NASA Midwest Region @ Autobahn - 4/27/14

Sunday brought another day of great racing; with a similar schedule.  Practice yielded a 1:40.6; which was 4th of the PTE class but I knew their was more time in the car and wasn't worried.  2 hours later in qualifying I pushed hard and my best lap of 1:38.512 would put me on pole!  The top was damn tight; with 2nd being .08 behind me and the top four separated by just .355!
Today's race would be a rolling start.  And Jason and I would again be on the front row; with him qualifying P2.  We discussed a strategy of slow into T1 and me guarding the inside of the track; with him holding close to me so nobody could squeeze through.  We wanted to keep everyone else behind, and let us duke out P1.
The strategy worked pretty damn well actually.  With the drop of the green, the Miatas (pretty much everybody but me is in a PTE Miata) got a bit of a jump thx to their bigger motors, but I was able to make that up braking late into T1 thanks to my lower weight.  T1 and T2 went just as planned - and I was full out through T3 and was able to pull a bit of a gap.  T4 we were still 2-wide and with T5 Jason getting picked a little and I was able to pull a bit of a gap that I exercised by using all of T6 and checked out in the lead!  T6 is where both the videos below end - with both a forward-facing and rearward-facing camera.  Pretty neat stuff; there's a lot going on in those 40 or so seconds!
By the end of lap #1, I had about a 4-6 car lead with everyone still duking it out for position behind me.  I decided to take care of the tires a bit, as yesterday things got really greasy.  I think this strategy call was the incorrect call, as it let the competition stay close.  A few laps in, I took a bad line into T6 and pretty much lost all of my lead.  I was now forced into some defensive driving lines and into similar issues as Saturday where I'm at a bit of a disadvantage in traffic with the lower torque motor.  In the end there was some terrific driving in class, specially with the top 4 of us.  I had a terrific weekend and had a lot of fun.  It's great to hop in a car you've never seen or driven before and immediately be competitive.  Not only that; I put the car on the front-row of qualifying each day and run under the old track record!  Huge thanks to Sam and Myers Motorsports for the car prep.

NASA Midwest Region @ Autobahn - 4/26/14

The wife and I got up early Saturday morning (4:40am) to make the drive to Autobahn for the 8am driver's meeting.  I arrived in time to greet Sam of Myers Motorsports and get a look at the 1991 Honda CRX SI I would be driving this weekend.  The car looked clean and, well, small! 
I had a short discussion with Sam about the car and all the specifics relating to shift points, types of brakes and how I could expect the car to handle.  As well as a bit of advice on FWD, as I had never raced a FWD platform yet! 

8:50am Practice was up first and I'd have a 1-way radio in my ear with Sam helping spot and call out times  on the other end of the mic.  It was of immediate help as there was a car off on lap 1 and Sam called it to me before I seen it!  I took it easy for about 2-3 laps as the temps were in the 40's and the tires needed temp.  I started dropping about 2 seconds a lap and ended with a 1:41.3 I believe and Sam seemed pretty satisfied with that.  After I heard the other PTE cars were in the 1:40-1:41 range I felt pretty damn good.  To be nearly at-speed after 15min in a car I'd never even seen before was pretty sweet.  The only issue happened when I flipped on the fan in the pits and it grounded itself out and created some pretty hanous smelling smoke.

10:30am Qualifying was up next.  Sam had fixed the wiring issue; no real setup changes as I really liked the balance of the car.  I hit it pretty hard right away and seen a 1:39.8 pop-up.  I pushed hard 1 more lap (Sam radio'd the white flag was out) and the in-car timer said I had a absolute flyer going; .4 better... until I hosed up a turn and dropped 2 tires off.  Lap ruined!  However my time would hold for P2 out of 7 in class; which meant the front row!

1:25pm was the Lightning race.  36 cars in total; starting in 3 waves.  My class (PTE) would be the 3rd and final wave, consisting of 9 cars; 7 in my PTE class and 2 Honda Challenge cars.  I had only been in 1 standing start before, and they are difficult especially in a car you've never tried to 'launch' before!  I got a decent launch, but we were quickly 4-wide into turn 1, and I was dodging a spinning car by T3 in route to one hell of a race.  Video is below; I'll let it speak for itself.

After falling back to 5th at the start I worked my way back to 2nd before I spun.  My best lap was a 1:39.154 which broke the track record!  That is until a fellow competitor put down a 1:39.135 about 6 laps later stealing away the PTE track record!
I have to give a huge thanks to Sam & Myers Motorsports for providing a front-row capable car!

24 Hrs of Lemons @ Gingerman - April 19-20

After a weekend off, I headed up to SW Michigan for a 24 Hours of Lemons event at Gingerman Raceway.  This would be a repeat event/team/weekend for me from 2013 and I was looking forward to it.  In 2013, I joined the #86 Little Lebowski Urban Achievers and ran the 2-day 15hr event and ended up with a 2nd place finish.  Needless to say; the team was expecting another good showing.

I buzzed N ~300 to Gingerman early Friday morning as we planned to run the practice day to verify everything was good with the car.  I got there around noon and took the 4th 20min session.  The car felt good; I had forgotten it wallows so much side-to-side that it literally makes you nauseous (kinda seasick) until you get used to it.  Except for someone - not me - leaving the hood pins disconnected and having the hood fly up again.  Funny enough; but I heard this wasn't the first time! 

With the practice session out of the way, the car just needed a bit of prep for the 9.5 hrs of racing on Saturday, with another 5 hrs to finish off the weekend on Sunday.
So we opened a beer and started to BS!  Then along came the truck pictured on the left.  It was a vehicle actually entered in the event too!  About 7 or so guys in a beer-themed bootlegging vehicle with an actual working tapper in the tailgate!  And yes, the beer was FREE!  We had several...  Only at Lemons!

Saturday morning we finished with prep and our 1st driver (Eric) got suited up and strapped into the car.  I'd be the middle of 3 drivers; sandwiched between the 2 co-owners with all 3 of us running lonnnnnng stints!

So Eric went to start the car for the 10am start.  It cranked but wouldn't fire.  So the hood came up, then the fuse checker came out and then Eric (the team mechanic) came out of the car which is never a good sign.  It was < 10 minutes to the green flag and everyone else was lining up.  We flew through the basic checks.  Wire were tightened, fuses checked, connections were verified, etc.  Then sparkplugs were pulled and so forth. 
While there was a delayed green, it eventually flew and that pretty much meant our chance at a 1st place finish was already gone.  5 minutes into the race.  Being the #86 Volvo doesn't put up the laptimes of the frontrunners, our advantage lies in long green flag runs, clean hard driving and just churning laps while NOT spending unnecessary time in the pits.

About 1 hour into the issues, we had at least 2 other teams over helping out and making suggestions.  It was pretty damn cool of them to help out really.  All the normal suggestions were checked and rechecked - battery, ignition, spark, distributor, etc.  Although it kept cranking, nothing would get the car to fire.  Around 1pm we broke for lunch, at this point pretty much out of ideas.  Everyone was starting to hit the internet looking for part stores, used cars on Craigslist and even junkyards.  Around 2pm, I went with Trevor to a Junkyard hoping a computer unit with a similar part # would convince the car to start.  No luck.  We tried to pick up a spare ignition box from Autozone to 'direct wire' the car but nothing was in stock. 

At this point it was around 5pm and I decided to bolt.  It was 5hrs home and I'd rather be there than waiting around for the 12:15pm start on Sunday as we really didn't have any new ideas.  So in the end, we turned 0 laps.  Last I heard, the car still isn't running.  So our next team race in July is a bit up-in-the-air!

I'll leave you with a shot from my 335i Trip Computer.  Including a stop for gas, this was my trip to the track early Friday morning.  I dare ya to try and average 76.7mph for 4 hrs with a pitstop that includes piloting through tollways (I-pass) in Chicago that are 55mph limits.  Not bad eh...  Oh, and 31.2mpg!

Chumpcar 7hr @ Autobahn - Sunday 4/6/14 - Day #2

Just like the previous day, we'd be running a 7hr endurance race on Sunday.  Same team, same drivers, just a reversed driver order with me leading off this time.  I had convinced the owner to try some lower tire pressures today in hopes it would improve the handling and eliminate the push.
With another cold morning (but not as cold) starting, I suited up and hoped in the car for the initial warmup laps.  That's when one of the craziest things I've seen happen - and I got it on video!

Yes, that's a tire falling off!  Pretty crazy eh.  And they were pitted right next to us!  So it was pretty funny for our crew to tell their crew about it.  Obviously that took a bit to clean up, but eventually the green flag dropped and we were off.  The last vid below is the first 40mins of my lead stint - uncut.  With the random green I started in 26th or 29th, not really sure as I only heard it across the radio.  I pushed hard ran better laps than yesterday due to improved tire pressures and less push.  Best lap of 1:48.5 - nearly 2 seconds better than yesterday!  I and brought the car up to 11th before turning it over.  Once again, a clean session from behind the wheel, although I had to deal with some yellows and we actually brought the car in a few mins early to try and take advantage of a caution. 

http://youtu.be/3uJQ5dIjTuk <-- p="" video="">
Driver #2 (who spun yesterday) had instantly improved times.  I went to get some lunch since it was 11:15 or so and suddenly seen the car drive past the concession stand and through the paddock.  That wasn't a good sign!  I looked and we were down to 15, 18 and 20th pretty much immediately.  The story was another spin, stuck and had to get pulled to an access road to get out.  Ugh.

Driver #3 also improved his stint - running < 2:00 today.  He took the car in 26th and pretty much held it for most of his session.  Towards the last 15min he started picking up a few spots with the helps of some pitstops!  Dan did a terrific job imo as he had very little experience coming into the weekend.  Again a clean stint; no spins and no contact. 

Last up was the owner; taking the car from around 22nd to the checker.  I personally reset the tire pressures down a bit - but not too much.  The times were solid, again a bit better than yesterday and he worked the car up to a 19th place finish once again.  So we'd finish with a pair of 19th place finished each day - out of a 49 car field.  Top half!  w/o the spin each day we'd have been around 13-16th.

Chumpcar 7hr @ Autobahn - Sat 4/5/14 - Day #1 - part 2 of 2

As mentioned in the previous post, I would be the 4th and final team driver of the day.  I'd be driving from 2:10pm to the 4pm checkered flag.  I took the car in 26th and planned to push hard!  The car was pretty easy to drive and I quickly settled in with some 1:51-1:53 laps.  I did end up with the fastest lap of the team for the day - a 1:50.6.  The track was full but manageable and the car stayed consistent.  As I tried to pick up the speed even more, it became evident the car was setup to push (understeer) either for safety concerns or simply be accident.  It pushed badly in 2,3,4,5 and 13 where I had to back out of the gas mid-corner!  Not ideal, but at this point in the race I was trying to make up as many respectable position as possible!

The first 45min went by pretty normally.  The last hour was a bit more hectic; the last 15min was downright crazy (exactly why we switched me into the last stint) with a few different double-yellows because of contact and was hectic restarts where I wasn't the only one pushing hard for spots!  The first vid here is the last 45mins or so.

As I mentioned, it got more hectic.  Racing between local yellows and trying to time when a double-yellow will drop are 2 pretty difficult things to master.  Get it wrong and you can cause a wreck, injure a corner worker (very very bad), lose positions and/or incur a penalty.  Get it right and it's pretty sweet, fun, and definitely rewarding!
All in all, I pulled the car up to 20th and with a DQ in the top finishers, we ended up 19th overall out of 42 cars.  22 laps behind the leader and 7 laps out of 15th.  I figure that we lost 5-8 laps with the spin in stint #3 - which was the only spin for the team.  I am happy to say the entire team kept it clean; no car contact and no black flags!  Pretty much what I thought as we had a solid chance at 15th w/o the spin.  The 2 newbs were obviously slower, but we all expected that and by keeping it clean I thought they did a pretty solid job.  Pitstops were hastily planned, but executed pretty well with regards to fuel and driver changes.  We never checked any setup on the car at all - which I thought was a mistake.  We would eventually check the tire pressures after the race and find the fronts to be 42 and 55! 

The last vid here is the final 3 laps of the race - keep in mind that's the final 3 laps of an 8 hr race!  It should give you a good snapshot of what things are like with managing slower and faster traffic, not passing under yellows, timing passes, etc.

We'd be doing the same thing tomorrow; another 7 hours!