"Racing into Spring" at Lime Rock, hosted by my own Connecticut Valley Region of the PCA was held last Fri/Sat. It was more like a cold and rainy April than May, reminiscent of the race 2 years ago. Fortunately this time there were no injuries or serious accidents though several cars were involved in small fender benders. These were mostly individual excursions, in which two of my friends and assets to the club racing program who were on probation are now out of PCA racing for 13 months... we'll miss you John and Jim.
There were also LOTS of spins without incident, I had more cars spin in front of me in this event than in all my previous track time combined! There were a few advantages to the lousy weather - we saved a lot of money on tires and gas.
Friday started out wet but the rain didn't come down until the driver's meeting. After the meeting my crew chief John Manifold and I mounted my rain tires (Toyo RA-01) and got good and wet. The first practice was not well attended and everyone was careful. I had my dry suspension settings and found the car too tail happy, but managed to get about 2nd fastest time. I have raced and driven at Lime Rock a lot in the wet so I have a good idea on how and where to drive the track.
I was testing and bedding in a completely new front suspension and brake system, which had taken me too many evenings to install. I installed new custom-valved Bilstein shocks, Bilstein strut housings, new brake rotors, pads, and I rebuilt my calipers and hub . Also installed new ball joints, and in so doing found out where my noise was coming from last year. I first thought it was a loose wheel bearing, then a loose tie rod, but could not really pinpoint the problem. When I put on the ball joint tool, I found the ball joint was not tight! It was turning and moving a bit, the tang would not allow it to rotate much and the keeper on the bottom would not allow it to loosen further but the slop could not have been helping me and the noise was frustrating. Strangely enough, after replacing the entire front suspension and lubricating my bushings, the alignment and corner balance was fine (but I did not gain any negative camber which I was hoping for...)
For the second practice, I adjusted my new adjustable (!) Bilstein rear shocks to full soft and did the same to the rear sway bar. This made the car much softer and stuck well in the turns, allowing some acceleration without swapping ends. This year I have bigger rear torsion bars so it was not quite as good as it was in the Dodge Vintage Festival last year. I was not accelerating fully on the straights, just leaving the car in 4th gear on the whole track, so my times were not great but I was 3rd fastest in the group. I knew I could gain a few seconds by using 3rd gear and full throttle more.
For the 3rd practice, which would be important in gridding for qualifying, I followed the two leading cars closely for a few laps, lead by "Rocket Ron" Savenor in his new '87 Carrera prepared E car. There were no cars to be seen behind me so I decided to back-off on the back of the course and allow them to get ahead of me, then try to catch them and turn a fast lap. Soon Mayo Smith in his similar '73 RS clone, a lightweight in D (the pretty Brumos car) was in my mirrors so I got back up to speed, had a great launch down the hill onto the main straight, then found I could not slow down at the end of the straight and drove straight off the escape road. It's different when you use full throttle... After that I was caught in traffic for the whole session, backing off several times but catching the group in under a lap so I never had a good whole lap and my 3rd lap following the 2 leaders turned out to me my best, leaving me 5th fastest in the group. Here is a shot of Mayo following me a few weeks earlier at the PCA driver's Ed.
Our last session on Friday was the practice starts and fun race. Ron and a few others decided not to grid, while rookies are required to attend. Our practice starts were fairly clean and I stayed about where I was. On the last practice start, we continued to a 3 lap "fun race". I was about third coming out of Big Bend, entering the lefthander I was a car length behind Mayo and we spun simultaneously in the slippery left hander. We would have won an olympic skating medal for the choreography. Mayo went totally off the track on the right, while my rear tires hit the dirt on the right and spun me back pointed in the right direction so I continued on, passing Mayo. A red 944Turbo (Eric Ravid?) spun violently in front of me just before the bridge, and I was ready to take to the dirt to avoid him just as he came to rest in the middle of the track. I then came on to the main straight in the lead. A lap later, Mayo somehow appeared in my rear view mirror again and gained on me, until he was nearly alongside me at the checkered flag. I was glad to have won the fun race overall and even more to have avoided any incidents. Maybe Ron was smart to have avoided the fun race, but to me it was an exciting race and would help me in the real race.
RACE DAY
Saturday morning it was not raining, but rain was in the forecast. After the first group was on the course, we put the new Hoosier dry tires on, and set the suspension back to the dry settings. The track was fairly dry but I was cautious and easy on my new tires as they were not heat-cycled yet. There was also a lot of traffic, so I did not have any good lap times,never even checked them. But since it was just a warm-up I wanted to get a feel for the car in the dry with the new tires and suspension, and it felt fine. Later in the morning was qualifying, and it stayed dry. I was gridded 5th in my group of C, D and E cars, 3rd in E, based on the wet 3rd practice session. I went out pretty hard, timing myself, and had a few clear laps in the 1:02s. I really thought I could break intothe low 1:01s so was not happy. Then I started to push it harder and saw a "PIT IN CAR 44" sign at the bridge! Was I leaking oil? No, they told me I was too loud!!! I had just opened the plugs in my sport muffler for more power which would help in the dry, never having had a problem passing sound limits at Lime Rock with this configuration. I later learned that they were not picking on me, but many cars were black flagged, almost everyone in some fast groups. So I rushed back to my pits, jumped out with helmet still on, popped the plugs back on, then rushed back to the track. I knew there was not much more time in our session so I immediately stepped up my speed. The 1st lap I timed at a 1:01:8, then the checkered flag was flying as I crossed the line with the 1:01:7, which is about as fast as I had ever gone. I figured this would be a decent time for the group but not enough to catch Ron, who turned in a high 1:00 lap. There were a few C and D cars between us, and the next fastest E car was in the 1:03 range several cars back. The fast F cars which are usually only a tenth or so slower than me, were a half second behind me, so I guess my suspension changes worked, and on a warm track with some dry clear laps I should be able to get into the high 1:00 range.
Before the first race, the rain came. This would make for interesting race starts as qualifying was dry, and the powerful cars which out-qualified me would probably hold me up in the wet. So again we put the rain tires on in the pouring rain,and set our suspension back to wet settings. We were getting good at it! The muffler was still plugged, the car was running OK, windows rain-x'd, and gas tank filled. The races would be shortened from 20 to 15 laps in case of problems.
The start of the race was fairly uneventful for me, I took no chances but held my position well. Mayo got sideways ahead of me exiting the esses the first two laps, with a 944 spinning out in front of me again. On the third lap, Mayo could not catch his spin and went off the track allowing us by. I was then on John Paton's bumper, a very good driver in a fast D class 944 Turbo Cup car. But his car was not good in the wet and he was quite slow in the turns. However I could not get enough jump out of the corners to pass, and he was racing me tough even though he was not in my class. Finally after 3 or 4 laps I was able to back off a bit before the uphill, take it fast, accelerate hard up the hill and get beside him in the short straight before West bend. I held my position on the slippery inside of west bend and finally got by. Soon I was up to speed but the only two cars ahead, Mike Trombly in a D class RS America and Ron, were too far ahead to see. I pressed on anyway, found the limits in all the turns and accelerated hard in the appropriate gear. Finally I saw a winged black 911 ahead, and since I was not catching him quickly I determined it was Ron and not lapped traffic. I was very fortunate with the group of cars that I lapped, getting by them losing very little time, and got significantly closer to Ron. When he saw me he starting pushing harder, and I saw him nearly spin in the very fast downhill turn exit, saving it with a brilliant application of power and steering. This mistake allowed me to get even closer, and soon I was VERY close when he was held up in some traffic. But the traffic this time slowed me a bit and he gained on me. I continued getting closer, but then the checkered flag fell with me still 4 seconds behind Ron and15 seconds behind Mike. Who knows what would have happened if I had not been heldup by John, who was 3 seconds a lap slower than I ... That's racin'!
The results showed that I had fastest lap time at 1:15:6, while Mike, the overall winner, was close at 1:16:3 and Ron was just over a second slower than my best lap. Mayo worked his way up to finish in 4th overall, after ANOTHER spin, this time I am told he went around twice and stayed on the track! He ended up about a half lap behind me.
At the post race bash the "worker's choice" award is given to one car in each group. The workers can choose any car they deem worthy. When Dick Strahota, the excellent chief of workers, said the car chosen was the only one they could see in the rain, I knew it was me and gladly accepted the award, which would go nicely with the one from last year's race!
On the ride home I was disappointed that I could not challenge for the class or overall win, but all things considered I was happy with my car, my driving, and keeping my podium finish streak alive. We'll see if I can keep it up in two weeks at Pocono - it will be difficult to get better than 3rd place there against Ron and Dr. John Sullivan's 944 Turbo S.