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.