Excited, intimidated, nervous, uncertain; all feelings that overwhelmed as my first season of racing approached. The season opener for the Mazda GT Championship Series was February 9th and 10th at Willow Spring International Raceway, a track that I had visited for the first time two weeks prior to the opening race. I typically suffer from fantasies of grandeur but, in this case, my goals were to finish both races and not make a complete fool of myself. As it turns out, I didn’t have as much to worry about as I thought.I took delivery of my new GT car the day before the first race. It was an open test day, with little pressure to do anything other than get the car ready for Saturday. Items on my list were to set the steering column length, seat position, and pedal depth. I’m very particular about suspension balance so I was expecting to spend most of the day adjusting the dampers but Tom hit the nail on the head by referencing Thorpe’s #3 car. All I had to do was request neutral handling. Nice! I spent a bit more time bedding the brakes and working with the crew to clear up some tire rubbing and the car was ready to go. The day was mine to practice reading the gauges, work on my line, and bench race with the other drivers.
Coming into Saturday with a well dialed car was a big load off. Warm up was much like a HPDE but qualifying was an entirely different animal. I understood the fundamental goal around qualifying, which is to run your quickest lap before the tires get too hot. Theoretically, that’s likely to happen in laps 3, 4, or 5, or so the books say. Making theory a reality seemed much more difficult on the track than I expected. I went out with the intention of taking two easy laps to get some room ahead and knock out the third lap with authority. As it turned out, other people had the same goal and I spent the entire session chasing a clean lap. Note to self – work on strategies for qualifying.
Through some miracle of racing, or just dumb luck, I managed to qualify second, which put me right next to last year’s series champ for the points race. My plan was to drop behind Jim to see if I could keep up and learn a thing or two. To my surprise, Jim joined the ST1 group for the start. This should not have been a problem, since the Viper in front of me should have pulled away handily, leaving plenty of room at turn one. In reality, the Viper did not pull away and I got passed on both sides in the first turn. Note to self – work on race starts.
The field thinned out after the first lap and I was back in very comfortable HPDE-like driving. Focused on taking it easy and finishing the race, I fell into a consistent 1:32 pace and worked my way back into second place. “Go slow to go fast” was on my side. In the last laps of the race, the first place car was a good distance ahead and the third place car a good distance behind. “Take it easy and don’t #$%^ this up” played through my mind over and over. I dropped a couple seconds from my pace and locked in a second place finish. Let the fantasies of grandeur begin.
The post race natural high carried me into a BBQ with some of the coolest folks out there. I’m not sure if it’s the racing or the camaraderie that I like better; but with this group you get the best of both worlds. Tasty steaks, good discussion, and video of past races projected on the side of a trailer. No buyer’s remorse here. I made a good decision.
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