Video of BeaveRun

Here's a link to my first video post - the race at BeaveRun.  It runs about 30 minutes.
A few interesting spots:

• A pass on lap 2 at about 3 minutes
• A car spinning in front of me on lap 5 at about 7 minutes
• A drag race down the front straight at the end of lap 9 at about 16 minutes
• Me messing up turn 1 on lap 13 and a car passing me at about 20 minutes
• My record setting lap on lap 14 at 21 minutes
• My excursion into the grass on lap 16 at about 23 1/2 minutes

I have no idea what happened to the audio in the second half of the race.

https://picasaweb.google.com/gregorydspo/RecentlyUpdated?authkey=Gv1sRgCL6h0-fbw6Od9wE#5617001864699978978

BeaveRun

BeaveRun – a little north of Pittsburgh – May 21^st, 2011.  It was supposed to rain on us but the day dawned bright and sunny.  The drive from Alexandria took about five hours.  Woulda been quicker except my GPS, for some crazy reason, took me right through downtown Pittsburgh at the height of rush hour on Friday afternoon.  But that was all forgotten by the time I got to the track.  We were not scheduled to be on track till afternoon, so, I actually got to sleep a little bit late and got to the track around 10:30.  Our first session was to be at 12:50.

I said in the last post that there was to be a new paint job and that some small aero changes were made to the car.  Well – it looked – and looks – spectacular.  The new paint job is really distinctive, though if you saw last year’s car, you’d still recognize it.  We reversed the red, black and took off all the silver, and did the pin-striping in bright yellow.  James used a brighter red this year and a much glossier paint.  The scheme got many oohs and ahs from other teams and passers-by.  All kudos go to James – he did a fabulous job.

I got there, got suited up and got in the car to do some adjustments – mirrors, camera, my position in the car.  It felt good to be in the car after having missed the first two races at Shenandoah – the first for rain (Saturday), the second because I had some other responsibilities at church that Sunday (Palm Sunday).  AJ, Bobby, and James had already made chassis adjustments and AJ was grumping about the time we were going to have on track, the distance that teams had to travel to get here, and the comparatively low turnout – only 16 cars, total.  But I was pumped to have a chance to break in the new brakes and get used to the new driving position without a whole lot of traffic on the track.

A good friend from SAE, Scott Klavon and his girlfriend showed up.  We got to chat a little before I went on track.  Though this is something I do for my own, personal enjoyment, it was really neat to have a friend to share it with.  Scott’s an aerospace engineer, but he’s also a car guy, and it was great to be able to show him the car up close and personal, and talk about some of what it’s like to actually drive a race car.  Thanks for coming out, Scott!

I went out for the first session – right on time.  AJ said he wanted me to take one lap kinda slowly and come in so Bobby could check that everything was OK, no oil leaks, fasteners all tight.  Then I needed to do a couple of laps to bed the new brakes.  This is essentially just heating them up slowly with some gentle braking at first, then let them cool on the straight, then a little harder braking and so on for a couple of laps.  Everything seemed to check out fine and I was learning my way around the track.  Then I needed to do about five laps to get heat in the tires, then come in so Bobby and James could bleed them down to the correct hot pressures.

Finally – I was on my own to go out and drive fast.  The track is much more challenging than an aerial shot would make you believe.  There is more elevation change than it first appears, and the track is a little bumpy in places.  At the end of the front straight, when you’re going the fastest of anywhere on the track, you go over a little hump and encounter some bumps as you brake hard for turn one – a fairly sharp left.  Turns two, three, and four are pretty fast right handers followed by a dip down to turn five which is a sharper right with light braking just before you reach the turn-in.  Turn six is an uphill left leading to an uphill, blind right hander.  As soon as you can see the apex you’re hard on the gas going into a slight left and then the back straight.  The back straight has a little kink to the right – at the beginning of the session that was a light braking zone but as I got more used to the course it became a place for a little confidence lift, and then eventually it was flat out going to the ten-eleven combo that is an increasing radius, uphill right hand 180 degree turn onto the front straight.  This turn took me the whole weekend to figure out.  I didn’t ever get really good at it, but I was better after watching the Pro-Avanti drivers do it.  Early I was taking it in 2^nd gear but that gave me too low revs leading onto the straight, so I eventually started taking it in 1^st and that gave me much better acceleration onto the straight.  The practice session lasted quite a while and I got in about 20 laps even after the first few.  Times got better and I got a lot more confident.

Off track and it was time for a few adjustments.  I was leaking some brake fluid into the footbox so we fixed that up.  Chatted with the team and with Scott for a short time and then it was time to go out for the qualifier.  Nothing spectacular to report about that – I qualified third.

Now it was time for the race.  I had a pretty good first three-quarters of the race.  It was interrupted for a black flag while they removed one car that had slid into a guardrail.  I managed to get to second when a car spun in front of me and was holding my own against Jack in the #7 car.  Then on about lap 15 I overcooked it going into turn one, bounced around a bit on the bumps leading into that turn, and Jack was able to get past me.  I chased him for several laps and was getting close until I went off into the grass on the left hander.  I’m still not sure what I did.  I turned in and just somehow got the car pointed too far left and drove right off the track.  The only thing I can figure is that the car got light as I crested the hill and perhaps the rear slipped a little.  When I got full traction again I think the car was just pointed wrong.  Well, I mowed some grass, got back on track and managed to finish third.  I did manage to set fast lap for the race and that time held up so I actually got into the record books.  Assuming we return to BeaveRun, I know I’ll have my hands full trying to protect that record.  There's some video of this race on the way - I have to finish editing it and then I'll put it up somewhere and link to it here.

Sunday was overcast and a bit cooler.  After Saturday’s race, AJ, Bobby, and James made some further chassis adjustments (changed the rear anti-roll bar) and adjusted the brake bias more to the rear.  They also fixed up the brake fluid leak and we changed the position of the mirrors.  When I went out for my practice run it took a while to get up to speed – we had an incident on the track that kept the last turn under yellow for quite a few laps.  But I finally put in some hot laps and decided that the roll bar adjustment was an improvement, but the brake bias was not.  What pleased me, and I think AJ, the most was that I’m now getting good enough that I can actually feel the differences when we make chassis adjustments.  That means that I’ll be a whole lot more help to my team in providing feedback to get the car set up better and better.

The race was fun.  I finished second and there were a couple of incidents worth telling.  First, about three laps in, Jack was able to draft me down the front straight and pull around me going into the first turn.  I was able to stay on his tail for a couple of laps and then did the same to him.  Drafting is such a rush.  When you get close enough to be in the lead car’s slipstream it’s almost like you get an infusion of additional power and suddenly you’re accelerating up toward his gear-box.  The plan is to get that additional “tow” and then pull out and go around on your inertia.  It works so well that I almost didn’t pull out quickly enough – I came very close to hitting his left rear tire with my right front.  But I didn’t hit him, and I did get the pass done and then led him into turn one.  He stayed close to me for several laps trying to get by me at several different points on the track – unsuccessfully.  You’ve got to be a gentleman racer, but you also have to protect a lead.  Then on about lap seven or eight (you lose track when you’re driving) he tried to draft me and go inside down the back stretch heading into the turn 10-11 complex.  Somehow, though, he ended up going off into the grass on the inside and losing control.  I saw him coming and lifted in time for him to go shooting across the track in front of me at turn 10 and into the grass on the other side of the track.  At that point I knew I had a solid second place finish.  Bill, the guy leading the race, had used the time while Jack and I were dicing to open up a big lead.  I knew I couldn’t catch him, so I settled into fast but not blistering fast laps to finish the race.  All I had to do was keep it on the track to finish second, and that’s what I did.

All in all, a very fun weekend.  I think we even convinced AJ that it was worth the longer drive to Pittsburgh.  I really hope that we’ll go back next year.  I’d like the chance to improve on my lap record.

2011 Season Starting Up

It’s been months since last I blogged, but there hasn’t been much to blog about.  As spring rolls in, however, the racing season will once again get under way and I’ll try to report on a more regular basis.

In the off-season I’ve worked with AJ, Bobby, and Chris to make some modifications to the car in hopes of finding a little more acceleration and straight line speed.  It may not seem to be related, but the first thing we did was change from the original Volkswagen Jetta brakes to some Wilwood racing brakes.  The primary reason to do this was some braking problems I had last year.  I lost the brakes completely on one race weekend, and as I got more comfortable with racing I was braking harder as I approached corners and found that even when I stomped the brake pedal all the way to the floor the braking performance was still not up to what I expected or needed.  Also, since I ended up pushing the brake pedal all the way to the floor it was very difficult to do heel-and-toe downshifting.  I was trying to “blip the throttle” with my ankle instead of my heel.  AJ explained that in the Jetta the brakes had a vacuum assist that is not present in the race car.  The new racing brakes have a much shorter pedal travel.  The interesting thing we discovered upon installing the new brakes was that the old brakes apparently had a small amount of drag on each wheel.  With the car off the ground if you tried to spin one of the wheels it would go about ¼ to ½ revolution.  With the new brakes installed a spin yields several full revolutions before coming to a stop.   So – it was as if I was just slightly dragging the brakes the whole time I was driving.  I’m thinking that getting rid of that drag should feel like getting another 5 or 10 horsepower.  And – I get improved braking performance to boot.  Bobby also had to modify the wheels just slightly and that ended up taking about a pound off of each wheel.

The other principle change that we’ve made has been aerodynamic.  If you look at the picture of the car you’ll notice that there is a fairing where the upper wishbone of the front suspension passes through the body.  But you’ll also notice that there are no fairings where other suspension parts go through – so AJ added those – not to every place but to several more.  You’ll also notice that there is a fairly distinctive joint where the nose body-work joins the main tub.  So – James, one of AJ’s guys, worked pretty hard on making that gap as small and smooth as possible.  On the engine cover there is a small scoop – one on each side – that used to provide vital cooling air to the engine.  Those scoops are no longer needed, so they were removed.  The last aerodynamic change is one that is still in progress.  AJ noted from the videos that especially on high speed straights the air flowing over the cockpit was buffeting my head around quite a bit.  He recommended two things – first he wants me to sit lower in the car which basically means scooting down a bit in the seat.  To do that we needed to move the whole set of pedals forward a little.  We’ve done that, I just haven’t had a chance to drive yet to see how much good it does to reduce how much of my head/helmet is in the airstream.  The other thing we’ll do is to put in a small “windshield” to deflect air over my head.  Since we have no wind tunnel we have to wait for on-track sessions in order to evaluate the results.

The first opportunity to be on track this year was April 16-17 which also happened to be Palm Sunday weekend.  I had been in Brussels the week prior – landed at Dulles at about 3:00PM on Friday and drove straight out to Summit Point.  The prediction was for rain and the weather man was right.  I went out to the track Saturday morning and got to see the new paintjob on the car for the first time – it looks really good and I will get a new picture on the site as soon as I have a good one.  All day Saturday we pretty much sat around and talked and watched it rain.  The whole Saturday schedule was scrubbed.  Because I had some responsibilities at my church on Palm Sunday I had to skip the Sunday session.  Of course it was absolutely beautiful on Sunday.

The next opportunity to drive is May 20-21 at Beaver Run outside of Pittsburgh.  Let’s hope for good weather – I’m really eager to get on track and try out the new changes to the car.

Its just driving - what's the big deal...

I’ve tried a few times to explain how and why one is so thoroughly beat after just 30 lousy minutes of driving.  It’s totally counterintuitive.  After all – most people drive 30 minutes or more twice a day going to and from work, and it doesn’t tire them out.  So what’s the big deal.  I thought maybe easier than try to explain; perhaps a comparison chart might at least point out a few of the differences.

What	Road Car	Race Car
What to wear	Whatever’s comfortable for the weather	Nomex, long-john underwear, socks, balaclava, two-layer quilted jumpsuit, boots, gloves, full face helmet
Protection from weather	Enclosed cockpit, windshield, windshield wipers, heat or A/C	See above – This was actually fairly comfortable with the ambient temperature around 45⁰ F.  When the ambient temperature is around 90⁰ F this is brutal, especially when you’re sitting still waiting for the race to begin.
Air Flow	Fan controlled	Controlled only by speed of the car – at around 100 MPH the wind buffets your head around quite a bit.
Seat Belts	Auto retract lap belt and single shoulder/chest belt with auto tensionor.	Five point lap, shoulder, and anti-submarine (or crotch) belt, all pulled very tight, as in your lap and crotch belt make you think you need to pee, and your shoulder belts are so tight that it is difficult to breathe
Controls	Power steering, power brakes, automatic transmission (there are still a few stick-shifts out there).	No power or automatic anything.  Steering takes considerable upper body strength; brakes require significant leg/foot pressure.  Gear selection is with a very short throw stick right next to your right hand while your hand is in the three o’clock position on the steering wheel.
Instruments	Speedo, tach, clock, idiot lights – some cars have extensive gauges including oil pressure & temp, water temp, charging system, tire pressure monitors, etc., all capped off with a “check engine” light	Minimal – Tach, oil pressure, oil temperature, lap timer.
Normal driving speed	Within a few MPH of posted speed limit.	As fast as you can possibly go.  I didn’t think driving fast (100MPH and higher) would be a problem for me, but that’s not true.  It took nearly half of the first season to get “comfortable” routinely driving that fast.
Following distance	About one car length per 10 MPH of velocity	As close to the rear end of the car in front as you can possibly get, until you can pop out of his draft and pass him.
Cornering	About 100 yds before the corner, take foot off gas, begin to gradually apply brakes, applying them harder as you near the turn; when going slow enough, turn the wheel and drive through the corner gradually accelerating as you exit the corner	Keep accelerator to the floor until you reach your braking point (a point you gradually determine as the last possible point where you can tromp on the brakes as hard as you can without losing traction, and barely make it around the curve without spinning out), release the throttle and then brake – hard.  As you brake with the toe of your right foot, you depress the clutch with your left foot, “blip” the throttle with the heel of your right foot (to rev the engine so that when you release the clutch in the next lower gear you are at approximately the right RPM), down-shift to the proper gear for acceleration after the turn and let the clutch back out.  At your turn-in point (another place on the track that you gradually determine as the correct moment to smoothly but positively crank the wheel in order to take the proper line through the curve) gradually feather the brakes and turn in toward the apex.  When you do it right, the car will slide at about a 6⁰ slip angle and your inside tires will hit the curb at the apex at the inside of the curve and will slide out to the outside of the curve as you straighten the wheel  and again go to full throttle. You do this for each turn on the track – about a dozen at the Shenandoah circuit.
Seating	Padded Corinthian leather seats, relatively upright position, padded arm rests	Hard plastic seat placed directly on floorboard about three or four inches off the ground, no arm rests, padding duct-taped to hard surfaces as required, legs stretched out in front draped over a frame member under your knees.
RPM	Normally keep revs between about 1500 and 4000 with nice, smooth transitions	Normally keep revs between 4000 and red-line at 6200.  Keeping the revs high keeps the engine in its highest power band.  Shifts are as fast as you can humanly make them.
The road	Concrete or asphalt, stay in your lane	Mostly asphalt, sometimes with concrete patches.  The asphalt used is a special racing compound that provides higher traction.  Mounded curbs designed to be driven on but with rumble grooves at the inside of each curve.  Use all of the track – go wide at the entrance, steer down to the curb on the inside, track out to the far side.
Other drivers	Some good, some awful, some drunk, some distracted, some sleepy.	All of them are good, well trained in driving fast.  None drunk, sleepy or distracted.  But – they’re all trying their best to be faster than you and to get past you any way they can.
Other cars	Everything from wide loads, dump trucks, and double trailered semis to smart cars, limos, buses, Ferraris and everything in between.  Some well maintained, some barely road-worthy.   Bicycles, motorcycles, pedestrians, etc.	All very similar in power and design, all technically inspected prior to going on track, all well maintained, all similarly equipped with slick tires.
Sound systems	Bose, seven speaker surround sound (or equivalent) with radio, IPOD, or CD player	Loud!  Unmuffled engine directly behind you, winding at high revs.  Also, a bunch of other cars similarly unmuffled blowing sound right at you from their straight exhaust pipes, or worse, coming up beside you.
Signals	Traffic signs and signals	Flags and hand signals from a variety of flag stands strategically positioned around the track.  Corner workers warn you of slower traffic, obstacles, wildlife, oil spills and other track conditions – but – you have to take your eyes off the road and away from the guy you’re trying to pass or who is trying to pass you to find the flag stands and correctly interpret the flagger’s signals.
Fun	Usually pretty boring.	Wow – great fun, but also great intensity.  Concentration has to be completely on what you’re doing – no multi-tasking on track – total, intense, complete, high stakes concentration required.
Emergency  Assistance	Cell phone call or OnStar call, assistance probably about 30 minutes away.	Tow truck and trained EMTs in fully equipped rescue trucks with engine idling at the side of the track, probably less than two minutes away.  Corner workers standing by all around the track ready and able to call in your emergency and to lend immediate assistance.

Car modifications

Car Updates              

Last weekend (Nov 11-13) I went out to Summit Point to the new FormulaHaus where my car lives most of the time.  I told AJ that I wanted the opportunity to work on the car some in the off-season and to get grease under my nails.  I think he was pleased to have a driver who also wants to do some of the work and he definitely fulfilled my desire to get dirty.

Pretty much all season I struggled with the brakes.  I had what’s called a “long pedal” – a very long stroke of the brake pedal to reach maximum braking.  I also noted that even when I was at max braking I could never lock up the wheels.  AJ told me that the brakes were off of a VW Jetta and in the road car they benefit from a vacuum brake assist – no such assist in the race car.  He recommended some racing brakes and I decided to go with them.  With a shorter pedal I’ll be able to do my heel and toe down-shift more accurately, and with more braking power I’ll be able to brake later going into the turns – a definite advantage when you’re racing.  The new brakes are not a plug-and-play replacement.  We had to make several modifications to the suspension uprights to make them fit, make a few new parts to get them positioned correctly, and take a bit of stock off the inside of the road wheels so the new calipers wouldn’t rub.  Bobby did most of the real work – what I did was help to remove the old ones and then do lots of cleaning of the suspension parts to get the car ready to receive the new brakes.  While I was there Bobby got most of the templates made for the new brake parts and made the modifications to the uprights.  Apparently the old Jetta brakes also created some drag on the road wheels.  With the new brakes installed we get rid of that drag and that’s just like getting additional horsepower for the car.  We didn’t finish getting them installed while I was there – I can’t wait to try them out.

By the end of the season I was also experiencing some clutch issues, so we pulled the transmission and pulled out the clutch – sure enough – it was worn out.  So a new one is on order.  The old one was mechanical; the new one will be hydraulic.  So I got to do a lot more cleaning of the very dirty and greasy transmission and I put on the new master cylinder and routed the hydraulic tubing for the new clutch.  We’re really careful about routing the tubing.  It needs to get from the front of the car to the back going through the frame members, through the cockpit, and into the engine /transmission compartment.  It has to be secured at about 10 different places and routed so that it doesn’t chafe on anything.  There was quite a bit of trial and error but I did get it done before quitting time on Saturday.

When the new brakes are in and the new clutch is installed I’ll need to go back out and test everything.  We’ll also pour me a new seat.  I’ll report on that when it happens, but it’s a pretty interesting process.  Basically, you put a garbage bag (not really, but that’s what it looks like) in the seat shell, mix up a couple of chemicals and the whole thing starts to swell up.  Then I get in the car and let it swell up around me.  I stay in position for about 30 minutes while it hardens.  We peel the bag off and use a surform tool to shape the edges.  Then, AJ says we “upholster” the seat with gaffer’s tape.  It adds almost no weight and it should help to hold me more securely in position.

Another mod he wants to make is to put a very small Plexiglas spoiler /windshield just in front of the cockpit to try to route air up and over my head.  From watching the videos it was obvious that, particularly at the higher speeds (on straight-aways), my head was being buffeted around a lot by the wind.  A small spoiner should help me to be able to keep my head still when driving at high speeds and may actually improve the aerodynamics of the car as the air gets routed up and over the cockpit.

The only other changes we’re looking at are purely cosmetic.  There’s some minor body damage to be repaired with fiberglass and then he will do some paint touching up.  We may do some minor changes to the paint scheme as well.  It’ll still be recognizable but may be a little more swoopy.

Now I’m looking forward to the awards banquet in February.  It’ll be a chance to get together with this new group of friends, congratulate others on their accomplishments, and receive my trophy for winning the East Coast Championship.

Bad Blogger - Bad, bad blogger

I’ve been a bad blogger – no updates in ages.  Meanwhile I’ve been telling everyone who will stand still long enough all about the last two weekends of racing.  So – here’s the long overdue update.

It was a long and painful drive to Millville New Jersey on Friday afternoon, July 30^th.  Beach traffic backed up the Jersey Turnpike for hours, but I finally got there.  Millville is about 40 miles from Cape May.  I stayed in a little, fairly dumpy, but clean and serviceable motel.  It was about 20 minutes from the track.

Mid-summer in Millville was HOT!  It was about 80 when I got to the track at 7:30AM and warmed up to well over 90 during the course of the day.

Practices went well.  The Lightning track was new to almost everyone so all of us had the same learning curve.  The first turn is up-hill and a sharp right with not much run-off room.  Turn five takes you over a hill so the car gets really light just when you’re supposed to be turning.  This makes it really easy to spin off so you have to be really careful not to add too much power at the wrong time.  Turn 8-9 is the other interesting one.  It is a long, looping right hand turn with some banking leading onto the long front straight.

Both the Saturday race and the Sunday race were close, hard fought events.  On Saturday I was in second following the leader closely when I didn’t take turn five quite right and slid off the left hand side of the track.  You don’t lose all that much time, but it was enough.  That put me into third place and quite a ways back from the leader.  On the next to last lap the leader slid off going into the long looping 8-9 complex and I passed him for a second place finish.

Sunday was even better.  No one spun out and we just had a really close race for the whole 13 laps – it was shortened as we waited for some folks to get to the grid.  I led several times but one of my competitors has more power and so he was able to pass me again every time we went down the front straight.  I could usually out-brake him going into turn one, but I couldn’t open enough of a gap to hold him off the next time we went down that front straight.  Then the third place guy got really racy and was able to pass me.  We all swapped places several times for the remainder of the race and it was just a matter of where we were when the checkers finally fell.  I was the loser finishing in third place, but there was less than a second covering all three of us.  It was one of the closest finishes this series has ever had.

AJ told me that sometimes the best race you have is not one that you win, but one where you race close with your competitors and have the opportunity to dice throughout the whole race.  This race certainly proved that to me.  I had a terrific time passing and then getting passed, maneuvering and setting up passes tested my racing skills, my endurance, and my patience.  We raced wheel to wheel for many laps, often at well over 100 MPH.  We all learned that we can trust each other not to do anything foolish that would endanger the other guy and we all had just a great time.  After the race was over we were high fiving each other and toasting each other with post-race Buds.  I will remember this one as the race where I really learned how to race.  There’s still lots of learning to do, but running in close competition like that was the fun that I signed up for.  It was terrific.

My First WIN!!!

July 10-11 at Summit Point

It was a pretty good time, it was a lousy time – hmmm – doesn’t have quite the same ring.

BLUF – on Saturday I scored my first win; on Sunday I got my second mechanical DNF.

(Key: BLUF = Bottom Line Up Front; DNF = Did Not Finish)

It had rained over night, the track was wet and there were a few puddles. But the outlook for the rest of the day was good. The track steward asked for people in road cars to go out and run laps to help dry up the track. Race cars generally don’t dry the track very well because of the slick tires – they don’t throw up water like treaded tires do. So – while it messed up the schedule a bit, the dampness actually gave me an opportunity to take the Corvette out on track for the first time – and that gave me the opportunity to take Mary on track with me to give her a little feel for what driving on track is like. We didn’t go at race speed, but we did get up over a hundred a few times. Mary McKiel, a good friend who works at EPA, and who is also an enthusiastic and talented photographer, came with me for the weekend to try her hand at race photography. You can see some of the shots she took over the weekend at PHOTOS

With the track nearly dry and the sun warming and drying the racing surface we went out for our first practice session. Nothing particularly special about the session – my best time for the session was 1:35.00. That’s not too bad for a rookie, but I knew that I’d need to better that if I was to be competitive even with the one other Tyro (from Medieval Latin meaning young soldier – in other words – a rookie) driver. We had one other short practice session where I lowered my time to the 1:33s, but when I went out for the “timed” session (where we determine starting positions) my best time was back up to just over 1:35. While tweaking some adjustments on the car and waiting for my race time to come up I got some good coaching from both AJ and Dani (see previous posts for who they are) and I was determined to do better during the race.
Race time came late in the afternoon. We were out with the Formula 1600s (racers in cars similar to mine but with more experience) and Formula Fords (similar cars, experienced drivers, and some mods allowed to the cars including better tires). The other Tyro had the pole position and got to choose where he wanted to start – he chose the outside which put him in a better position for entry to turn one. At the green flag I slotted in behind him but stayed very close through the rest of the lap. Then on the long front straightaway I was able to power by him on the inside and I never saw him again. Twenty laps later I took the checkered flag for my first win! I also lowered my lap time to consistently being in the 1:30 and 1:31 range with two laps down into the 1:29s. AJ congratulated me on the win, and especially on taking 5 seconds off my lap time. He also told me it would probably take me two years to get the next 5 seconds. But that’s for another day. Who woulda thunk it that two days before my 60th birthday I scored the first win of my fledgling racing career. I was really pleased. Thanks AJ and Dani.

Sunday was the lousy time. I went out for the first practice session and was again in the 1:30s – good but not great. With some coaching from Guy Frank (again, see earlier posts for who he is) I was pretty sure I could drop at least another second off my time. But, it was not to be. I went out for my second practice session full of confidence. I followed Guy for a three laps to make sure I was driving the correct line, then a couple of laps later as I came out of a very fast right hand curve (probably around 85 MPH) to the hardest braking zone where I needed to quickly slow to about 30 MPH, I stood on the brakes and my foot went to the floor. The car is designed with separate master cylinders for the front and rear brakes. This allows you to adjust how much braking you get from each end, and ensures that even if one of the systems fails, you still have some braking power. We determined that the master cylinder for the front brakes failed. As I slid off the track and into the grass the front wheels were still turning; we surmised that the rear wheels had probably locked up. With the rear wheels having no traction, the rear end came around and I nearly backed into a tire wall. Fortunately – I missed hitting anything. Got the car back in gear and limped back to the paddock area. The rest of the day we spent trying several different things before deciding that the master cylinder had failed. We swapped out the front master cylinder (Chris and Bobby did a heroic job of getting this done in the one hour we had before I had to report to the grid for the last race of the weekend). I made it to the grid, took the pace lap and took off for my second lap. I was in front of the other Tyro driver and I believe I could have gotten another win, but on the second lap my brakes again went to the floor. I brought the car in, we fiddled with it some more and made another attempt to go get some laps, but it just wasn’t to be. We concluded that the other master cylinder must have also failed. So – my second mechanical DNF.

There are a few issues with the car, now. The brake failure was the only “terminal” issue, but before the next race Chris and AJ will be working to replace a crank seal that’s leaking oil, making another adjustment to the gear shift gate, working on a slight stumble in the engine when accelerating from low rpms, and of course they will also replace the other master cylinder and do some testing to make sure that fixes my brake problem.

I’m getting much more comfortable in the car, and much more comfortable with driving closer and closer to the edge of the car’s limits. I’m also gaining a lot more respect for the quality of the information that a driver has to communicate to the “crew” in order to make the right adjustments. I mentioned that we tweaked some adjustments on the car. Here’s what that was about. AJ wanted to lower the ride height a bit – he told me that I needed to pay attention to whether the bottom was rubbing under the hardest braking (it was, so we backed off the lowering by a very small amount). I told him that the car was a little tail happy in the esses after the carousel. What that means is that the rear end was breaking loose sooner than the front end. He quizzed me on whether that was happening under braking, neutral throttle, throttle lift, or acceleration. Depending on my answer, the fix would have been different. Now, imagine – you’re trying your damndest to go just as fast as you can, you go into a turn and the rear end starts to come around on you so you have to immediately correct and get back on the gas. And then you have to remember precisely what you were doing when the rear end started to break loose. Well, I was pretty sure it was under neutral throttle (throttle position intended to maintain current speed – not slow down, not speed up). Any other answer and the adjustment probably would have been with the driver, not the car. AJ directed softening the rear anti-roll bar just slightly. It did seem to help, so I think it was the right answer. But I now know that before I can ask for any change to the car set-up I need to be sure that it really is the car that’s the problem. The only way to know that is to note exactly what’s going on when the problem happened. Much harder than it sounds.

Looking forward to the next race. It will be a New Jersey Motorsports Park’s Lightning track. It looks to be a very fast 1.9 mile track. It is also a track that most of us have never seen before. We’ll have about 35 minutes of practice to get up to speed before we race. Should be really exciting.