speed for the hook that led out onto the Esses. Full throttle through the Esses, grab fourth for a few seconds, downshift, brake hard, left through Sunset and onto the front straight. Hold third as long as the car still pulled, then fourth, then hard braking, downshift, and left, full throttle through the kink then to the tight banked Off Ramp, which by now had mud all over the entry point and after the exit. Slip and slide a little on entry, grab second and go, slip and slide a little on exit, grab third, and do it all over again, and again. Awesome! Much better than sex.
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| Photo by racinricpix. |
It was going great. I was passing people who had passed me all morning, and was still getting passed by the guys who actually had a chance of winning. I was driving the car well, not hurting it, not making any mistakes, leaving plenty of margin all 'round so that car would last, and at one point I remember thinking, wow, I feel like I am at work, doing a job I love, and I could do this all day, no problem.
Then coming over the hump after Cotton Corners something broke. The engine was really loud. All I could hear was engine. A quick look at the gauges and all looked good. A quick look in the mirrors and there was no smoke. Throttle? The engine responds. The gauges still look good. I must have broken the exhaust. Should I stay out? Wait to get black flagged? What if the exhaust hit the pavement? What if the hot exhaust gasses managed to do its thing to the oil we had coated the bottom of the car with on Friday? On the radio, I'm coming in, probably a broken exhaust. I back off the speed and finish the lap and head for our pits. Geoff and Zep are there. I feel for the teams that don't have radios. I park, engine running, and they immediately confirm that the exhaust broke right behind the header flange. Geoff heads for the Evil Genius pits on bike and radios back to bring the car over. Clint will fix it. Zep drives it over while I unwind and get out of my suit. Man, my arms are sore. How long was I out there? By the time I going them at the EGR pits they are almost done. Clint is finishing the welding and Geoff is under that car with him tightening the header flange bolts. Meanwhile, Zep is back in our pits getting dressed and ready for his first stint.
I still owe Clint dinner.
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