Half-Way

Half-Way

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After the June race at Mission, there was a two month break. I was going to miss the double race weekend at Spokane, as Girlchief, Racerdog and I were taking a much-needed mid-season break. I also learned, too late to change our vacation plans, that the 2nd Spokane race was going to count for double points; this was a late decision to attract more racers to distant wilds of Spokanistan. It meant that I was further behind than I had originally planned – but hey, what's the fun of being in the lead all season?

Returning from vacation, I started on my projects. After half a season's racing, #180 needed maintenance work as much as we needed a vacation. First up was the obvious stuff – an oil change and an inspection. While the oil drained, I crawled under the car and got a wrench on every nut and bolt that I could find. My left control arm-to-subframe nut had worked itself half-way free. This had happened before, and I had capped it with a double nut to hold it in place. The second nut had probably been removed during the body work on my car. No biggy – I cinched the nut down, and re-double capped it. I fixed other small issues that I had found.

Ian Goepford came over and helped me with some of these projects. A glutton for punishment, he mounted a new front valence. The new one, taken from a 325es, was more aerodynamically designed. It would hopefully reduce drag a bit. With a brick-shaped car and 100 hp, any little bit helped. I had broken 1:50, barely, at my previous PR race in May. With the RPM change, the new valence, and a little luck, I was hoping to hit mid 1:49's. Anyway, even if the front valence didn't help me go faster, at least I could look faster.

For reliability, I replaced my oil mechanical oil pressure gauge with an electrical gauge. The mechanical gauges tend to be more accurate, as they are not affected by the vagrancies of wire resistance and ground quality, however, they rely on an oil-carrying nylon tube. My gauge sending unit had been the site of a small oil leak for years. Messy, and there was always the potential for a more serious failure in the middle of a race. I wasn't willing to accept that risk during a close championship run.

As the Pacific Raceways August race approached, the car was as ready as I could make it. I wasn't completely confident that it would last until the end of the season, but it was going to go as far as bubble gum, wire ties and tape would allow.

Saturday morning of the race weekend was sunny and clear. It was the first race weekend of the year that I wasn't worried about rain. That was a good thing, because Group 2 was very crowded. There were over 60 cars registered, and while there are always a few no-shows, I knew we'd be racing in a crowd the next day. As always, I kept my practice session conservative, and reacquainted myself with the track and car after such a long break. The car felt sorted. But as good as the car felt, the driver was lacking. After a two month break, I was having trouble being relaxed, consistent and smooth.

During afternoon qualifying, I felt a little better, but I was still driving below my expectations. If I was going to have a shot at the championship, I had to race consistently well. I qualified with a 1:49.8. It was a record time for me, by a tenth of a second, but I knew I could do better.

Sunday morning I managed a 1:49.6. Faster, yes, but I still felt like my driving was inconsistent. It placed me 4th of 10 GP cars. Just in front of me was Scott Morton, newly returned to the track with a re-built Datsun 510 after our mutual "shunt" at Portland some two months before. Just behind was Andrew Bacon in his WW2 Army Air Corps P-51-painted Porsche 924. There was only half a second between the three of us, so it was likely there would be close racing. I decided that I was going to push hard at the start to pass Scott and get some traffic between us. As an added complication, there were several glacierly slow Neons piloted by Ken and Wes Hill and Hugh Golden. They were the old Don Kitch school cars, running on used-up street tires – it wasn't impossible that they would be lapped in the last few laps of the race. I didn't want to still be fighting with Scott and Andrew for position if that happened.

There were 59 cars starting Sunday afternoon. Forty cars can feel crowded; fifty cars can be insane. I'd never been on track at PR with 59 cars. It was going to be... exciting.

And it was. When the green flag waved, 59 cars surged forwards, jockeyed for position, and tried not to hit anyone. I went to the inside in turn 2, drove through the spray of gravel and dust kicked up by an RX7, tried to avoid an over-rotating Club Rabbit car, passed a Miata that I knew would pass me again (but it put some space between my competitors). The traffic was thick and unpredictable. I drove defensively, but took my openings when they appeared.

On the second lap, I couldn't see Scott's 510, but Andrew's P-51 Porsche was six o'clock high and diving out of the sun. For a moment I had a flash-back to my days in the Luftwaffe as my BMW-powered Focke Wulf 190 struggled for altitude (dodging, oddly, Mitsubishi Zeros… errrr… Mazda RX7s) against the closing P-51. Andrew was trying hard to get by. Entering 3b, Andrew went high, and I went low. Necessity forced me to apex a bit early I found myself pointed more-or-less perpendicularly to the door of a silver B-17, I mean Miata. Not good. In a display of less-than-graceful driving, I stuffed the gear shift into 2nd and popped the clutch – the rear wheels briefly locked and the car rotated suddenly and I was pointed down the track again.

The race began to open up. I gained time on my Stuttgart-powered competitor. Ahead, far ahead, I could see the swamp yellow '02 of Dave Karraker. He had been a second a lap faster in qualifying, so I expected him to pull ahead – but he didn't. Somehow, I was gaining time on him. Third of 10 cars in G-P sounded like a good result, but 2nd of 10 sounded better, so I pushed harder and began to very slowly make up ground on him. Every lap I was a few tenths of a second closer to him. Andrew and Scott had dropped behind me.

Two things held me back. First, I was driving poorly. I knew the car was faster. It felt like a second a lap, or more. The changes I had made to the RPM limiter and the aerodynamics had made the car faster, but not the driver. Second, I had a hesitation in the car's power between about 5 and 6,000 RPMs. It was most noticeable on the straight, where the car felt bogged down. When the car hit 6,000 RPMs, it felt like a kick in the pants as it took off again. The cars around me would gain a few car lengths each time it happened – and it happened every lap. Every lap it was a bit worse.

All the same, I kept focused on making time up on Dave Karraker's diseased yellow '02. I was reeling him in slowly; I passed an RX7 and set up a pass on the putrid yellow 2002 on the entrance of 3A, but I couldn't pull off the pass, wobbled a bit and he gained time on me. There were only a few laps left in the race. Behind, I could see the very fast CRX E-Production race cars catching up to us; in front were several of the former-Performance Racing School Dodge Neons. Dave began working his way past the Neon's on the back straight and the 5a/b - 6 complex.

Entering 8, the Neon (piloted by Wes Hill) stayed high, while the CRX (piloted by Wes Storm) went low, and I stayed somewhere in the middle. For a brief moment, I had the uncommon experience of both lapping and being lapped at the same instant at the mid-point of turn 8. As we drifted out of 8, the CRX pulled in front, I tucked into the middle, and the Neon followed behind. It was a good clean pass, with everyone cooperating, but turn 8, with the long straight that follows, can be very sensitive to speed variations and even a minor reduction will impact the speed down the entire straight.

The traffic had slowed me down. Catching up to Dave’s rotten-lemon 2002, which had been a long shot, was now going to be impossible unless he made a serious error. He had done a better job of anticipation and traffic management that I had, and it showed. The '02 now had a 200 yard lead and the LL placard was up at Start-Finish.

I wasn't going to catch him this time. I drove a clean lap. I was 3rd of 10 cars in G-P – not a bad result.

After the race, I popped by and introduced myself to Dave, the driver of the sickly-yellow 2002. He had been having brake issues – thus the quick start, followed by the fade in speed that had allowed me to nose up on him. My engine hesitation below 6k RPMs, and his brake problems, were going to haunt us both for the rest of the season – but that's how racing is: the car is never perfect (and if it is, it means something is about to break).

My fast lap of the race was a 1:48.6, a record lap for me by half-a-second. As after the May race at PR, I felt that I was going to have to find more speed, but this time it wasn't in the car. I had to clean up my driving, push harder, and be more consistent. Then maybe I could find the time to beat Dave's 2002. The speed was all in my head.

I was going to have an opportunity to find it in 3 weeks at Portland International Raceway.