crash
12-05-2011, 12:04 PM
First off, I just want to say THANK YOU to all that made this event possible. FFR, Richard and Yvonne, Darrell Anderson, David Ray, Chris Durbin, and all the crew that worked so hard to get us to and through this epic event. I want to give a special thanks to Jim Haussler who worked for WEEKS with many very late nights and not much sleep to get this car were we needed it to be, mechanical wise, to complete this event. I have often said that a winning team doesn't need 30 guys, each with a single wingnut job, but rather a group of a few guys that know the car inside and out completely and can do ANY job, and that is what we have here with Prototype Development Group. I have always been involved with teams, by neccessity, that "get a lot done with a little", and this team is right up there with the best of them. If you guys actually knew the budgets of the other teams, as compared to ours, it would simply be astonishing.
On another note, Mark, after some clarification, I am actually right there with you.(This was in reply to a poster in another forum that said that the FFR PDG GTM, as well as all the other teams at the 2011 25 didn't stand a chance against Mercer and the Porsche 911 GT3 car) That said, the class we have chosen to run in cuts both ways. The rules allow us to be creative and use our heads to come up with unique items and processes to make the car faster, but because it is essentially an "open" or "run what you brung" catch all class, we end up finding ourselves outgunned at many of our events. Doesn't mean we back down, and doesn't mean we don't beat these better equiped teams regularly, but we also know that our chances, as well as just about everyone elses in the 89 car field this year, didn't have a chance at 1st place unless Mercer had problems. That said, I actually enjoy them being there. Not that it is fun to race for 2nd every year, but it also gives us a benchmark as to what an actual pro team runs as far as lap times. They are the rabbit for all us mad dogs to chase, and will ultimately make us faster, so I actually hope that they keep showing up. It would be nice if a couple others showed up that were really fast as well. Then it may be possible to have a sub category for these teams, like "Pro ES" class, or something, so we still get to compare ourselves directly on track, yet are scored with a recognition to the differences in budgets.
As to the race itself, well, we qualified well in 8th position with Darrell Anderson behind the wheel. He is a phenominal driver, and I would put him up against any of the "pros" at Thunderhill and bet everything I had that Darrell would come out on top. He is that good. We would have had a much faster qualifying time, as we had a great driver and were just hanging back a little trying to find some open track to get that "flyer" lap, when, unfortunately, only about 10-15 minutes into the qualifying session, the FFR Coupe of Karen Salvaggio got into an incident in turn 8 that resulted in a rollover. The car was damaged, but their crew worked ALL NIGHT to get the car back on track, and they started the race from a back of the pack position. Great stories there too, I'm sure, so check the Coupe forum. Qualifying was called because of the incident and we, along with many others, didn't get that fast lap we were looking for.
The race start was uneventful and we settled into our groove as far as our strategy was concerned. Things were looking good until about hour four when the gearbox started having issues staying in 5th gear. This is a custom made 5th gear from Mendeola and while the gear itself was not a problem, it appeared that a shift fork/slider ring started to fail to engage fully in fifth. The rest of the gears were fine, and when I got into the car at about 5 hours I shifted the box normally for a few laps and everything seemed fine. However, because we are running a drum controlled sequential box, which tends to fail in a fashion where one gear goes, then another, then another due to fork misalignment once something starts getting out of adjustment, I decided to just leave the transaxle in 4th for most of my stint. Everything seemed fine, but it is far better to run in one gear that we can choose, than be forced into running one gear that isn't fast at all. So since fourth would be the next to go, and fourth gear allowed us to actually stay in our window for lap times, Richard and I decided to mandate that only 4th gear be used. This made us make some passes that we usually would not do in that we had to now drive the car with momentum and use the brakes a little harder to get underneath other cars, but our overall lap times really didn't suffer much. On the plus side, milage increased a bit and we ended up making fewer pit stops.
We had a couple unscheduled pit stops. One for an issue with a radio, and one for an issue with a tire with a problem with it's sidewall, but other than that, it was pretty much to the plan as far as pit stops were concerned.
The racetrack conditions were pretty much optimal for the entire event with no rain, fog, or snow. It was pretty cool, especially at night, but not freezing like in years past. Engine and trans were actually running very cool and we had difficulty keeping them up to temperature.
About halfway through my dawn stint I came around turn 2 to see an absolute fire ball. Couldn't see who it was, but thought to myself that I hope the guy got out, because emergency vehicles were not there yet, and the car was ENTIRELY engulfed in flames. I got a bit closer and saw it was our brothers, the Boothman FFR Roadster. About this same time, I saw an individual up on the hill standing up in drivers gear, well away from the vehicle, and had a sigh of relief. He appeared to be fine. This stopped the race for about 20 minutes, and was a nice break for not only me, but for the car as well. Everything restarted fine and we continued on our mission. I was not turning the fastest lap times, but the call was made to leave me out until the tanks were empty because the timing was such that extending my stint would allow us to be into our fuel window with one less stop. This, as it turns out, would enable the FFR PDG GTM to come in 4th place instead of 5th. It was a great call.
Everything from that point on was pretty much by the book. We had hoped to not have to change the brakes again, but indeed had too. This slowed us a bit, but was still part of the regularly scheduled program. As the last driver went in, Darrell, Ted, who was on the radios most of the time to us drivers and is a great stratigist, Richard, and myself, had a meeting about what to do and how to play things. We were pretty sure we would be OK on fuel, but you never really know for sure. We anticipated that our competition, an orange BMW, would have to make one final pit stop for fuel. He had, at that point before the stop, about a 40 second lead on us. We made some contingency plans as far as milage was concerned, and shifting if we needed to, but decided to hold off and see what the pit stop by the BMW ended up looking like.
Unfortunately for the BMW, they ended up having about a 2 minute stop. They had a problem getting the engine to refire that cost them about a minute in the pits. When they finally re-entered the track, they were about 3/4 of a lap, or about a minute and a half down to us. So it was decided to back Darrell down a bit to conserve fuel, and reasses at the 30 minute to go mark. At the 30 minute mark, the BMW was closing by a couple seconds a lap, but, as we calculated, he would not catch us, and so we went with the conservative plan and kept conserving fuel.
It was really uneventful from that point on to the finish as we just kept turning conservative laps to bring it home in 4th in class and 4th overall.
Really no incidents this year with the exception of a bump to a BMW half way through the race, and a Miata running into the back of us under braking. We fought a push in the car all race, but it didn't keep us from turning the lap times we needed to stay in our window for our game plan. Could we have gotten 3rd with a little more luck and maybe not having those unplanned pit stops? Yeah, that could have been, but seeing the sun rise, for me anyway, was a big thing, and coming in 4th by out stratigizing the next closest team was pretty satifying for all of us, I think.
It was a great ending to an epic event I just hope to be involved with for many years to come, and the FFR and PDG groups are the absolute best people to be around at the track. The comradery, friendliness, and willingness to help others is second to none. Good people, every last one of them.
On another note, Mark, after some clarification, I am actually right there with you.(This was in reply to a poster in another forum that said that the FFR PDG GTM, as well as all the other teams at the 2011 25 didn't stand a chance against Mercer and the Porsche 911 GT3 car) That said, the class we have chosen to run in cuts both ways. The rules allow us to be creative and use our heads to come up with unique items and processes to make the car faster, but because it is essentially an "open" or "run what you brung" catch all class, we end up finding ourselves outgunned at many of our events. Doesn't mean we back down, and doesn't mean we don't beat these better equiped teams regularly, but we also know that our chances, as well as just about everyone elses in the 89 car field this year, didn't have a chance at 1st place unless Mercer had problems. That said, I actually enjoy them being there. Not that it is fun to race for 2nd every year, but it also gives us a benchmark as to what an actual pro team runs as far as lap times. They are the rabbit for all us mad dogs to chase, and will ultimately make us faster, so I actually hope that they keep showing up. It would be nice if a couple others showed up that were really fast as well. Then it may be possible to have a sub category for these teams, like "Pro ES" class, or something, so we still get to compare ourselves directly on track, yet are scored with a recognition to the differences in budgets.
As to the race itself, well, we qualified well in 8th position with Darrell Anderson behind the wheel. He is a phenominal driver, and I would put him up against any of the "pros" at Thunderhill and bet everything I had that Darrell would come out on top. He is that good. We would have had a much faster qualifying time, as we had a great driver and were just hanging back a little trying to find some open track to get that "flyer" lap, when, unfortunately, only about 10-15 minutes into the qualifying session, the FFR Coupe of Karen Salvaggio got into an incident in turn 8 that resulted in a rollover. The car was damaged, but their crew worked ALL NIGHT to get the car back on track, and they started the race from a back of the pack position. Great stories there too, I'm sure, so check the Coupe forum. Qualifying was called because of the incident and we, along with many others, didn't get that fast lap we were looking for.
The race start was uneventful and we settled into our groove as far as our strategy was concerned. Things were looking good until about hour four when the gearbox started having issues staying in 5th gear. This is a custom made 5th gear from Mendeola and while the gear itself was not a problem, it appeared that a shift fork/slider ring started to fail to engage fully in fifth. The rest of the gears were fine, and when I got into the car at about 5 hours I shifted the box normally for a few laps and everything seemed fine. However, because we are running a drum controlled sequential box, which tends to fail in a fashion where one gear goes, then another, then another due to fork misalignment once something starts getting out of adjustment, I decided to just leave the transaxle in 4th for most of my stint. Everything seemed fine, but it is far better to run in one gear that we can choose, than be forced into running one gear that isn't fast at all. So since fourth would be the next to go, and fourth gear allowed us to actually stay in our window for lap times, Richard and I decided to mandate that only 4th gear be used. This made us make some passes that we usually would not do in that we had to now drive the car with momentum and use the brakes a little harder to get underneath other cars, but our overall lap times really didn't suffer much. On the plus side, milage increased a bit and we ended up making fewer pit stops.
We had a couple unscheduled pit stops. One for an issue with a radio, and one for an issue with a tire with a problem with it's sidewall, but other than that, it was pretty much to the plan as far as pit stops were concerned.
The racetrack conditions were pretty much optimal for the entire event with no rain, fog, or snow. It was pretty cool, especially at night, but not freezing like in years past. Engine and trans were actually running very cool and we had difficulty keeping them up to temperature.
About halfway through my dawn stint I came around turn 2 to see an absolute fire ball. Couldn't see who it was, but thought to myself that I hope the guy got out, because emergency vehicles were not there yet, and the car was ENTIRELY engulfed in flames. I got a bit closer and saw it was our brothers, the Boothman FFR Roadster. About this same time, I saw an individual up on the hill standing up in drivers gear, well away from the vehicle, and had a sigh of relief. He appeared to be fine. This stopped the race for about 20 minutes, and was a nice break for not only me, but for the car as well. Everything restarted fine and we continued on our mission. I was not turning the fastest lap times, but the call was made to leave me out until the tanks were empty because the timing was such that extending my stint would allow us to be into our fuel window with one less stop. This, as it turns out, would enable the FFR PDG GTM to come in 4th place instead of 5th. It was a great call.
Everything from that point on was pretty much by the book. We had hoped to not have to change the brakes again, but indeed had too. This slowed us a bit, but was still part of the regularly scheduled program. As the last driver went in, Darrell, Ted, who was on the radios most of the time to us drivers and is a great stratigist, Richard, and myself, had a meeting about what to do and how to play things. We were pretty sure we would be OK on fuel, but you never really know for sure. We anticipated that our competition, an orange BMW, would have to make one final pit stop for fuel. He had, at that point before the stop, about a 40 second lead on us. We made some contingency plans as far as milage was concerned, and shifting if we needed to, but decided to hold off and see what the pit stop by the BMW ended up looking like.
Unfortunately for the BMW, they ended up having about a 2 minute stop. They had a problem getting the engine to refire that cost them about a minute in the pits. When they finally re-entered the track, they were about 3/4 of a lap, or about a minute and a half down to us. So it was decided to back Darrell down a bit to conserve fuel, and reasses at the 30 minute to go mark. At the 30 minute mark, the BMW was closing by a couple seconds a lap, but, as we calculated, he would not catch us, and so we went with the conservative plan and kept conserving fuel.
It was really uneventful from that point on to the finish as we just kept turning conservative laps to bring it home in 4th in class and 4th overall.
Really no incidents this year with the exception of a bump to a BMW half way through the race, and a Miata running into the back of us under braking. We fought a push in the car all race, but it didn't keep us from turning the lap times we needed to stay in our window for our game plan. Could we have gotten 3rd with a little more luck and maybe not having those unplanned pit stops? Yeah, that could have been, but seeing the sun rise, for me anyway, was a big thing, and coming in 4th by out stratigizing the next closest team was pretty satifying for all of us, I think.
It was a great ending to an epic event I just hope to be involved with for many years to come, and the FFR and PDG groups are the absolute best people to be around at the track. The comradery, friendliness, and willingness to help others is second to none. Good people, every last one of them.