Sunday, November 25, 2007
Not the optimal line through the corner....
Many thanks to www.motorsport.com and www.xpb.cc for these pictures:
Friday, November 2, 2007
Day 7, Where it all went right
And this is part of what makes the La Carrera so special. We got back to the hotel after the accident with our tale of woe, and met some guys we'd been talking to the night before. We told them what had happened and they turned around and offered us a flight out on their private plane the following morning, They all lived around Orange county and had come down to watch their friends run the race. We'd never met them before the previous evening, but here they were offering us a really easy way out of Mexico.
No bumping over 500 miles in a service truck, just a short drive to Zacatecas Airport and we were on our way home.
Huge thanks to everyone who helped us that evening with spare clothes and an shoulder to cry on, special thanks to Hank, Hook and friends for the lift.
No bumping over 500 miles in a service truck, just a short drive to Zacatecas Airport and we were on our way home.
Huge thanks to everyone who helped us that evening with spare clothes and an shoulder to cry on, special thanks to Hank, Hook and friends for the lift.
Day 6, Where it all went Wrong.
Day 6 is supposed to be an easy day, we only have a short run to the next city of Zacetecas, and there are only 4 speed sections in the day. Two of them are out and back over La Bufa, another notorious road on the La Carrera, and it was here the Chevy met it's end, and the Driver and Co-driver really counted their blessings.
I don't know whether the dizzying heights of 3rd in class got to our heads or what, but coming down the far side of La Bufa we entered a left hander with just too much speed. The Chevy back end came loose and we slid round the corner. We were almost all the way round it when the back end caught a concrete post at the edge of the road, kicking the car straight and off the edge of the hill. It was 50-60 ft down with a dirt slope. no trees were there to save us this time. I grabbed my straps with my hands to stop my arms flailing about and closed my eyes, this was not going to be a fun ride. We landed sideway to the hill and started to roll. I think we probably went over 5 or 6 times, finishing up a long way off the road. The car came down with a final crash on the wheels. Both Mike and I staggered out of the wreckage and collapsed. It took a couple of minutes to realize that my face was wet and stinging. Another couple of minutes to find a bottle of water and pour it over my face. It turns out that 4 minutes of battery acid on your face is not a recommended defoliant technique. I'm sure I'll get my good looks back in a week or two. In the mean time I'm going to be a bit mottled.
The road we came off is in the background of this picture....
Driver and Co-driver kidding themselves....
Shot from the road where we went off....
I don't know whether the dizzying heights of 3rd in class got to our heads or what, but coming down the far side of La Bufa we entered a left hander with just too much speed. The Chevy back end came loose and we slid round the corner. We were almost all the way round it when the back end caught a concrete post at the edge of the road, kicking the car straight and off the edge of the hill. It was 50-60 ft down with a dirt slope. no trees were there to save us this time. I grabbed my straps with my hands to stop my arms flailing about and closed my eyes, this was not going to be a fun ride. We landed sideway to the hill and started to roll. I think we probably went over 5 or 6 times, finishing up a long way off the road. The car came down with a final crash on the wheels. Both Mike and I staggered out of the wreckage and collapsed. It took a couple of minutes to realize that my face was wet and stinging. Another couple of minutes to find a bottle of water and pour it over my face. It turns out that 4 minutes of battery acid on your face is not a recommended defoliant technique. I'm sure I'll get my good looks back in a week or two. In the mean time I'm going to be a bit mottled.
The road we came off is in the background of this picture....
Driver and Co-driver kidding themselves....
Shot from the road where we went off....
Day 5, back through Mil Cumbres
And we were off again, this time the car seemed to have got over it's idle problem and as running well. Mil Cumbres is usually at it's worst on this day, we run it in the morning into the sun, making it difficult to see, and the mist overnight can be bad enough to leave slippery puddles hiding in the shadows.
None of these proved any problem for Mike and the '52 chevy. This time the car ran well for the entire stage with Mike pulling off a pass! it doesn't get more heroic than doing that round the inside of a corner when the wheels can be 2 feet away from the car you are passing, but the body roll is enough that the top is resting on the other car.
The sway bar mount broke again half way through the day, making the car roll even more. No problem, we'll run the rest of the day with more lean than a VW bus and weld it up for the next day again. The car seems to drink oil too. every kind of oil. Heres Mike filling up the diff for another day.
We ran strongly all day and were really happy to make the podium at the end of it. I had hoped that when I came down I would be part of the overall winning team. I'm not sure that standing on the top step of the podium in the fastest class would have felt as good as getting that third in class with that car. What an achievement.
None of these proved any problem for Mike and the '52 chevy. This time the car ran well for the entire stage with Mike pulling off a pass! it doesn't get more heroic than doing that round the inside of a corner when the wheels can be 2 feet away from the car you are passing, but the body roll is enough that the top is resting on the other car.
The sway bar mount broke again half way through the day, making the car roll even more. No problem, we'll run the rest of the day with more lean than a VW bus and weld it up for the next day again. The car seems to drink oil too. every kind of oil. Heres Mike filling up the diff for another day.
We ran strongly all day and were really happy to make the podium at the end of it. I had hoped that when I came down I would be part of the overall winning team. I'm not sure that standing on the top step of the podium in the fastest class would have felt as good as getting that third in class with that car. What an achievement.
Day 4
It felt good to be back in the race, and right before the best roads, we were driving Mil Cumbres, 1000 corners. We had a stage before that where I could get used to to Mike and the new car. Turns out that things were a little more sedate than the Studebaker with Bill. I started calling corners only to wind up 3 corners ahead of Mike before we got to the first corner.
The car was not fast, but Mike did everything he could with it. There were some corners where with the body roll I thought I could lean out the window and touch the road.
We got to Mil Cumbres with some sort of rhythm sorted out between the Driver and Co-driver. Unfortunately that rhythm didn't seem to involve the car, which really didn't like to idle at the high altitude. It stalled many times at we waited for out chance to run, In one case flooding just as the green flag dropped on us.
There were also a couple of clues that Mike was not taking the event as seriously as Bill,During the Mil Cumbres sections, on a notoriously difficult road, I could hear Mike laughing from the drivers seat. It was all I could to to keep from laughing as well and continue with calling the corners.
Later in the same stage we lost about a minute as the jerry rigged wire for the fuel pump became disconnected and we coasted to a halt wondering what was wrong. Despite all those problems, Mike drove well considering our equipment and we finished in the top half of the day. We were well pleased.
In the evening, Mike sorted out the flooding idle by adjusting the jetting of the carb, and welded up the front sway bar that had broken its bracket during the stage.
The car was not fast, but Mike did everything he could with it. There were some corners where with the body roll I thought I could lean out the window and touch the road.
We got to Mil Cumbres with some sort of rhythm sorted out between the Driver and Co-driver. Unfortunately that rhythm didn't seem to involve the car, which really didn't like to idle at the high altitude. It stalled many times at we waited for out chance to run, In one case flooding just as the green flag dropped on us.
There were also a couple of clues that Mike was not taking the event as seriously as Bill,During the Mil Cumbres sections, on a notoriously difficult road, I could hear Mike laughing from the drivers seat. It was all I could to to keep from laughing as well and continue with calling the corners.
Later in the same stage we lost about a minute as the jerry rigged wire for the fuel pump became disconnected and we coasted to a halt wondering what was wrong. Despite all those problems, Mike drove well considering our equipment and we finished in the top half of the day. We were well pleased.
In the evening, Mike sorted out the flooding idle by adjusting the jetting of the carb, and welded up the front sway bar that had broken its bracket during the stage.
Days 2 and 3
For the next couple of days, Bill, Tony and I trailed along behind the race with the car on the trailer. It was a hell of a lot more relaxing than racing, we were waiting the in the Zocolo drinking beers as the cars rolled in with tired and hungry racers. I put the word out that I was looking for a ride, and heard that a guy, Mike Anderson, needed one because his co-driver had flown home. I think the Co-driver was just in over his head.
I met Mike, and got assurances that he was going to behave himself and listen to the co-driver. I checked out the car for safety equipment and agreed to co drive for him. I was back in the race, starting again on the fourth day. Mike had bought the car from a junk yard for $350. He had less than $5000 into it, making it by far the cheapest car there. He also had the most original paint job...
I met Mike, and got assurances that he was going to behave himself and listen to the co-driver. I checked out the car for safety equipment and agreed to co drive for him. I was back in the race, starting again on the fourth day. Mike had bought the car from a junk yard for $350. He had less than $5000 into it, making it by far the cheapest car there. He also had the most original paint job...
Day 1 Continued
I scrambled out of the window of the car. A crucial part of this race is letting other people know where you are when you have an accident and that you are ok. All cars are given a sheet with OK on one side and SOS on the other. I stood on the side of the road for five or six cars holding the OK sign for other cars to see. Bill was still in the car holding the brake to try and stop the car from sliding further down the hill. I went back down to the car and started wedging rock under the wheels of the car so that Bill could get out. It didn’t do any good, because 20 minutes later the dirt hillside gave way and the car slipped 20 feet further down into a tree.
We had no cell phone coverage so we had to wait on the side of the road for almost 2 hours for all the race cars to go by and one of the race organizer cars to come by and pick me up. Bill stayed with the car as the official race was supposed have recovery vehicles of get the car back onto the road. The stage seemed to have been bad for many people. I passed four more wrecks on the way down, and I found that a car had crashed earlier in the stage also. One person had minor injuries.
I eventually got a lift all the way into the next town to hook up with Tony, who I’d been texting on the way down. We believed that there should be 2 tow trucks on the way to Bill, but because of the distance and the number of cars out on the stage, they would just pull him back on the road. We set off back to Bill with the trailer so we could load the car up and come back to town.
About 7:30PM, just as the sun way going down, we were about ½ way to Bill and I got a call from Bill from a landline he had found. No tow truck had come to him yet, he said he was going to leave it till the following morning, so we carried on to pick him up. About 20 minutes later we passed a massive tow truck and managed to persuade the driver and a Federal Policeman to come with us to rescue Bill. At that time we thought we were the cavalry on the way to rescue Bill. Tony said that he didn’t know how we could make things worse. Famous last words.
About 3 hours later we were go to Bill with the policeman and the tow truck only to find Bill had managed to find another one. The Federale decided that the tow truck that was there already was operating without a permit and it was going to cost us 3,000 USD to put it right. It took over an hour of haggling and some good friends with a Mexican film crew who spoke some English to sort that problem out. Further insult to injury, while Bill went off to call on the landline, Thieves had come along and stripped the car of 2 wheels, the tools, the jack, Bills helmet and HANS device and some other stuff. Unbelievable.
After all that we had the car on the trailer by 1AM, and we were back to the hotel in town by 4AM, 16 hours after the crash. And that is a bad day. Pretty much the worst day you can have racing apart from the one where you get hurt.
We had no cell phone coverage so we had to wait on the side of the road for almost 2 hours for all the race cars to go by and one of the race organizer cars to come by and pick me up. Bill stayed with the car as the official race was supposed have recovery vehicles of get the car back onto the road. The stage seemed to have been bad for many people. I passed four more wrecks on the way down, and I found that a car had crashed earlier in the stage also. One person had minor injuries.
I eventually got a lift all the way into the next town to hook up with Tony, who I’d been texting on the way down. We believed that there should be 2 tow trucks on the way to Bill, but because of the distance and the number of cars out on the stage, they would just pull him back on the road. We set off back to Bill with the trailer so we could load the car up and come back to town.
About 7:30PM, just as the sun way going down, we were about ½ way to Bill and I got a call from Bill from a landline he had found. No tow truck had come to him yet, he said he was going to leave it till the following morning, so we carried on to pick him up. About 20 minutes later we passed a massive tow truck and managed to persuade the driver and a Federal Policeman to come with us to rescue Bill. At that time we thought we were the cavalry on the way to rescue Bill. Tony said that he didn’t know how we could make things worse. Famous last words.
About 3 hours later we were go to Bill with the policeman and the tow truck only to find Bill had managed to find another one. The Federale decided that the tow truck that was there already was operating without a permit and it was going to cost us 3,000 USD to put it right. It took over an hour of haggling and some good friends with a Mexican film crew who spoke some English to sort that problem out. Further insult to injury, while Bill went off to call on the landline, Thieves had come along and stripped the car of 2 wheels, the tools, the jack, Bills helmet and HANS device and some other stuff. Unbelievable.
After all that we had the car on the trailer by 1AM, and we were back to the hotel in town by 4AM, 16 hours after the crash. And that is a bad day. Pretty much the worst day you can have racing apart from the one where you get hurt.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
A typical day in the La Carrera.
Yesterday was our first day of proper racing. Despite telling the organizers about their Qualifying screwup, we couldn’t change our start time from 12th position, The race is disorganized enough without trying to make changes at the last minute.
Basically the rules are set up so that you have to go through a checkpoint about 300 yards from the start of the speed section in order, but after that checkpoint, cars can switch order for the running of the speed stage. We knew that we were going to be faster than the cars in front so in that 300 yards we tried to juggle position so that we would be not stuck in traffic. The guys directly in front of us let us move up for the first stage, but the next cars, didn’t want to.
The first stage just went to show how wrong the qualifying time was. In the first 21km stage we passed two cars in front of us, starting 30 seconds and a minute before. We weren’t just quick, we were flying.
Again, because of the rules we had to let the cars that we passed in stage back past us for the Z control. The car 2 places in front showed up and went through the check point, but the car directly in front (a ford falcon) did not. We found out later that the car had slid off first stage. They were able to rejoin the race again the next day.
The second speed section was shorter, only 9 kms, but we again caught the Yellow Volvo of Karl Scheible, who came 3nd in the race last year. The signs were good that we were by far the fastest car out there.
The first Stage after lunch Karl let us by before the run, and again we caught and passed 2 cars in 15kms. All of these cars were fast, so it just went to show how fast we were going. For the start of the forth stage I had persuaded 3 more cars to let us past before the run, that meant that we were running around 4th in the pack. The fourth stage was also very long, and around the 8 kms mark we caught and passed a car that was running the race in fourth. To emphasis that, we were going fast enough that that we were 30 seconds faster than the 4th place car for roughly every 8 kms we ran. The car and Driver were more than quick enough to win this event.
That’s when everything went wrong. In a downhill section with a complex of 4 quick corners, I called the left 3 at the end too late. This was totally my fault, in that as soon as I said it I knew that I hadn’t given Bill the time he needed in a downhill fast section to brake for the corner properly. Bill tried to slow the car down and make the corner, but the back right of the car slid out and hit an earth bank on the right, kicking the car straight. We were on loose rocks, and there was no way that we could slow the car in time. The car bounced up onto an earth berm and down over the edge of the hill. We came to rest with the nose about 10 feet down, and the tail of the car still showing above the edge of the berm.
That will do for now, but this is only the beginning of a shit day. I’ll write more later.
Yesterday was our first day of proper racing. Despite telling the organizers about their Qualifying screwup, we couldn’t change our start time from 12th position, The race is disorganized enough without trying to make changes at the last minute.
Basically the rules are set up so that you have to go through a checkpoint about 300 yards from the start of the speed section in order, but after that checkpoint, cars can switch order for the running of the speed stage. We knew that we were going to be faster than the cars in front so in that 300 yards we tried to juggle position so that we would be not stuck in traffic. The guys directly in front of us let us move up for the first stage, but the next cars, didn’t want to.
The first stage just went to show how wrong the qualifying time was. In the first 21km stage we passed two cars in front of us, starting 30 seconds and a minute before. We weren’t just quick, we were flying.
Again, because of the rules we had to let the cars that we passed in stage back past us for the Z control. The car 2 places in front showed up and went through the check point, but the car directly in front (a ford falcon) did not. We found out later that the car had slid off first stage. They were able to rejoin the race again the next day.
The second speed section was shorter, only 9 kms, but we again caught the Yellow Volvo of Karl Scheible, who came 3nd in the race last year. The signs were good that we were by far the fastest car out there.
The first Stage after lunch Karl let us by before the run, and again we caught and passed 2 cars in 15kms. All of these cars were fast, so it just went to show how fast we were going. For the start of the forth stage I had persuaded 3 more cars to let us past before the run, that meant that we were running around 4th in the pack. The fourth stage was also very long, and around the 8 kms mark we caught and passed a car that was running the race in fourth. To emphasis that, we were going fast enough that that we were 30 seconds faster than the 4th place car for roughly every 8 kms we ran. The car and Driver were more than quick enough to win this event.
That’s when everything went wrong. In a downhill section with a complex of 4 quick corners, I called the left 3 at the end too late. This was totally my fault, in that as soon as I said it I knew that I hadn’t given Bill the time he needed in a downhill fast section to brake for the corner properly. Bill tried to slow the car down and make the corner, but the back right of the car slid out and hit an earth bank on the right, kicking the car straight. We were on loose rocks, and there was no way that we could slow the car in time. The car bounced up onto an earth berm and down over the edge of the hill. We came to rest with the nose about 10 feet down, and the tail of the car still showing above the edge of the berm.
That will do for now, but this is only the beginning of a shit day. I’ll write more later.
Simply put, The first day was about the worst possible day you can have racing apart from the day where you get hurt. We are fine, but on top of the crash, parts got stolen off the car while it was crashed, A federale wanted about 3000 USD to make a tow truck permit problem go away, and it took 13 hours alone to get the car out of the place it finished up, and a further 3.5 hours to get to the hotel from there. we went to bed about 4am. I'll write the story in more detail later, suffice to say the team's a bit irritated.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Race Over
(Amy posting for Steve again)
Car 108 has retired.
Steve and Bill are both just fine, no injuries, but are very disappointed.
More info to come when Steve can find internet again....
Car 108 has retired.
Steve and Bill are both just fine, no injuries, but are very disappointed.
More info to come when Steve can find internet again....
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Qualifying Day
(This is Amy posting for Steve because the Internet has died in his hotel)
If you've taken a look at the results for the Qualifying run today, Bill and Steve (listed as Steve Warren, for some reason) are 12th.
This is a mistake. Steve and Bill passed the car that is listed in 4th place during their run, so they have got to be going faster. The current theory is that the timing people got the two finishing times mixed up.
So it looks like the Batmobile should take 30 seconds off its current qualifying time, which makes it 2nd, and that is pretty darn fast.
In case you'd like to track the cars in real time, go to: http://panamericana.waypointinfo.com and click the "Mapa en linea" button. Click on the appropriate day, a little menu will pop up called Tasks. Click on the Race Cars button and select 108, then click Start Tracking to track Bill and Steve's car via GPS!
If you've taken a look at the results for the Qualifying run today, Bill and Steve (listed as Steve Warren, for some reason) are 12th.
This is a mistake. Steve and Bill passed the car that is listed in 4th place during their run, so they have got to be going faster. The current theory is that the timing people got the two finishing times mixed up.
So it looks like the Batmobile should take 30 seconds off its current qualifying time, which makes it 2nd, and that is pretty darn fast.
In case you'd like to track the cars in real time, go to: http://panamericana.waypointinfo.com and click the "Mapa en linea" button. Click on the appropriate day, a little menu will pop up called Tasks. Click on the Race Cars button and select 108, then click Start Tracking to track Bill and Steve's car via GPS!
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Day 2. More Tech
We got through Tech today, with only a small problem, the car was deemed to be underweight due to a change in the rules made on the fly. We had an e mail that said the weight could be within 5% of 3300 lbs. They now say it has to be over 3300 lbs. We were within 60lbs at weigh in, so we put an extra battery back in and we are very close with an empty gas tank. by the time we've added all the crap to go racing (water, some tools, etc. We'll be in weight without a problem.
A lot more cars showed up today and if i wasn't connecting to the interweb through a Hamster powered connection i'd post a lot more pictures....
This is Gary Faules' beautiful Mustang. It should be pretty quick...
... And this is Doug Moffet's Oldmoblie. This car is probably the favourite for the overall win, Doug and his professional Co-driver Angelica have spent the last week pre running the whole course, Doug has been doing this event for years, and Angelica has just become the first woman to be inducted into the Mexico Motorsports hall of fame. She didn't collect the award because she was prerunning with Doug. Thats how dedicated she is.
A lot more cars showed up today and if i wasn't connecting to the interweb through a Hamster powered connection i'd post a lot more pictures....
This is Gary Faules' beautiful Mustang. It should be pretty quick...
... And this is Doug Moffet's Oldmoblie. This car is probably the favourite for the overall win, Doug and his professional Co-driver Angelica have spent the last week pre running the whole course, Doug has been doing this event for years, and Angelica has just become the first woman to be inducted into the Mexico Motorsports hall of fame. She didn't collect the award because she was prerunning with Doug. Thats how dedicated she is.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Well, I'm here
I'm now in Oaxaca overlooking this view:
I'm here, the cars are rolling in and some of the people got to know last year are showing up. Some with new beautiful cars like this Shelby Daytona Replica,
some with the same car as last year, dents and all.
we've fixed some minor problems with the car and should be teching it tomorrow. We also may try to get it out for a little run which may or may not involve some of the roads we'll be running on Thursday.
I'm here, the cars are rolling in and some of the people got to know last year are showing up. Some with new beautiful cars like this Shelby Daytona Replica,
some with the same car as last year, dents and all.
we've fixed some minor problems with the car and should be teching it tomorrow. We also may try to get it out for a little run which may or may not involve some of the roads we'll be running on Thursday.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
This post is a quick placeholder for things important for this years La Carrera Panamericana. I will be Navigating for Bill Beilharz, who is driving his newly reworked 1954 Studebaker commander in the Turismo Mayor class. (the big dog class) we are car 108.
Tuesday and Wednesday the 23rd and 24th October are Registration and Tech
Thursday 25th is Qualifying outside Oaxaca
Friday is Day 1 of Racing, Oaxaca to Tehuacan
Saturday is Day 2, Tehuacan to Puebla
Sunday is Day 3, Puebla to Queretaro
Monday is Day 4, Queretaro to Morelia
Tuesday is Day 5, Morelia to Aguascalientes
Halloween is Day 6, Aguascalientes to Zacatecas
Thursday is Day 7, Zacatecas to the finish line at Nuevo Laredo
Important web sites are www.lacarrerapanamericana.com.mx ,the official site, which should have the results and maybe even a way to track us around the country
Also car108.blogspot.com , Bill's blog.
Obviously I'll do my best to update this as I go.
Monday, June 11, 2007
Endurance Racing at Thunderhill
Last weekend (the 2nd-3rd of June) we loaded the Elise up in the trailer for the drive up to Thunderhill. Rather than locating Thunderhill in a perfectly sensible location off the 5 south of San Francisco, they decided to build it over an hour north of Sacramento, that means from LA it’s over 8 hours away at trailer towing speeds.
Amy and I drove the Trailer up North with the two co drivers flying in to San Francisco. This race would be the first one for our new driver, Roland. At least Thunderhill is closer than the places we go in Mexico.
On the Saturday I’d managed to get us into a High Performance Driving Event at the track, none of us had driven there before, and although there’s a nice video of running the tack in the Thunderhill web site we really thought that we should drive it before we attempted to race it.
It turns out that running the track ahead of time is a good idea, but maybe we shouldn’t have been in the advanced group. Thunderhill has three very blind corners, Turn 3 is over a crest into an off camber Right hander, you need to be turning before the crest for the corner.
Turn 5 (bypass) is an incredibly blind corner, a sharp crest with nothing but sky in front of you. When you see the track on the far side, it’s all you can do to stop yourself turning right away, as you are facing a medium right, but the car is unloaded at the time and really needs to settle before attempting to turn.
Turn 9 is a chicane on the crest of a hill. The left to start it you can see on the way up the hill, the right is over the hill and again only experience at the track will teach you the right line coming over that.
So we went out with the Driving event, me driving and Roland passenger. It only took 3 laps for me to screw up. I came over the crest of 3 faster than I had done before to find that I was already too late to make the off camber turn. I braked as hard as I could in a straight line, and then got off the brakes to shoot off the track in a straight line. Slow down, turn back to track, wait for a gap in traffic again and get going.
In the after session meeting I got ridiculed (I deserved it). The Racer was the first to go off in session. The fate for the first to go off is usually a pink tutu, but luckily the group leader forgotten it and I was spared.
For the second Driving session, Roland went out with Gary Faules, a fantastic driver, who has won a bunch of events including The 25 hours of Thunderhill. If anyone can show us how to drive this track it’s Gary. Roland came in after the session feeling a bunch more confident. I went out with Gary in the third driving session and found out what Roland was talking about. Having someone like Gary in the car really gives you the confidence to aggressively learn the track. Before riding with Gary I’d been way too hesitant, especially at the blind corners.
About this time Rachel decided that she didn’t want to drive in the Sunday endurance. She wasn’t feeling up to it, leaving Roland and I to share the 3 hour race. Roland and I went out for the final warmup session of Saturday with Roland driving.
On Sunday, the race itself started at 3pm. Before that we had qualifying at 10am. Because I was taking the start, I took the qualifying also. I came in from that to find that the transponder on the car was out and because of that I’d be starting at the back of 30+ cars. More of a problem than that was why our transponder wasn’t working. It was wired into the Lotus running lights. We pulled the cover off the fuses and found the running light fuse was blown. Relief. We’ll just pop in the spare and turn everything on… Pop. Ohshit. Something in the running lights circuit is blowing fuses and taking the Transponder out. We have 2 hours to the start of the race and we have no transponder, we can’t find one to borrow. Time to start taking the car apart to get to the wiring.
With 1 hour to the start, the car was in bits, but I’d unplugged one of the headlights and plugged the transponder into that. The transponder itself was working, and the headlight fuse wasn’t blowing. I taped everything up as well as I could and tried to get it all back together. Time was really short. I got the car into the pits with 3 minutes to spare, stressed to hell.
The start was going to be a 2 wide rolling start with me firmly at the back of 31 cars. The density of the cars on the track at the time is more than a little nerve-wracking. There are 6 different classes running together, and in theory we are in the 3rd fastest, that meant I had a bunch of cars that should be slower than me in front of me. At the same time as trying to get past them, they are trying to get past others. Luckily, with it being an endurance race, there aren’t that many idiots out there. Everyone drove with real care.
There is a bunch of spec Miatas that that runs in the fifth fastest group, and as drivers those guys are phenomenal. As I started working my way through the pack, more than once I blew past the Miatas down one of the straights, only to have them pass me back in the twistier sections. I think that happened to me 4-5 times before I worked my way through the Miata group.
By the end of lap 10 I was up to 13th overall and feeling pretty good about myself. Admittedly, 4 of those places were gained from retirements, but I’d managed a number of passes and had one more guy in front of me before there was a nice big space on the track. I’d been running in traffic up to that point, some time in space would let me calm down and settle into the drive some. The car in front was slower in some of the twisties but on the straights was a little quicker than me, making a pass hard. I decided I could have a go into turn 14, a place where he seemed to be particularly slow. I wasn’t close enough on this lap, but maybe next.
I came round 14 to find that the guy in front had missed a gear or something, he was really slow. There was a gap to the inside of 15, and without thinking about it I went for it. I tried to hold a tighter line as I went past to leave him room on the outside. But as I pinched the corner the back end of the Elise stepped out in a big way. I caught it only to have the car swing the other way, and I didn’t catch that one. For an instant I was doing about 60 backwards, facing the guy I was trying to pass at a distance of about 2 car lengths. We exchanged a look of horror and I went off to the inside of the track. I got going quickly, that lap only being 7 seconds slower than my average, but the spin cost me 4 places.
By lap 22 I was back up to 12th. The traffic was more spread out on the track and everything was calmer. My only problem was that I’d lost my radio communication to Amy in the pits. That was actually a big problem. They wouldn’t know when I was coming in for gas, and Roland may not be ready to take the Drivers seat. I was thinking about that when I went round turn 11 and got a black flag.
Black flags are normally “Come into pits, you’ve got a penalty” so I came straight in wondering what it could be. It turns out my rushed wiring job on the transponder gave way and they were getting no signals from the car. I came in, Roland got my radio working again, and Amy managed to find a spare rechargeable transponder and zip tied it to the car in record time.
I got back out, but the Black Flag and efforts in the pits had cost me 1.5 laps and I was all the way down to 22nd.
From that point on I was more or less driving in a daze. I’d already been on the track for an hour. I had about 25 minutes to the pitstop. This racing business is hard work.
I came into the pits on lap 34 after getting through 10 gallons of gas. The Elise was beginning to suffer starvation. I jumped out of the car and Roland got in. Because of the rules of refueling, I was the only one in the team suited to do the refueling, while Amy pointed the fire extinguisher at me. I put in about 9 gallons (you are not allowed to spill a drop of gas, it’s a 5 minute penalty, with no automatic shutoff you have to be careful not to overflow the tank.) And Roland was on his way. The gas stop had cost us about 2 laps.
We hoped that Roland would be able to make it to the end of the race from what I had put in. It soon became clear though, that I could have put in more gas and Roland was going to have to stop again.
Roland did an awesome job in the second half, driving really consistent laps, and working the car back up to 15th overall, he says that he had his moments on the track, but from what we saw it was an amazing drive. But we needed to bring him back in again for gas. This time I put in 5 gallons, and the stop only cost him just over 1 lap. Roland brought the car come in 16th overall, 5th in class. Not a bad result for our 2nd race (1st time at Thunderhill), but looking at the results showed just how costly the transponder failure was. Simply taking out the 1.5 lap stop for a new transponder would have moved us up to 9th overall and 3rd in class. I guess it goes to show once again, that the most important thing in an endurance race is reliability of every part.
I think we can also work on refueling. I saw some teams had modifications to the gas cans to make refilling without spilling easier. We’ll do those for next time.
I’m also now convinced that Hoosier R6s will survive a race, and they would definitely gain us some time. I guess we have a lot of room for improvement.
The race was a real blast once again. A big thank you to Amy for being our pit boss and voice of reason in our ear, Thanks to Rachel for letting us race her car, and Thanks to Gary Faules for his track instruction. Without that both drivers would have struggled much more.
Amy and I drove the Trailer up North with the two co drivers flying in to San Francisco. This race would be the first one for our new driver, Roland. At least Thunderhill is closer than the places we go in Mexico.
On the Saturday I’d managed to get us into a High Performance Driving Event at the track, none of us had driven there before, and although there’s a nice video of running the tack in the Thunderhill web site we really thought that we should drive it before we attempted to race it.
It turns out that running the track ahead of time is a good idea, but maybe we shouldn’t have been in the advanced group. Thunderhill has three very blind corners, Turn 3 is over a crest into an off camber Right hander, you need to be turning before the crest for the corner.
Turn 5 (bypass) is an incredibly blind corner, a sharp crest with nothing but sky in front of you. When you see the track on the far side, it’s all you can do to stop yourself turning right away, as you are facing a medium right, but the car is unloaded at the time and really needs to settle before attempting to turn.
Turn 9 is a chicane on the crest of a hill. The left to start it you can see on the way up the hill, the right is over the hill and again only experience at the track will teach you the right line coming over that.
So we went out with the Driving event, me driving and Roland passenger. It only took 3 laps for me to screw up. I came over the crest of 3 faster than I had done before to find that I was already too late to make the off camber turn. I braked as hard as I could in a straight line, and then got off the brakes to shoot off the track in a straight line. Slow down, turn back to track, wait for a gap in traffic again and get going.
In the after session meeting I got ridiculed (I deserved it). The Racer was the first to go off in session. The fate for the first to go off is usually a pink tutu, but luckily the group leader forgotten it and I was spared.
For the second Driving session, Roland went out with Gary Faules, a fantastic driver, who has won a bunch of events including The 25 hours of Thunderhill. If anyone can show us how to drive this track it’s Gary. Roland came in after the session feeling a bunch more confident. I went out with Gary in the third driving session and found out what Roland was talking about. Having someone like Gary in the car really gives you the confidence to aggressively learn the track. Before riding with Gary I’d been way too hesitant, especially at the blind corners.
About this time Rachel decided that she didn’t want to drive in the Sunday endurance. She wasn’t feeling up to it, leaving Roland and I to share the 3 hour race. Roland and I went out for the final warmup session of Saturday with Roland driving.
On Sunday, the race itself started at 3pm. Before that we had qualifying at 10am. Because I was taking the start, I took the qualifying also. I came in from that to find that the transponder on the car was out and because of that I’d be starting at the back of 30+ cars. More of a problem than that was why our transponder wasn’t working. It was wired into the Lotus running lights. We pulled the cover off the fuses and found the running light fuse was blown. Relief. We’ll just pop in the spare and turn everything on… Pop. Ohshit. Something in the running lights circuit is blowing fuses and taking the Transponder out. We have 2 hours to the start of the race and we have no transponder, we can’t find one to borrow. Time to start taking the car apart to get to the wiring.
With 1 hour to the start, the car was in bits, but I’d unplugged one of the headlights and plugged the transponder into that. The transponder itself was working, and the headlight fuse wasn’t blowing. I taped everything up as well as I could and tried to get it all back together. Time was really short. I got the car into the pits with 3 minutes to spare, stressed to hell.
The start was going to be a 2 wide rolling start with me firmly at the back of 31 cars. The density of the cars on the track at the time is more than a little nerve-wracking. There are 6 different classes running together, and in theory we are in the 3rd fastest, that meant I had a bunch of cars that should be slower than me in front of me. At the same time as trying to get past them, they are trying to get past others. Luckily, with it being an endurance race, there aren’t that many idiots out there. Everyone drove with real care.
There is a bunch of spec Miatas that that runs in the fifth fastest group, and as drivers those guys are phenomenal. As I started working my way through the pack, more than once I blew past the Miatas down one of the straights, only to have them pass me back in the twistier sections. I think that happened to me 4-5 times before I worked my way through the Miata group.
By the end of lap 10 I was up to 13th overall and feeling pretty good about myself. Admittedly, 4 of those places were gained from retirements, but I’d managed a number of passes and had one more guy in front of me before there was a nice big space on the track. I’d been running in traffic up to that point, some time in space would let me calm down and settle into the drive some. The car in front was slower in some of the twisties but on the straights was a little quicker than me, making a pass hard. I decided I could have a go into turn 14, a place where he seemed to be particularly slow. I wasn’t close enough on this lap, but maybe next.
I came round 14 to find that the guy in front had missed a gear or something, he was really slow. There was a gap to the inside of 15, and without thinking about it I went for it. I tried to hold a tighter line as I went past to leave him room on the outside. But as I pinched the corner the back end of the Elise stepped out in a big way. I caught it only to have the car swing the other way, and I didn’t catch that one. For an instant I was doing about 60 backwards, facing the guy I was trying to pass at a distance of about 2 car lengths. We exchanged a look of horror and I went off to the inside of the track. I got going quickly, that lap only being 7 seconds slower than my average, but the spin cost me 4 places.
By lap 22 I was back up to 12th. The traffic was more spread out on the track and everything was calmer. My only problem was that I’d lost my radio communication to Amy in the pits. That was actually a big problem. They wouldn’t know when I was coming in for gas, and Roland may not be ready to take the Drivers seat. I was thinking about that when I went round turn 11 and got a black flag.
Black flags are normally “Come into pits, you’ve got a penalty” so I came straight in wondering what it could be. It turns out my rushed wiring job on the transponder gave way and they were getting no signals from the car. I came in, Roland got my radio working again, and Amy managed to find a spare rechargeable transponder and zip tied it to the car in record time.
I got back out, but the Black Flag and efforts in the pits had cost me 1.5 laps and I was all the way down to 22nd.
From that point on I was more or less driving in a daze. I’d already been on the track for an hour. I had about 25 minutes to the pitstop. This racing business is hard work.
I came into the pits on lap 34 after getting through 10 gallons of gas. The Elise was beginning to suffer starvation. I jumped out of the car and Roland got in. Because of the rules of refueling, I was the only one in the team suited to do the refueling, while Amy pointed the fire extinguisher at me. I put in about 9 gallons (you are not allowed to spill a drop of gas, it’s a 5 minute penalty, with no automatic shutoff you have to be careful not to overflow the tank.) And Roland was on his way. The gas stop had cost us about 2 laps.
We hoped that Roland would be able to make it to the end of the race from what I had put in. It soon became clear though, that I could have put in more gas and Roland was going to have to stop again.
Roland did an awesome job in the second half, driving really consistent laps, and working the car back up to 15th overall, he says that he had his moments on the track, but from what we saw it was an amazing drive. But we needed to bring him back in again for gas. This time I put in 5 gallons, and the stop only cost him just over 1 lap. Roland brought the car come in 16th overall, 5th in class. Not a bad result for our 2nd race (1st time at Thunderhill), but looking at the results showed just how costly the transponder failure was. Simply taking out the 1.5 lap stop for a new transponder would have moved us up to 9th overall and 3rd in class. I guess it goes to show once again, that the most important thing in an endurance race is reliability of every part.
I think we can also work on refueling. I saw some teams had modifications to the gas cans to make refilling without spilling easier. We’ll do those for next time.
I’m also now convinced that Hoosier R6s will survive a race, and they would definitely gain us some time. I guess we have a lot of room for improvement.
The race was a real blast once again. A big thank you to Amy for being our pit boss and voice of reason in our ear, Thanks to Rachel for letting us race her car, and Thanks to Gary Faules for his track instruction. Without that both drivers would have struggled much more.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Back home after the Chihuahua Express.
Once again I have found that the intense nature of these events and the effort of attempting to write a blog do not mix too well. It may be worth just waiting for the end of it and writing the whole thing now. That way I can concentrate on making my English more better.
Day Two was the highlight of this event, and the highlight of day 2 was over 40kms of speed section to take us to the rim of
That rail crossing was a source of drama for the other drivers too. An old Mercedes hit the same bump, breaking the control arm, and crashing the oil pan into the ground in the compression after the rails. It tore a 1 inch hole in the pan, leaving oil all over the road for the run back down the stage. On the way back down the same road, the LT Special running in third place came round the corner to the same rail crossing to find the tourist train in the rail crossing. They came screeching to a halt and had to wait about 30 seconds for the train to cross before they could continue down the speed stage. Unbelievable. They had us racing down a speed stage and they hadn’t stopped the train? I still can’t get my head around that.
We had lunch in the restaurant on the edge of the canyon and our intrepid crew of Amy, Roland and Brett, got to the top in time to spend 2 minutes with us before setting off back down. All through the 3 days of racing they would do their best to try and get into a stage before we ran, wait in the stage while we passed, and then get back ahead of the stage. That meant that their schedule was even crazier than ours. The support they gave us was amazing. Thanks to them we have some very cool pictures of us racing, and we were cheered on throughout our race. We had the best crew!
At the end of the day we got our results and we had a lot to cheer about. We had slashed the lead of the Golf to only 24 seconds and we found out that we had the third overall fastest time on the Copper canyon section both up and down. We beat the 650hp Viper of Jerry Churchill (one of the race organizers) by 1 second on the way up and by 2 seconds on the way down. What makes this even more amazing is that the Viper team ran so hard that they put new brake pads on before day 2, and a second set at the lunch break before setting off back down the canyon. The Elise ran the whole 3 days on the one set of pads and had no mechanical servicing at all throughout the event. What an incredible car.
Day Three took us east of
The courage of the Co driver is a different thing. You are trusting the Driver to be able to drive. You are trusting the Driver to listen to what you tell them, and you are trusting the route book to be accurate. There is nothing more scary than looking at the routebook and seeing it tell you something different than what is out there. Take a look at the entry on line 4 to see what I mean. There were three of these on day three. When you see that , provided you have the time to look at the symbol and the text, you have no choice but to tell the driver to “Go to Visual” in other words, don’t rely on me, drive the corners as you see them.
We met up with Amy and Roland for lunch and a pep talk in Ojinaga for about 30 minutes before turning round and doing the morning stages in reverse. It’s a great feeling when you pull into a service stop and the crew is there before you to take care of you for while.
Day Three gave us our best result so far, joint 4th overall which came as a real surprise because we thought that the high speeds would hurt us. The LT special, which had finished ahead of us on the previous 2 days Managed to have a whole collection of problems on this day. It had an electrical problem, which meant it needed to be bump started, and once started it wouldn’t idle needing a constant pressure on the accelerator. On the third stage of the day, it bottomed out in a dip on the drivers side, ripping the floorboards back to the drivers seat, leaving nothing but air under his heels, then finally, on the transit on the way home the spare tire dropped out from under the car and skidded down the road. It came into the celebratory finish with the spare tire held on top of the roll cage by the co-driver. For some reason, all these problems meant the car was slower on the day.
In the final results we finished 6th overall and 2nd overall in the under 2.4L class to an old BMW 325. (think about that for a moment) After over 4 hours 30 minutes of racing, the gap between the lotus and the BMW was less than 40 seconds.
Once again I feel we’ve shown that that the Elise is as close as any car can be to bullet proof. The only way we could be harder on the car is if we entered it in the Paris Dakar Rally. When other cars were being worked on through the night, the Elise was parked in the evening and left till the morning. Thanks to Lotus for building this amazing car.
This whole event was excellent, the long and twisty speed stages almost guarantee that we’ll be back next year for more of the same. I would encourage anyone who can to enter this event next year. Where else can you as fast as you can on closed roads (except for trains) for almost 600kms?
This event also has a touring class, which also runs on the closed roads, but does not require safety equipment as they do not technically race. I think it would be great if we could get a group together to go and do the touring class if nothing else.
Many thanks to those who helped us with this event, including Sector111, ChaseCam and Simpson Racing.
Huge thanks to Amy and Roland for taking care of the Driver and Co-Driver. Thanks to Brett for taking care of Amy and Roland.
That’s it till our next event, Thunder Hill endurance race on the weekend of June 2nd, 3rd
Friday, April 20, 2007
Thursday
A stupid day of getting the car teched, preparing the car to race, running around trying to remember everything that we would need in the car for rally racing and going to a lot of meetings where we get told how the race will work.
According to Steve’s 1st law of racing in
Friday
Today was the first race day. As the event is based in
There were two pretty big wrecks, One Studebaker took a trip off into the woods. So far into the woods in fact that no one following could see them from the road. We spent the next couple of stages wondering where they had got to. Both Driver and Co-pilot are ok, but the car is a mess. The other one was a beautiful Fastback mustang that went off the road into a rockface at the corner, rolling right over and winding up on one of the doors. Again, the roll cage and belts made sure that they walked away from it.
After the fist stage Rachels driving just got quicker and quicker. In the final stage on the way back, we pulled off the first pass of the day on a Subaru WRX. He saw us coming and moved over to give us room. That made the whole thing easy. At least from the Co-Drivers seat.
The results came in and we are 7th overall (out of 29 starters) and 2nd in the under 2.4L class. We were pretty happy with that until we found that the one car in front of us is a VW rabbit. Seriously.
It gives us a goal for tomorrow when we’ll be going up to copper canyon.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
So we’ve made it to the start of the Chihuahua Express race. The journey here has been 1 part boredom and about 27 part screaming irritation at the bureaucratic nightmare that is attempting to get 1 Car, one trailer and one racecar into
8 hours.
In case you missed that, it took 8 hours to get everything we needed into
Everyone here says that every time they come over the border they the rules change, and there’s always going to be a problem. I guess that we should be grateful that we have made it here and we are somewhat ready to start the race.
We have been given a summary of the race and that looks pretty interesting, with a number of the stages around 40 kilometers long, much longer than anything we ran on the La Carrera. There will be around 200 km of speeds stages on each of the three days. I think we will both be suffering from exhaustion at the end of this race.
The big thing for us in the Elise will be how twisty the stages are. If that are very twisty then we should be able to do pretty well, but too many straights and the top speeds of the other cars will kill us.
We’ll let you know tomorrow when we get the route books.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Endurance Racing,
This weekend saw the first outing of endurance team Bacon Racin’ (Rachel Larratt, Steve Warwick, Amy Lo, and Roland Pritzker) in the Western Endurance Racing Championship at
We are racing Rachel’s race prepped Elise. This is the same car that completed the La Carrera Pan Americana in
Of course in the Elise the floor isn’t made out of anything much, so last minute efforts by Qais and the Lotus of South Bay crew had the drivers’ belts mounted to the rail at the back of the drivers’ compartment with big backing plates under the car. This was so last minute that we picked the car up from Lotus of South Bay on Friday about 10:00am for a Saturday and Sunday race. The car hadn’t been teched yet, so we set off on an eight hour drive to
Saturday morning saw us talking to the tech guy, Tom of 7s Only Racing. The car passed without too much drama and we were ready to go out for the warm up. With only 20 minutes of warm-up available, the plan was that Rachel would take the whole 20 minutes to get used to the track and conditions, then take the start, so that I could learn the track and conditions in a slightly more spread out field.
It was a good plan, but it had a couple of fairly large flaws. In the rush to get everything ready to come to the event we had not really thought about conditions. We were now trying to race at Sears point in a cold downpour on A048 tires. The other large flaw is that due to the time that endurance takes up in a race schedule, this particular 3 hour race was split into two 1.5 hour races, one on Saturday afternoon, the other Sunday morning, and each of those starts were combined with the A class races (whatever that is) putting more than 60 race cars of all sorts of speeds on the track at the same time. This was going to be a real baptism by fire. Or rain.
Rachel went out with these 60 or so cars for the warm up and found out that
Time for a team meeting. We knew we had a single file rolling start, which is probably about the most benign start you can have, but it is still 60 close packed cars sent out in random order with very different power levels. Rachel didn’t feel happy with taking the start after her experiences in warm up, on the other hand I wasn’t wild about it because I would be attempting to learn a track I had never driven in anger in a car I had never driven in anger. In the rain. With 60 other cars.
In the end I took the start and even in the formation lap I was sliding badly. I came up with a strategy, which was, “Let everyone by until I’m in some sort of space and learn the track there.” Another good plan, although the name was a little long. After letting about 4 cars past I had a space I could work with and calm down some. The rain continued to come down, and I felt like I was trying to race on ice. I certainly wasn’t the only one with problems, every lap around the track there were more cars off. The lucky ones were just stuck in the mud away from the track, but there were at least a few who came into solid contact with the K walls. No one got hurt, but quite a few cars were bent or worse. Of course the problem with a fiberglass and aluminum car is that it doesn’t bend too well. I did everything I could to avoid walls and other cars.
I did spin though. I was gradually squeezing on the gas in a right sweeper and the back came round on me. I knew I wasn’t going to catch this one, but I was more or less following the track, so my Skip Barber training snapped into action “Spin, both feet in” and I came to a halt 90 degrees to the track, but still on the surface. Deep breath, let that car by, and off we go again.
The carnage became so bad that they put out the safety car with a full course yellow to clean up the mess. As we paraded round there were no less than 4 separate recovery vehicles working on different incidents.
The moment I went out for the first leg I found that the radio contact with the pit that we had tested and tested didn’t work. We had a contingency plan for when I would come in to let Rachel take the drive, but confirming it on radio would have been nice. Extremely nice given that when I came in for the driver change over Rachel wasn’t quite ready to go. We had decided before we even started that the important thing would be finishing the race, so the slow pit stop while the got Rachel in the car was not a big deal. Rachel went out for the second 45 minutes of the race and quickly got into a good groove. We got the radio fixed to that we could talk to her, and from that and the lap time it looked like her confidence in the car and herself improved lab by lap. She took the checkered flag for the first day of racing after 40 minutes of almost spotless driving. She clearly remembered her skip barber too, because she managed one 360 spin down the line of the track. She didn’t even come to a halt before getting going again. From the lap times that spin cost her less than 6 seconds.
I got some sleep that night. I don’t remember that much else about the evening except that it had really good chicken in it.
In the continuation of the race the next day Rachel was again a little nervous about the start, and I, now being a veteran on starts, was happy to take it. The rain had stopped, so although the track was wet, we knew that it would dry out fairly quickly. The grid was started this time in the order of finishing the previous day, this meant that due to the number of cars that had gone off the previous day, we started 18th out of 60ish. Not bad, but that meant a couple of really quick cars which had hit the wall were starting right behind us, now that the mechanics had sorted them out.
I followed the same plan as
Saturday, if they are quick they are going to get by me anyway. I may as well make it easy and let them by early. Again, that gave me a little room to work on getting used to the drying track and take some breaths. (note to self, when on the race track, breath.)
The conditions got better and better for the car. The track dried and I started to make serious headway on the guys in front. The car is fantastic for this stuff, higher corner exit speeds allow faster speeds on the straights, fantastic brakes and higher speeds in the next corner mean that passing cars on the straight is not that hard, even when they are running similar lap times. I really felt I got in the groove of things and the lap times came tumbling down. I passed the two cars that had started in front of me, and was feeling pretty good about the whole thing when we caught up to a whole mess of traffic, maybe 8 cars all fighting amongst themselves, but lapping 5-8 seconds slower then us. This was where my inexperience showed, I was really hesitant about passing back markers when they were busy trying to pass each other, The two cars I had passed were nowhere near as hesitant, passing me and back markers in big overtaking maneuvers.
One of the rules about this endurance series is that you must put at least 5 gallons of gas in the car during the race. With the Elises small tank and 10mpg on the track, that turns out to be a bit of a problem. We needed to know that when we stopped for driver handover we would be able to get the whole 5 gallons in the car, that meant that we started Sundays race with the tank about ½ full. It turns out that was too little, and around the 40 minute mark I got fuel starvation. With the radio working the pits had about 1 minute warning that I was coming in, and they were ready to do the refill. Here’s a tip if you ever wind up refilling a car in an endurance race, make sure you’ve cut open the breather hole for the can. What should have been around 1 minute of refueling became about 8 minutes because of that. Just one more thing we would have sorted out if we’d had time before this event.
I went back out expecting to do 10 minutes more running before handing over to Rachel. The car had other ideas. Halfway round that out lap the exhaust came off, and things got real loud in the cockpit. I know from experience that hot exhaust gas can damage or set fire to the fiberglass, so I called the pits and brought it straight back in. Sure enough, the recently installed stock exhaust was disconnected.
We decided the thing to do was to head back to the paddock to carry out real work on the car. We had about 35 minutes to the end of the race. If we could get out before that we would at least finish. Some quick pit work got the diffuser part way off, and left us trying to reconnect really hot exhaust piping with not much success. With about 5 minutes to go we decided to send the car out again with the exhaust not fixed. I short shifted everything, trying to limit the heat I was putting into the exhaust bay, this meant I was way off the pace and really having to drive my mirrors.
With one or two laps left I saw a fast Evo closing on me, to make things easy on him I planned to run the outside line in the corner to give him room on the inside, the only problem was he committed himself to the outside line. We came really close. Really, really close. Time to start breathing again.
One of the things about racing is that you know cars rather than people, so when you get out of the car you can be badmouthing a car only to find the person in the car is standing right next to you. Suffice to say the driver of the Evo was doing that with me about 6ft away. Before he stuck his foot further in his mouth I let him know who I was. He was a bit pissed because the thought I’d hit him. I argued a little, cos, it’s an Elise right? If there’s contact there’s broken fiberglass, right?
Turns out I was wrong and I owe the guy an apology. We did have contact, but if the paint on the Elise had been thinner there would not have been. So there you go, it’s possible to touch cars at 90mph and polish it out. If you’re really lucky.
Our final result was 6 out of 7 in class, and 16 out of 23 for all endurance classes. Given our refueling problems, and 20 minutes attempting to fix the exhaust we were pretty happy with that. Even better, we had got through our first endurance race in terrible conditions and finished with the car unscathed (it will polish out). I definitely consider that a victory.
Massive thanks to NASA officials and other endurance racers who made our first event easier than we’d hoped, to Amy and Roland for keeping two very stressed drivers as calm as they could, and especially to Rachel for trusting me with her car.
Monday, January 1, 2007
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)