Willow Springs: Week One

My oh my, after more than four months out of the car what a wonder to be back in it. If my posts weren’t so long winded I’d run out of words.

To start with, an eleven car field is at least twice as much fun as seven or eight car field. We had two brand new cars, Josh in the Endsight racing #35 and Aaron in #5. Both the drivers did very well and are great additions to the series. Clean and smooth, with good situational awareness and fun to compete against. Our series has always been blessed with an abnormally large number of drivers who are just plain fun to race with, and it’s outstanding to see that trend continue. Josh in particular did very well capturing two podiums his first weekend. He’s also joining the blog as our second poster. Aaron got at least one podium in his #5 as well. With a large field that’s some good driving right off the bat.

For myself, I had a near perfect practice day. The track was open, without sessions, all day, so there was no hurry to do anything in particular. After a few installation laps to get the temperatures in line, I was happily putting in as much seat time as I could handle.

Race day practice and qualifying went well for me. I was just a few tenths off of Thorpe in the #3 car, which made me pretty happy since he’s been quick for a long time. Jim continued his domination from last year setting a jaw dropping 1:30.3. That’s only a second off of the track record for our car, which was set with slicks, not the RA-1’s, in perfect conditions (I was there.) Bob continued to be really quick as well (maybe these guys have found some kind of racing Viagra or something…)

NASA continues to organize a great weekend, and like they do every once in a while they replaced the qualifying session on Sunday with a qualifying race. That is always a real treat from a drivers perspective since it means a three race weekend instead of just two. It’s not another point’s race; it just determines the starting order for the Sunday point’s race later in the afternoon. But it’s just as much fun without a three dollar trophy at stake as with one, and this race was a blast.

The pace car went too slow, leaving us crawling below four thousand. Our cars are purpose built race cars so first gear is closer to where third is in your daily driver than a typical first. So as soon as the pace car pulled I brought us up to seven in first and held there. Scott was on the outside in the #77 car and caught on to what I was doing; but when the leader accelerates like that it’s generally the clue for the guys in the back that the flag has dropped since they have a harder time seeing the stand. Mark in the #50 took off, pulled nearly up to the front row, realized what went wrong and got off the throttle. The starter saw what was happening, and to avoid a black flag, but make it fair, he held the flag long enough for Mark to drop back. That, of course, killed his momentum and most of his race.

Scott took the #77 car around the outside of me into turn one, side by side, and I discovered that the outside might just be better than the inside at Willow Springs at the start. To give him a car width of racing room I lost so much track out, compared to normal, that it wasn’t even a question of who was going into turn two in the lead. Scott managed to hold onto that lead for the whole qualifying race and put the #77 on the pole. Either the #77 is faster, or Scott is much faster (ok, Scott's certainly faster, but it should have taken another corner or two) or, and I think this is likely, the outside is actually the better line into turn one during the start. Usually if I try to pass someone there it’s an early apex, I get there far enough ahead that I can still use the entire track out. Side by side I think you get skunked on the inside.

I managed to hold onto fourth. Josh went in deep into nine, and I rarely pass there since it costs so much speed to contest, but he pulled it off well enough. I saw it, and so planned an outside-in to take him back, and exited with a lot more speed than he had, but as the straight went on I just slowly stopped pulling on him. By the time we reached turn one, I was on his left rear quarter panel with a smidgen more momentum and the inside line so it would have been worth a try to repay the favor by out-braking him into one on the inside, but I decided against it since he was at least a second a lap faster than I was even when I went full tilt boogey, if not two, so it just would have delayed the inevitable. Anyway, it was a very good race with a lot of fights all over the field. Exactly why I do this…

Jim got me as well, so I think the qualifying race order ended up being Scott (#77), Josh (#35), Jim (#98) and I (#76). Scott is Tom Dragoun’s son, and it turned out after putting it on the pole Tom decided to race his own car Sunday afternoon and put Scott in Phillip’s car (#78) at the back of the pack.

Of course, while sitting in grid it was decided to invert, again, which didn’t hurt me much (fourth to seventh, I think) but put Tom right on the tail end, wasting all of Scott’s effort. This start went a lot cleaner, but was very exciting since I think we were four wide for a bit in one. I was afraid I pushed somebody two wheels off, but it happened behind me so quick I don’t know who it was. I just saw a flash and used the last of my grip to hold in, a half a car width from the edge, which was all I could by then. No accident’s, no touching, everybody made it thru the gaggle.

Now we were told, before the start, about some oil in turn two and some oil dry. We also got the debris flag at the starters stand and going into two. But I wasn’t at all prepared for the amount of oil dry they used. The formation lap was bad, but the first race lap was indescribable. I literally held a higher speed than I’d planned, since all I could see was the tail of the car five feet in front and I was afraid if I fell more than those few inches behind it I’d lose my only visual clue as to where I was. At the same time I was simply amazed that the car didn’t just slide off the track at the speed we were going on that stuff. I literally couldn’t see the ground in front of the car and whoever’s rear spoiler I could just barely see was really just a dim hazy kind of outline, despite the fact that I could almost reach out and touch the damn thing. I was very thankful once we got out of two, although I never was able to see again out of the right third of my windshield. Of course it took more laps to clear up, but it wasn’t quite as bad the second time around.

Josh did the turn nine inside trick again.

I got a launch on him again, and this time I wasn’t going to be quite as nice a guy because we had a lot of other traffic and if I could get him back it might just stick. Besides he mucked up Tom’s plan and so I got a run on the both of them (getting them both would've been sweet), but in the end couldn’t do it because of the huge gaggle it created going back into turn one. Mainly Mark in the #50 and T.W. in the #17 who were getting slammed by Tom & Josh in the same corner I wanted to pass them back at all while Jim, Scott, Aaron and everybody else was trying to get to the same apex at the same time.

I had to be especially careful because, after taking him into turn three the first time around, Scott had moved his car right up behind me and was showing me his nose on lap two. I don’t know who went into one in what order (I’ll have to wait for the video) but it was almost as much of a gaggle as the start.

Scott was slowly closing on me for most of each lap but I would generally pull all the time he gained back in turn eight since the #78 car seemed to have a lot of trouble keeping up to speed there (I think maybe a flat spotted tire). Overall, with no other factors I could stay ahead with him in that car, that day, which even with me in a better car at the time is something to be proud of.

Nevertheless, experience tells (Scott’s been racing a long time and is a really…really hot shoe) and he wound up knifing through traffic far better than I could and took me going through the three-four complex a few laps in. Note to self, the inside into four may look like a good defensive move, but only if you can close the door by the top of the hill. Scott was inside and nearly even with me by the apex of three, and as we went side by side to the top of the hill it became obvious I was going to have to give it up before the second apex or cause an accident that would be my fault. Better to go deeper into three with an early apex and contest it there. Anyway, from then on I’d get a run on him going into eight, but it was never near to close enough, and besides, Scott is just a magician with traffic. I ended the race about sixty yards behind him.

That still left T.W. in my sights. I was slowly pulling on him, but so little it was going to take a very long while to get in range, when he overcooked just a bit into one. That caught me right up, along with Scott who was still on my tail at the time, but eventually I got an inside line into turn one and made it stick.

Now last year, when T.W. started out, I would’ve expected him to drop back and I’d lose sight of him a couple of laps after passing him. Not this year. He’s getting better and it’s just a matter of seat time before he hands me my head on a stick. It’s what I remember (aside from the oil dry) the most about this race; being just short of making a race with Scott while I had to keep pushing the car really hard to stay out of T.W.’s range. That just seemed to last forever and I’m not sure which idea motivated me more. Falling behind T.W. or catching Scott. I haven’t lost to T.W. straight up, yet, but it’s obvious that it’s just a matter of time (and not much) before I do. I need to put some kind of 'stop getting faster' hex on him or something…

Turn two got better and better, even if my window didn’t, but there was no real chance to relax the whole way. I always had T.W. behind to worry about and Scott ahead to try to catch while traffic, faster and slower, kept making things even more interesting. Which is why I like these bigger fields; sure, the new trophies (very nice with a photo from the race by Helen, just for our series) are much better than NASA's same old, same old, although it might be awhile before I get my hands on one. But it’s much better to have a race where you have to struggle that hard for the whole distance than to just get another trophy.

After all, it’s what I came for.