Championship Dreams
(c) 2005 J. Sage Schreiner
www.unsage.com
Sunday morning was warm and clear. I put my safety equipment on, took a deep breath, visualized qualifying really fast, and went out and turned 1:49.9 in the early sunlight. It was my first time breaking 1:50. Better still, it looked like the majority of folks qualifying hadn't been able to improve their Saturday time. I had qualified 4th of 9 in G-Production. It was my best qualifying result to date. The top G-P time, James Ayote's Honda Civic, was 1:48.25 – “barely” two seconds faster. My goal was to maintain my qualifying position. Placing 4th of 9 would be my best finish yet.
I had all afternoon to think about it. To pass the time, my temporary crewchief, Seth, and I laid out my safety equipment, cleaned up the windshield and made sure that things would be ready to go for my Group 2 race. Seth and I fired up the racecar and headed down to pregrid.
With the five minute warning, I took a last sip of water and cinched my belts. As the seconds ticked away, I visualized the track, and reminded myself to keep my eyes up. Look far, go fast. Just behind me was Linda Heinrich’s red Paseo, followed immediately by Greg Miller’s 325e.
As the race group pulled out of pregrid, I noticed that my driver side mirror was jiggling free. I tried to push it back in place, but it flopped down again. There wasn't time to mess with it, so I put it out of my mind. We circled behind the pace car. For once I wasn't at the very back of the pack. I knew things were going to get hairy on the start, but I wanted to put as many cars as possible between myself and Linda.
When the green flag waved, I floored the gas. So did everyone else. The noise was deafening. Cars slipped and darted back and forth for an opening as we accelerated down the straight for Turn 1. I went for outside of Turn 1, which put me on the inside of 2. A few cars dropped their wheels off the outside of the track, throwing clouds of sunlit dust into the air. I slipped to the inside of several cars as we raced down the hill to 3a and 3b. The pack was still crowded together, and it was difficult to see or anticipate openings.
As we ran down the back straight, my driver side mirror fell out. Race belts and a racing seat do a terrific job of holding you tightly, but make it nearly impossible to look over a shoulder. This meant that I had almost no idea what was happening to my left. I had two options: I could give up on a good race result, and just drive a 9/10ths race while trying not to get creamed by someone lapping me. Or, alternatively, I could just drive so fast that no one would catch me. After a calm and rational weighing of options that lasted about .03 seconds, I chose the latter.
Over the next few laps, the pack began to stretch out. Ron Johnson's G-P VW Rabbit and Todd Nurenburg's G-P Scirocco, whom I had passed at the start, both got by me. Ahead of me I could see James' Ayote's Honda Civic, leading a small train of cars that included two Pro-7 Mazda RX-7s, Todd, Ron and myself bringing up the rear. I didn't expect to keep up with them for long. I was able to draft off of Ron's Rabbit down the front straight. His car, almost as blocky as mine, punched a large hole in the air that I slip-streamed through. I was entering Turn 2 at 120, almost 5 miles an hour faster than normal. This was an advantage that Linda Heinrich didn't have. I could see her red car about 10 second behind. It wasn't a comfortable margin, so I decided that I wouldn't take any risks. I would simply use the pack ahead to draft, and make a little extra speed on the front and back straight until they got away from me. Suuuuure…
I drove mostly clean laps, and I was able to maintain my position. Linda was farther behind. I was able to keep up with the back of the G-P cars ahead. Todd and James fenced for first place. As I lapped behind the cars, I found myself slowing a little more than I needed to for turn 8 and turn 2. Ron’s front-heavy Rabbit had to slow down more than mine for the two high-speed corners. A cunning plan formed.
Heading down the hill into 3a at just under a hundred miles an hour, I poked my nose to the Rabbit’s inside in the braking zone. I wasn't going to be able to get by him, but it reminded him that I was there and gave him a bit of pressure. As we progressed through the turns, I made sure I was large in his mirrors. Hi Ron! Hi! Look at me! Here I am! Over here! Hi! Still here! I got a nice exit on 8 and was right on his tail on the front straight. I had to lift slightly, as the decreased wind resistance made it easy to keep up. As we passed through the right-hand kink of Turn 1 at 120 miles per hour, I floored the gas and pulled to the left, his inside for Turn 2, waited a hair deeper than I did normally, and braked just enough to stay on the track. I was ahead of him in Turn 2. Now Ron was in my mirrors, at least when he wasn't on the mirror-less left side of my car.
I didn't stay ahead for long. Ron pulled to my inside through 3a, and was a nose ahead of me on the 3b exit. When we exited onto the back straight, he drove straight into me. After the race I found marks from his front tire just in front of my own. I'm not sure what happened, since there was plenty of room for both of us. My best guess was that he saw my orange intermediate-driver sticker and decided to see if he could get me to back off a bit. With 22 races, I was a bit of a ringer. I put the incident out of mind and stayed big in his mirrors for another lap. When I got a nice exit for turn 8, I repeated my previous passing maneuver on the entrance of Turn 2, and found myself ahead of him again. I knew he was going to try hard to get by. I contorted violently trying to see where he was – but it was no use. When he was on my left side or left-rear, I simply could not see him.
This time, there was a lapped driver in the 3a / b complex. The driver was so slow through 3a that I had to get on my brakes hard and barely avoided tapping the slower car. It was poor anticipation on my part, but I hadn't expected the driver to go quite that slow. On the entrance of 3b, I went to the inside, and the lapped driver went to the outside, leaving Ron stuck behind both of us.
I put together a series of clean, fast laps. Exiting 8, I got the car a bit looser than optimum. I wasn't in danger of spinning, but it slowed my entrance onto the straight a hair. Ron made up a little time on me, but it wasn't enough to catch me. Start / Finish hung out the LL placard. One lap to go! All I had to do was not do something dumb. Ron was right behind me, waiting for a mistake, so I ignored him completely. When we passed Start / Finish, Ron was less than a second behind me. Ahead I could see Todd, followed by James' blue Civic. It struck me: not only had I finished 3rd of 9 GP drivers, but I was within spittin’ distance of the class winner.
I was ecstatic – it was a terrific race result. It dispelled the bitter memory of the much poorer result I had received in May's G-P race at Pacific Raceways, when I had overcooked the 3a braking zone, twice, assuring me a poor finish. On the other hand, I knew that there was still room for improvement. I was sure that I could enter 3a a little faster by trailing off the brakes and getting the car a little more sideways. I also felt like there was still more time to be gained at most corners on the track by entering them a bit faster, although I wasn't over-braking nearly as much as I had been in May. It might be as little as a second a lap, but if I could find even half a second consistently, I could win a G-P race. My mind was spinning at redline planning for 2004.
If I could finish reliably in the top half of the G-P class each race, I could have a shot at a championship. It was a long shot, and there was a lot of car preparation that needed to happen, but there was a whole winter to get it done.
That night I dreamed of checkered flags.