crash
02-11-2013, 01:54 PM
The Mendeola Transaxles, Baja Designs Lighting, Factory Five Racing, Prototype Development Group GTM had a stellar 2013 Western Endurance Racing Challange series season opener at Infineon Raceway this last weekend.(Sears Point to us old guys) This weekend, as with most in the last couple years, was about testing a car with a bunch of "new and improved" items on it in preparation for the year end 25 Hours Of Thunderhill event. To that end we wanted to get as much track time as possible on a number of things we were testing. These items included a different rear wing placement, new updates within the transaxle, a combination of tires that are for EXTREME long distance racing, shock settings, front sway bar settings, updated computer programs and data systems, and last but not least a never before present rear sway bar.
The weekend started out well with veteran driver Steve Zadig testing all the new stuff and fine tuning the new rear sway bar. He got things into shape quickly and was running high 1:40s with the rock hard tires. Even though I believe we could have been low 1:40s to high 1:30 with soft tires, that is not what this weekend was about, and Steve drove accordingly, being very cautious when passing and getting the job done, which was to log data and do as well as possible in the sprint race. When it was said and done, Steve got the data we needed and also won the Super Unlimited 20 lap sprint race, finishing 3rd overall. Video of this race was taken and will be posted on You Tube as soon as possible.
Sunday was a little different, as not only are we trying some new hardware on the car, but we also had some newer crew members that were "in training". We had a very early start time at 8:00 AM for our only on track session before the 2 hour endurance race. As I have not run Infineon in 17 years, that first warmup was to be my re-learning time to get back up to speed. As we were the first ones on the grid, with only a couple minutes to go before the session started, the only car I got to follow around the course was the pace car for the first lap. One lap in the books, it was now open track for me with no one to follow. All was well and was coming back to me until I got back to the esses. I had not remembered that they were so slow until you got half way through them, but then again, the car that I drove 17 years ago had 90 horsepower, not 550. :) In any event, with no frame of reference and the sun coming up right in my face as I came around turn 7, it got ugly pretty quick. I have been on slippery surfaces more times than I care to mention and so I knew there was no fighting it, so I just let it go straight across the grass and then tried to recover once back on the pavement. This was acheived, and I then let a couple cars go in front of me so I could follow. This was short lived as, like I said, we were also training some new crew members. Seems that the transponder was not all that well attached and during the first lap it went flying off the car. Lesson one, without the transponder, the car is not being scored and no times will be recorded, so make DOUBLY sure that it is attached in a fashion that it CAN NOT come off, even if the driver does an offroad excursion. Race control thus pulled us in to see what the issue was, only to see an empty mount where the transponder was supposed to be. We usually run two transponders, one at the front of the car and one at the rear, but not this time, unfortunately.
So this set the stage for the 2 hour race, which was grided by random pick since there was no qualifying session, and we were told that there was no time to get another transponder on the car. Timing and scoring would have to just score us by hand. As luck would have it, we were grided at the back of the front pack of vehicles. This was probably a good thing as I like watching all the crap happen in front of me rather than worrying about what was possibly going to run into the back of me. So at this point I am grided at the back, have no scoring transponder, and have all of about 2 laps at speed on the track since 17 years ago. Let the games begin!
Turn one was quite the show, but everyone got through headed in the same direction. I bared down and watched the BMWs in front of me to pick up some ques as to where I should be or not be. Unfortunately, while I was back behind the BMWs learning the track, the very fast Camaro Stock Car was pulling out a considerable lead. Finally I got the confidence back as to knowing where the surface changes and dips, and oh yes, were the corners were at, and decided it was time to start moving up. The Camaro was about 25 seconds ahead of me at this point. The BMWs were very quick in the corners and great teachers, especially since we were running very hard tires, but it was time to get going. Infineon is hard to pass cautiously on, but I was patient. Working my way up to the point that only one BMW remained between me and the Camaro. I was closing on him and had whittled it down to about 10 seconds back when he had to pit for fuel. That meant there was nothing between me and the Camaro...except lap traffic, of course. While I wasn't really able to close the gap, he too had to pit for fuel. We were kind of surprised as we had heard he had a 35 gallon tank and this was only a 2 hour event, but I guess his mileage was not very good or something. In any case, he sat for almost 5 minutes in the pits taking on fuel. I smiled when I passed him for the second time as he was sitting behind the pit wall. :)
Apparently they were so busy that they didn't realize how long they had been sitting there. The Camaro came out just behind me, and after a couple laps of heating up his sticky rubber, he was right behind me. While we were about even on the straights, we simply didn't have the cornering speed to keep up with him, and as we were there to practice and to get some WERC series points, I moved high on the carousel and let him by. As we did not have a transponder and the crew of the Camaro were apparently not paying attention to what was happening on the track, the Camaro believed he was in first place, when, in actuality, he was in second place in ES and overall. I pretty much stayed with him, but it was obvious he was not trying to pull away either.
As we came to the checkered flag, I thought it odd that they started waving it before the Camaro got to the line, and then it hit me what had happened. Somehow timing and scoring had not gotten our lap count correct and they too thought the Camaro was leading. I actually felt bad for the Camaro guys as they were all smiles and celebrating with champaign, the whole nine yards, but we want the points, and we DID win that race, so Richard went up to have a talk wuth timing and scoring as our data system had every lap recorded and it was clear to all that we had never stopped for fuel. The scorers agreed as the elapsed time for the #4 GTM that they had recorded was almost 2 minutes longer and we were completing lap 61 when the Camaro was completing lap 60.
The Camaro guys really took it hard, and I can appreciate that as it is not an easy thing to win one of these endurance events. I have been trying for quite a while now, but it is what it is, and the numbers don't lie. I'm sure he will be back at a future event, and I think we might need some stickier rubber to keep up.
All in all a great weekend as we also scored a first place in the afternoon sprint race to make the tally for the weekend tthree wins in class and one overall win. We got good info on the changes we made, and also got some points for the year end standings, so, even with a couple hiccups in getting the car track worthy and scored properly, we got the job done!
Many thanks go out to Richard and Yvonne Migliori, the car owners, Jim Haussler for all the prep and data work, Baja Designs for the ULTRA bright lights telling people I was coming through, Mendeola transaxles for a transaxle that was a pleasure to shift, and Factroy Five Racing for creating such a great platform to build a race car from.
We'll be racing again April 6th at Buttonwillow for round two of the Western Endurance Racing Challange.
See you at the races!
PS- If anyone is interested, there are some openings for crew members available. ;)
The weekend started out well with veteran driver Steve Zadig testing all the new stuff and fine tuning the new rear sway bar. He got things into shape quickly and was running high 1:40s with the rock hard tires. Even though I believe we could have been low 1:40s to high 1:30 with soft tires, that is not what this weekend was about, and Steve drove accordingly, being very cautious when passing and getting the job done, which was to log data and do as well as possible in the sprint race. When it was said and done, Steve got the data we needed and also won the Super Unlimited 20 lap sprint race, finishing 3rd overall. Video of this race was taken and will be posted on You Tube as soon as possible.
Sunday was a little different, as not only are we trying some new hardware on the car, but we also had some newer crew members that were "in training". We had a very early start time at 8:00 AM for our only on track session before the 2 hour endurance race. As I have not run Infineon in 17 years, that first warmup was to be my re-learning time to get back up to speed. As we were the first ones on the grid, with only a couple minutes to go before the session started, the only car I got to follow around the course was the pace car for the first lap. One lap in the books, it was now open track for me with no one to follow. All was well and was coming back to me until I got back to the esses. I had not remembered that they were so slow until you got half way through them, but then again, the car that I drove 17 years ago had 90 horsepower, not 550. :) In any event, with no frame of reference and the sun coming up right in my face as I came around turn 7, it got ugly pretty quick. I have been on slippery surfaces more times than I care to mention and so I knew there was no fighting it, so I just let it go straight across the grass and then tried to recover once back on the pavement. This was acheived, and I then let a couple cars go in front of me so I could follow. This was short lived as, like I said, we were also training some new crew members. Seems that the transponder was not all that well attached and during the first lap it went flying off the car. Lesson one, without the transponder, the car is not being scored and no times will be recorded, so make DOUBLY sure that it is attached in a fashion that it CAN NOT come off, even if the driver does an offroad excursion. Race control thus pulled us in to see what the issue was, only to see an empty mount where the transponder was supposed to be. We usually run two transponders, one at the front of the car and one at the rear, but not this time, unfortunately.
So this set the stage for the 2 hour race, which was grided by random pick since there was no qualifying session, and we were told that there was no time to get another transponder on the car. Timing and scoring would have to just score us by hand. As luck would have it, we were grided at the back of the front pack of vehicles. This was probably a good thing as I like watching all the crap happen in front of me rather than worrying about what was possibly going to run into the back of me. So at this point I am grided at the back, have no scoring transponder, and have all of about 2 laps at speed on the track since 17 years ago. Let the games begin!
Turn one was quite the show, but everyone got through headed in the same direction. I bared down and watched the BMWs in front of me to pick up some ques as to where I should be or not be. Unfortunately, while I was back behind the BMWs learning the track, the very fast Camaro Stock Car was pulling out a considerable lead. Finally I got the confidence back as to knowing where the surface changes and dips, and oh yes, were the corners were at, and decided it was time to start moving up. The Camaro was about 25 seconds ahead of me at this point. The BMWs were very quick in the corners and great teachers, especially since we were running very hard tires, but it was time to get going. Infineon is hard to pass cautiously on, but I was patient. Working my way up to the point that only one BMW remained between me and the Camaro. I was closing on him and had whittled it down to about 10 seconds back when he had to pit for fuel. That meant there was nothing between me and the Camaro...except lap traffic, of course. While I wasn't really able to close the gap, he too had to pit for fuel. We were kind of surprised as we had heard he had a 35 gallon tank and this was only a 2 hour event, but I guess his mileage was not very good or something. In any case, he sat for almost 5 minutes in the pits taking on fuel. I smiled when I passed him for the second time as he was sitting behind the pit wall. :)
Apparently they were so busy that they didn't realize how long they had been sitting there. The Camaro came out just behind me, and after a couple laps of heating up his sticky rubber, he was right behind me. While we were about even on the straights, we simply didn't have the cornering speed to keep up with him, and as we were there to practice and to get some WERC series points, I moved high on the carousel and let him by. As we did not have a transponder and the crew of the Camaro were apparently not paying attention to what was happening on the track, the Camaro believed he was in first place, when, in actuality, he was in second place in ES and overall. I pretty much stayed with him, but it was obvious he was not trying to pull away either.
As we came to the checkered flag, I thought it odd that they started waving it before the Camaro got to the line, and then it hit me what had happened. Somehow timing and scoring had not gotten our lap count correct and they too thought the Camaro was leading. I actually felt bad for the Camaro guys as they were all smiles and celebrating with champaign, the whole nine yards, but we want the points, and we DID win that race, so Richard went up to have a talk wuth timing and scoring as our data system had every lap recorded and it was clear to all that we had never stopped for fuel. The scorers agreed as the elapsed time for the #4 GTM that they had recorded was almost 2 minutes longer and we were completing lap 61 when the Camaro was completing lap 60.
The Camaro guys really took it hard, and I can appreciate that as it is not an easy thing to win one of these endurance events. I have been trying for quite a while now, but it is what it is, and the numbers don't lie. I'm sure he will be back at a future event, and I think we might need some stickier rubber to keep up.
All in all a great weekend as we also scored a first place in the afternoon sprint race to make the tally for the weekend tthree wins in class and one overall win. We got good info on the changes we made, and also got some points for the year end standings, so, even with a couple hiccups in getting the car track worthy and scored properly, we got the job done!
Many thanks go out to Richard and Yvonne Migliori, the car owners, Jim Haussler for all the prep and data work, Baja Designs for the ULTRA bright lights telling people I was coming through, Mendeola transaxles for a transaxle that was a pleasure to shift, and Factroy Five Racing for creating such a great platform to build a race car from.
We'll be racing again April 6th at Buttonwillow for round two of the Western Endurance Racing Challange.
See you at the races!
PS- If anyone is interested, there are some openings for crew members available. ;)