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.

Uneventful Weekend #3

Third weekend of my racing career was pretty uneventful unless you count rain as an event. We were at Summit Point on the old track sharing track time with both the go-karts and another sports car group. That meant our opportunity to get on track was pretty limited already. Throw in rain screwing up the schedule and you have a mess.
On Saturday I got out for one brief (like about 8 laps) practice session, in the wet. I saw lots of cars go around. Later in the day, just before the race there was a line of showers go through. They decided that they would put all of the cars – all classes – out together for one 20 lap race. After watching some more cars spin on the wet pavement I decided that discretion was the better part of valor, so I didn’t race. Of course – the rain stayed away for the entire race and the track got drier and drier so it was actually a pretty good and totally safe race after all – one which I saw from the scoring stand. Oh well – you make the best call you can make with the data you have at the time and then you live with it.
On Sunday I got a good practice session in early in the morning and was actually beginning to turn some decent lap times, but then the rains came again. So after sitting around from about 8:30 till 3:00 (I was determined I wasn’t going to miss another race), they called it for the day and sent us all packing.
All in all a pretty disappointing weekend. About the only good things were that I met Guy Frank, who is one of the instructors at SP for the security driving courses they give. Also a pretty good racer. He showed me the fast line around the track. He is driving one of AJ’s Banshees so he parks next to me and we share info. He will be driving when we’re back out in July so I plan to pick his brain as much as I can. I also got to do kind of a shakedown of the engine rebuild – it’s working great – and to learn my way around the main track so that it’s not a complete surprise to me when I come out in July.
Nothing else to tell. Hoping for a practice day sometime before the July session, but hard to tell if it will happen or not.

Race Weekend # 2 - some difficulties

Race Weekend Number 2 – April 17 & 18
Weather forecast was for rain all weekend, but you show up and take your chances.
We were scheduled to be on Summit Point’s Shenandoah circuit – about a one and half mile circuit with 13 turns and a fairly significant elevation change. I had been emailing with a few folks in the club and since this was my first time on this particular track I asked if anyone would be able to do a walk-around or a drive-around so that I could learn the proper line around the track. Bill, a Formula Vee driver, wrote back that he’d be happy to meet me Friday evening and walk the track. That may sound like a pretty boring, mindless activity, but it’s not. Not only did we walk the proper racing line, Bill pointed out things that I would never have noticed from the cockpit. There are places where the crown of the track means that taking a wide entry to a turn puts you on a part of the track that is off-camber – in other words, instead of banked like the turns on a NASCAR track, it slants in the other direction. Taken too fast you’re much more likely to slide off the track. He pointed out landmarks that could be used for braking points – where you need to start braking in order to slow enough to make the turn, turn-in points – where you get off the brakes and start the turn, turn apexes, etc. He also pointed out areas where there was not very much runoff room. You always like to feel that if you do take a turn too fast and end up spinning or sliding off track, that you’re going to be on solid ground for a while and that barriers like tires, or worse, concrete walls, are pretty far from the track. He also noted several places where, even though there was plenty of runoff space, there was nearly a ditch just past the pavement. These are areas where if you do run off the track, you should just drive through the grass for a ways until you get to a spot where track and ground are roughly even. So with what I learned doing this, now it seems like something I’d sorta like to do on every track I drive.
Saturday dawned wet and misting a little rain. Still, you show up and take your chances. This weekend we were sharing track time with the Woodbridge (Virginia) Kart Klub. I could write a lot about the go-carts – it was really interesting. These little things with not much more than lawn-mower or chain-saw engines were lapping at nearly the same speeds that we were doing in the formula cars. So – the carts were out first and they helped to dry the track a little. By the time my class (the rookie class) went out on track, the track itself was pretty well dry, but then once we were out running laps it began to sprinkle again. Now, rain and slick tires don’t go together well. On a dry track, slicks provide greater traction than treaded tires do because for the same tire width there is more rubber on the road. However – put a little water on the road and the slicks do not have the capability to channel water out from under the tire – then you learn about hydroplaning very quickly. I kept the car on the road, but it was necessary to drive much more cautiously than normal and therefore didn’t provide much opportunity to get any speed going. Also, because speeds were down and the track was wet we were not getting the tires up to temperature and therefore also not getting them up to pressure. Since it was my first laps, the slow pace actually helped me to find my way around the track. On the good news front, we determined that everything we had been doing at the last session at Pocono to try to get second gear to work right had been going in exactly the wrong direction. When we took away all the adjustments from Pocono and adjusted still farther in the opposite direction, suddenly 2nd gear was working just fine. The shift pattern is a standard H with reverse all the way to the left and back – next to where second gear is. We assumed last session that the “gate” was keeping the shifter from moving far enough to the left, so we kept adjusting it so I could pull the shifter farther and farther to the left. Well, it turned out that I was actually over to where reverse should be and it’s a darned good thing that it wouldn’t go into gear. Moving the gate the opposite way made the shifter drop right into second.
By afternoon the weather was only gray but no longer wet. Next event was qualification. The way we do qualification is essentially just a short race. Based on times from the morning practice sessions, I was lined up second for the qualifying race. We went out and ran a warm-up lap, lined up and got the green flag to go racing. I cruised along in 2nd place but was definitely faster than the leader in the turns. So on lap two, coming into turn #12, a 180 degree right hander, I came down the inside of the leader and moved just past him. He apparently didn’t see me and turned into me. When that happened he hit and bent the left rear radius rod (on the picture, that’s the rod that looks like it goes from the top of the left rear wheel forward to the frame just below the cockpit) and also popped off the left valve cover (also clearly visible on the picture). That sent both of us spinning and the missing valve cover meant oil dumped all over the track. Fortunately the damage was fairly minor and neither driver sustained any injury. Of course the other driver saw the situation differently –he did not believe I had passed him before the turn, rather he thought I had made a rookie bonsai move down the inside, endangering him and his car and taking us both out of the race. He claimed that I drove over his rear wheel. The corner worker supported my position – he said that I was at least fully beside my competitor. The situation sort of brings two cardinal rules of racing into conflict. One is that when a passing car has come even with the car being passed, the car being passed must surrender the racing line – so in that case I was totally in the right; the other is that it is ultimately the responsibility of the overtaking driver to execute a safe pass – so in that case, I was wrong. When it was all over it didn’t matter all that much who was right and who was wrong – damage was minor (and unless it’s something flagrant, club policy is that you fix your own car), no one was hurt, and we were both back ready to race within the hour. AJ told me that the lesson I should take from this is to get a book on your fellow drivers - learn what you can about your competitors’ driving style. What I should now know about this particular driver is that he’s not likely to watch his mirrors and is not likely to yield even when he is legitimately being overtaken. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.
Next was the “feature” race – 20 laps. Now that doesn’t seem like much – roughly 30 minutes of driving. That just doesn’t seem like any big deal, but it is so much more demanding than you can possibly imagine. I’ll write more about this in a different posting, but let me just say that when the flag was shown indicating that we were at the halfway point I just couldn’t believe it wasn’t the checker. It is physical, it is intense concentration, it is just really demanding. But – I made the 20 laps and vowed to exercise more to be in better physical condition by the time the next race came around.
We had a little trophy party and everyone went home or back to their hotels.
Sunday held predictions of thunderstorms but they held off for the whole day – in fact, by early afternoon when we were doing the races it was bright blue sky and sunshine. With the track dry I was able to get out and put down some good laps. Though the weekend started out wet artificially holding speeds down, over the course of the two days I was able to cut my lap times from about 1:49 on Saturday morning to 1:36 by Sunday afternoon.
The race had a couple more unexpected and undesirable surprises in store for me. Again I started second and was holding my own. Through the morning practices I had begun to develop more confidence in going deeper into the corners before braking, braking a lot harder, and taking the turns a lot faster. For the most part that was really good, but on lap two going downhill, very fast, toward turn five, I got the braking point right but not the braking intensity. So – I “overcooked” turn five and spun off track. While bumping across the grass the fiberglass nose of the car came loose. It’s made to come off, so I wasn’t too worried, but it did mean that I had to wait for someone to come “rescue” me before I could get back on track. The corner worker took the nose the rest of the way off and sent me back onto the track without it. I knew I was now out of contention, but it was at least an opportunity to get some more practice laps. The most significant contribution to getting better and getting faster is seat time, so the practice laps were good. On lap nine, coming down the same hill with the engine revving at about six thousand I heard a pop and then there was no power. I coasted the rest of the way down the hill and off the track to sit and wait for the race to end. The “tow” truck pushed me into the pits, I got out and Chris, AJ and I looked over the engine. There was still plenty of oil and it looked clean, but the engine would not turn at all. Obviously I was done for the weekend.
AJ contacted me later in the week after getting the engine out of the car and torn down. He said that he thought probably when I had contact it was likely that the wheels stopped momentarily with the car still in gear and that this probably cracked the crankshaft. Then it was just a matter of time till the stress of high revs caused catastrophic failure. So – this means a total engine rebuild. I was prepared for some “repair” costs for the season but had hoped I wouldn’t need it – or at least I wouldn’t need it so soon. I’ll have to see how things go, but it’s AJ’s intention to have me racing by the May weekend.
The learning curve is very steep – I have still a lot to learn but I am definitely enjoying the whole experience.

Learning to be a Blogger

OK, so I'm not a good blogger. Picture above is what my car looks like now after Chris Clendening, my "rental" mechanic finished the paint job on both the car and the helmet. It gets lots of oohs and aahs in the paddock. Chris did a great job of capturing my concept.
The two new posts below describe my first weekend - the first time I had the car on track and up to speed.
The second weekend, April 24 and 25 had some difficulties. I'll post the info for those as soon as I get it written up but suffice to say I experienced my first contact with another car, my first spin-out, and my first mechanical DNF (did not finish). Stay tuned - I'll tell all.
Next race weekend is May 22-23 at Summit Point. I'm hoping for better news to write about.

Pocono Day Two - Learning to be a Corner Worker

It takes a lot of people to put on a race. There are the registration people, the chief steward (who works the schedule with the other club sharing the track with us, settles disputes, etc.) the Tech Inspector who makes sure all the cars get an inspection to make sure they’re legal and safe, a pit steward who makes sure racers are lined up and that the track is clear before sending us out, race control who gets info from and to everyone who has a walkie-talkie; emergency staff – paramedics and tow vehicles, corner workers – one for each series of turns at the track, and I’ve probably forgotten a few. It is a requirement in our club that every rookie spend one full race day being a corner worker. Since I’m racing in the southern series, the Pocono race does not score points for me so I thought this would be a great time to serve my time as a corner worker.
They paired me up with Dani Jackson. Dani is one of the few girls who race in the club. She is a high-school chemistry teacher and as I learned during the day, has been racing for quite a few years and has worked closely with my car’s builder, AJ. As a teacher Dani is also a great coach. When we went out to corner number one she began telling me what the duties of a corner worker consist of. Our primary job is to watch the cars go through our turn and the one after where we are stationed and to let the racers know of anything unusual on the track, by displaying the appropriate flag. Unusual includes what you would expect, any kind of accident or spin, any car either slow or stopped on track, any kind of debris that might damage a car or cause it to go off. But it also includes noting oil on the track, wildlife on the track, any emergency equipment on track, or anything else we think needs to be communicated to the racers so that they can stay safe. We also have a walkie-talkie so that we can hear from race control what is going on, when the race will start, how many laps are left, and, of course, so that we can report anything happening in the corners for which we’re responsible. Fortunately we didn’t have to do any emergency things, but corner workers are also the first ones to a wreck and will be responsible for making sure drivers are OK, ignition is turned off (there’s a master kill switch on the back of every car), and generally being a first responder.
I was prepared for a fairly boring day, but as it turned out, with Dani’s coaching, it was anything but. She not only coached about the flagger/corner worker responsibilities, but as we watched racers go by – from rookies to very experienced drivers, she helped me see differences in the line they were taking through the turns, when they hit the brakes, when they accelerated, where they were looking, how they managed passing and being passed – it was really instructive.
Turn one was also a great place to see the vintage cars as they streamed past. There were old Porsches, a couple of old Alfas, a Sunbeam, an original Mini, several MG-As, one MG-TD (the first sports car I ever rode in when I was about six), several Lotuses, a few Triumph TR-3s, and a number of cars I couldn’t identify. It was fun.
So – I can now see why this is a requirement – it gives a driver much greater respect for the corner workers’ job and what they do to help make the whole race day possible.

First Race Weekend - Pocono Raceway

Wow – so much to learn…
It was a very cold April 10, 2010 morning at Pocono Raceway. I mean cold like we had snow last night and it was 32 when I arrived at the track at 7:30 – and very windy. The cold, however, did not dampen anyone’s spirit. Our club was here with a Vintage race event – sharing track time. I got some good pics of some very cool vintage racecars as well as new pics of my car and of some of my competitors. I’ve posted a new pic for the homepage of the blog. Once I figure out how to do it, I'll post some pics of the vintage race cars.
I got myself registered and had a short “ground school” with Andy (the designated instructor). I was the only total rookie here, so when Andy heard how many schools I’d been to he pretty much exempted me from going through another extensive ground school – he just wanted to get us on track. Andy is a short, long-haired, British driver with lots of years experience – a really nice guy and a good teacher. Our first session on track was a “follow-the-leader session to get us familiar with the racing line. Should have been a good lesson, but I was having a lot of difficulty with getting the car into second gear. Up shifts seemed to work ok, but on downshifts I was only getting it in gear about once every 3rd or 4th lap. Not a good thing – so I pulled off and went back to the garage.
Chris and AJ worked on the car for while, then we tested it in one of the nearby parking lots. It seemed to be better, but still not a smooth shift.
Second practice session was better but I was still having trouble with 2nd. On the other hand – as I was getting 2nd somewhat more often, I did get a chance to get the car up to the edge of traction a few times. We did some more “follow-the-leader” with Andy and when he saw that I was following the line well, he waved me by and of course I immediately went nuts and nearly spun the car. After that I settled down and got in some good laps.
We did some more adjustment with 2nd gear and after lunch I went out for qualifying. I need to explain a little how all of this works. We are broken up into classes so that we’re on track with folks who are of similar experience levels. At Pocono I was one of only three rookies. The other two “rookies” actually had raced before so they were not total race virgins. Also, in classes where there are too few entries, they are grouped with another class. Today there was one Formula Vee entry. Formula Vee has about half the horsepower of the Formula Tyro (my class) so he went out with us. So – during qualifying I was competing against two other “rookies” – I qualified second out of three – not too bad considering that this weekend was the first time I’d had the car on track.
Then there was the race. You know about the one that got away… I think I would have probably at least placed second except for – my difficulties getting into second gear were back and even worse. About half of the race course is taken in second gear and without it the torque to accelerate out of the turns just wasn’t there. Still, I was at least keeping my competition in sight until a plug wire came off – so now with only three gears and three cylinders I was just not competitive. Also, since we didn’t know it was a plug wire, just that the car was making disturbingly abnormal sounds, my “pit crew” (the car builder and my hired mechanic) requested to have me black flagged. I came in on lap 16 out of 20. Still – since there were only three people in my class – I logged a third place finish.
I learned, and I had a great time. Tomorrow I’ve volunteered to be a corner worker so the car goes back in the trailer till the April race at Summit Point.

Not on track yet...

The Ides of March came and went without my actually getting the car on track. I was scheduled to have a practice that day, but AJ recommended against. We have put on a new paint job, and the paint had not cured yet. Since the painting was not cheap, we didn't want to get it chipped up because the paint was too soft. So - the right thing to do was to postpone the practice.
So - that leaves me with going to the Formula Race Car Club's driving school and my first race on the same weekend, April 10th, at Pocono International Raceway.
Not much else to tell right now.
Stay tuned - I hope to have video to put up after that weekend.

Car Setup

After a couple of attempts to get out to Summit Point were aborted due to weather, I finally made it out there last week to work on car setup.  When I got there I met up with AJ (the builder) and he introduced me to Chris who will be my mechanic for the season.  Chris has never been a race driver but has been a flagger at SP for quite a few years.  Since he’s going to be setting up the car, doing the maintenance and repair, helping with race-day adjustments and record-keeping, it was really good to get to know him a little.  Over the course of the summer I expect him to become one of my new best friends.

The point of the meeting was to get the car set up.  This was a bit more than moving the seat and adjusting the mirrors.  I thought setup day was going to be mostly about getting cockpit controls adjusted to my comfort.  We did that, but it was kind of secondary.  The first thing that happened was to put me in the car and then to roll it up four little ramps onto four bathroom scales (yes, plain old bathroom scales), one under each wheel.  The car, with me aboard, weighs about 1,100 pounds, and what we wanted to do was to make sure that the car’s weight was distributed equally side to side, and for 60% of the weight to be on the rear wheels and 40% on the front wheels.  A little bit of this can be done by positioning of me in the cockpit, but the cockpit is pretty tight so there is not a whole lot of flexibility there.  So, how do you do it?

The car has independent suspension with an adjustable coil spring on each wheel.  The way we balanced things was to loosen a set screw and either tighten or loosen the spring on one corner or another, then sorta bounce the car up and down and take a scale measurement (a good, practical lessen on spring constants, force, and mass).  This took quite a while.  There was no “close enough.”  The builder and his mechanic spent about an hour making these adjustments and the car is now balanced to within about a pound on each wheel.

With balance dialed in the next thing was to focus on cockpit controls.  Pedals are individually adjustable so we made sure that I could fully depress the accelerator, completely floor the clutch, and that the relationships between pedals were correct.  The left foot dead-man and the clutch need to be set at the same level so that I only have to pivot my left foot to move from the dead-man to the clutch.  The dead-man also has to be in a position where it is relatively comfortable to brace on when experiencing violent G-load changes as the car goes through turns, accelerations, decelerations, and bumps.  For the right foot the brake pedal and accelerator have to be set up so that I can efficiently do heel-and-toe braking maneuvers.  This is the technique for down-shifting in a racing car. 

Many – and I used to be among them – thought that the purpose of downshifting was to use the drag of the engine and the engine’s compression to slow the car.  Not true.  It once was true, before brakes were as reliable and long lasting as they are today.  Today downshifting is mainly for the purpose of matching engine RPM to road speed so you are prepared to accelerate smoothly away from the corner.  Here’s how it works:  You’re cruising along at speed and approaching a corner.  You need to slow the car to get through the turn, and at the slower speed you want to be in a lower gear in order to accelerate away from the corner.  So, first you move the toe of your right foot to the brake and almost immediately you depress the clutch.  As the car slows you shift to the lower gear (4^th to 3^rd, for example), you use the heel of your right foot (or more likely, the side of your right foot) to “blip” the throttle – rev the engine so that when you let out the clutch you neither decelerate nor accelerate.  Any “upset” in the torque on the driven wheels may well throw the car into a slide.

So – the gas and the brake pedals had to be set in such a way that I can press hard on the brake with the toe of my right foot while simultaneously punching the gas pedal.  After fiddling with a little higher or a little lower on each of the pedals, I settled on a position.  Next we moved the steering wheel in and out a little, and finally moved the gearshift lever backwards by about ½ inch.  That completed the cockpit setup.

Then we took a look at positioning the gages on the dash, and also the readout for a lap-timer.

Last thing we did was talk about a new paint scheme for the car.  I’m not going to try to describe the paint job – we did some sketching and modifying and came up with a scheme I liked.  I think we’re going to have the new scheme on the car within a couple of weeks.  I go out to the track for a practice day on March 15^th and if the paint-job is done I’ll take pictures and post them.

So – that’s about it for now.  I’ve ordered a video camera and I hope it will be installed by the practice day.  If so, I may be able to (if I can figure out how), post some clips of actual on-track running.

Things are starting to get interesting...

Publishing the BLOG

Friends and relatives – When you heard that I bought a race car and planned to actually race it, several of you encouraged me to start a Blog so that you could follow my adventures. So – with a little help from my friends I figured out how to do it and put up my first couple of postings – this will be my third. I’m not likely to be a daily blogger as some insist you must be in order to be interesting – there’s just not that much going on and I generally approve the notion - when you have nothing to say you shouldn’t prove it by talking about it (Hi – I’m in line at the Giant now). 

Frequency and richness of material will probably improve once the racing season begins. I plan to go to Summit Point on Monday, February 15 (President’s Day) to do some fitting of the cockpit, installing a few instruments, and laying out a new paint scheme. After that it’ll be a fairly long dry spell till I get on track – currently scheduled for a practice day on March 15. I hope to have some video from the practice day to post. Activity picks up after that. Here's a link to a schedule - it looks like a couple of weekends in April, one in May, two in July, and one each in August, September and October. There are two races each weekend – one Saturday, one Sunday – so – a total of 16 races. I kinda doubt that I’ll participate in all of them but we’ll see how things go.

For anyone who'd interested, here are a couple of write-ups that I did after a few schools. The first one, Three Days at Derek Daly Speed Centre, is from my very first school when I went to Derek Daly's school in Las Vegas.  The other one was kind of a summary after I'd been to Daly, Bertil Roos, and Skip Barber.

Accumulating gear

It’s been a long time since my initial post, but there hasn’t been much action. I’ve been busy getting my personal gear together – you gotta have NOMEX underwear, socks, balaclava, boots, gloves, double layer suit, and of course a helmet. I got lucky with most of the stuff but getting the suit to fit right took several tries.
My car builder found a web site where a retiring racer was giving away some of his old NOMEX stuff so I got several sets of underwear, t-shirts, balaclava, and about 8 pairs of socks for free. Now, it might seem unseemly to be using used underwear, and if it had looked “used” I would probably have passed. But this stuff looked to be brand new. I’m sure he washed it before he sent it to me, and I washed it again when I got it – I have absolutely no qualms about using it. And since this stuff sells for about $90 a piece (that is – per T-shirt or boxer) free is pretty darn good price.
I’ve been waiting to get all my gear assembled before going back out to FormulaHaus for a “fitting” of the cockpit. In the meantime I’ve purchased an in-car lap timer and a roll-hoop mounted video camera. Current plans are for me to visit Summit Point on Feb 15th – we’ll discuss the new paint job, make cockpit adjustments, install the timer and vid-cam, and generally get the car set up to my liking. On March 15th there is an open practice day. If all goes well, that will be my first day on the track. Should have some video from that to post.
I’m guessing that as the season gets going I will be posting a lot more stuff – so – stay tuned.