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.