:. Racing .:. Pueblo "Miller Time" R/R
Results: (N/A)
Season's Swan Song
October's end brings about the last race of the season in the Rocky Mountain division. I was eager to
have a second race at a track for the first time in my short racing career. After good improvements from the car
at MPH, I was confident I could better my previous best of a mid 1:33.
With all of the major season championships - Runoffs and Solo Nationals - completed, many folks seemed to be taking
this event as a last hurrah before everybody's cars go up on stands for winter projects. As a result, especially
because of a large contingent of my friends from solo running the TT, the weekend felt a bit like a big party
gathering. Too many good friends, not enough time to say hi to everybody!
As has become habit, I towed down the night before, caravaning with Grant and Lawrence Edwards. Lawrence had
his newly completed Cheetah in tow, and planned on running the Time Trials event to get a bit of shakedown in, and
get one chance to play with his new toy before mothballing things for winter. The tow was pretty awful - wrecks
everywhere, and general idiocy abounded. A 3 hour tow took us about 4.5 hours. Yeesh. I barely made it in time
for registration, but Rusty took pity on me and let me get my tech sticker.
Saturday
Saturday dawned clear and bright, with a forecast for 80 degree weather. Not bad for late October!
My morning started out acting as an instructor for the PDX session that runs as part of the Time Trials program.
First-time drivers get to have 40 minutes on track with instructors, and if they are deemed safe and consistent enough,
we sign them off to run the TT. Corner workers get to run for free - it's really a great program.
Practice
After that, I hurried over to don my superhero outfit and get ready to run. Wings-n-things
was group #2, so we got to go out early. The old timers tell me the track is quickest in the morning, and that
seemed to bear out this time as well.
I ran the fresher of my two sets of tires from MPH, that had previously had a bad vibration. I thought I had corrected
this by having them rebalanced, but they remained quite bad. Perhaps I have a bent wheel? The practice
session was mostly uneventful, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I kept pushing myself deeper into corners,
faster through them, and so on. I think I ran the entire session pretty much flat out. The only slight oops
was putting 2 wheels off at the exit of turn 2, which took a chunk out of my splitter. No big loss there.
I saw only a few times on the dash, as I'd mis-aimed the beacon, but I did see
one 1:33.67, a precise match of my previous best. I came in at the end of the session, encouraged and hopeful that I'd
be able to beat that, and
perhaps even dip into the 32's. After retrieving the time sheets, I was very happy to see a 33.1, a .5 second
improvement, on the 5th lap out. Yeah! The car was generally excellent. It had a good balance, although overall
grip seemed
somewhat down - things just felt kinda slidy. Perhaps too much spring now? Regardless, the good time is encouraging.
Since folks seemed to really enjoy my "qualifying lap" run around MPH from last month's update, here's how a lap
at Pueblo looks in the Radical:
You come across the line, just having snagged 4th gear. 6th arrives 100 feet or so before the first brake marker if
you get a good exit out of T10. Drift in a hair, and then nail the brakes a few feet past the 1 marker. Down three gears
while on the brakes hard, and the car will end up towards the top of the cambered section of T1. Follow T1 around to the right, and
as the radius tightens, breathe off the throttle a hair to bring it down to the apex, which is a chunk out of the
pavement late in the corner. Feed throttle in to hit the corner exit, and hurry to get back to the right for T2. T2 is
much faster than it looks - a 90* left-hander. Make a slight tap of the brake and aim for the apex curbing, which the car will slide slightly
wide of. Accelerate briefly to T3, medium brake and down a gear to 2nd. Turn in early and smoothly (!) to take advantage of
the slight camber on corner entry. If you don't, the
car slides wide early and the corner takes for-EVER to get through. Care on the exit is required, as you go up over a hump,
the rear gets light, and the camber falls away.
Back up to 3rd before a good hard brake for 4, back down to 2nd for this 180*
right-hander. This
turn opens up slightly, so you can feed in throttle early and hard. Up to 4th for T5, which is a slight lift
and hard turn in up the hill. The car compresses and grip goes through the roof (Is THIS what a Stohr is like?), and
you can fly up over the crest
of the hill to T6. Breathe slightly at the entry of 6 if your tires aren't good, otherwise, it's flat-out. Flat through
the rest of T6a and T6b, and brake somewhat in a straight line for 7, a tight left-hand 180. Turn in hard, and slide across
the slippy asphalt patch which gets the car rotated so you can get on the power immediately and hard, using all the exit
possible. T8 I don't think I've done right quite yet, but it seems to be a slightly early turn-in, as the front always
wants to wash out and push the car wide, despite some camber present.
Continue through 8, up another gear to 4th. Hard
braking up to 9, making sure to use the extra "apron" of asphalt on the left of the track, down to 2nd gear. Hang the inside
tire over the inside of the apex, up to 3rd. Entry to 10 is wide, a bit of a lift off the throttle, gather your courage, and turn
in, aiming as tightly as possible towards the corner of the tower to get the smoothest pavement as the track
crosses the drag strip. Hard on the gas, grab 4th gear, and cross the line.
Qualifying
I swapped tires for qualifying, to see if I could get rid of the vibration. That did work, although the
old tires resulted in almost 2 seconds a lap hit versus the morning - a mid 34 was the best I could muster
admist a host of 35's. A neutral, previously stable car was now
incredibly loose, which caused me to work pretty hard to keep the thing going round the track!
The car was particularly unstable under hard braking, and I did manage
to loop it in turn 9 when I stabbed the brakes a bit (read: a lot) poorly. I got going again with no harm.
Tyler Hunter was
following closely in his FE car, and it was all I could do to stay ahead. It was interesting to watch
him a bit in my mirrors and see where I was faster, and where he was faster. Finally I decided to be sporting and
let him by so he could get some clean laps in.
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Race
The race started a bit hectic for me. I learned a lesson in "don't depend on paddock announcements", and
hopped in the car as the previous group was on their cooldown lap, and had to get help from the Terri the grid worker,
and another fellow to get buckled in in time. OK, heart rate under 200? Great - let's race!
Having had a poor qualifying effort relative to my practice times, I found myself 2nd in a ~8 car grid, with
Tyler on pole in the FE - about 1 second below his own previous track record. Yowza. I was a bit nervous
about how the race might go. From observing in qualifying, I had thought the Radical was quicker than he was
down the straights. In retrospect, I think it was a better turn 9-10 exit I was getting? At any rate, I was
worried that I'd get by on the straight, then make some rookie mistake and turn in on him at some point - I've
never been hounded strongly from behind, and I didn't want to end the season by taking somebody out of the race!
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It all turned out to be completely moot, as we turned out to be almost identically matched after the green flew.
Tyler pulled out about a car length at the start, enough that I couldn't reasonably try to duck down the inside
of T1. So, I did, in fact, make a rookie mistake, and followed Tyler around a wide line in turn 1, allowing
Patrick Holmes in the FM to easily duck inside me and take P2 into turn 2. Oops.
I glued myself to Patrick's gearbox for the next 4-5 laps, while Tyler drove off into the distance.
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However,
the fight to try and get by was fantastic fun. I kept poking my nose in at T2, T4, and T9, but never was quite
there. Our motors seemed to be quite evenly matched, but Patrick was holding me up in the corners, and I never
could quite put a run together the way I wanted.
Finally, I poked my nose in at T7 - a tight 180* left hander. It disrupted his exit a bit, and I followed right
behind through 8, a high speed RH sweeper, right on his tail up to 9. I got about halfway alongside into 9. Patrick
ran a bit wide, and we went side by side through 10, and I took the position on the straight, with him inches
off of my wing. I took a bit of a tight/defensive line into 1, and after that was able to quickly drive away.
All in all, it was some of the most fun racing I've had yet - several laps of hard, but careful racing. Patrick
was extremely fair to race with, so hey - that's what it's all about!
The rest of the race for me was driving fast but careful laps, trying to find ways around the car's
understeer by late-apexing the heck out of every turn. I had no chance of catching Tyler at this point,
but thought that if perhaps he had a problem, if I stayed close enough, I could catch him. The car had a dreadful
understeer from the green, that got continuously worse throughout the race. the LF had almost no rubber left on it
when I checked it at the end of the race - that's what I get for running dead-ass tires!
As it turns out, Tyler did have a problem. 1 lap from the finish, he pulled off at T9 with a broken input
shaft, so I went around one more time, and took my second checker. Hurrah! I suppose things do balance out a bit,
as I was in a position to lead him at Pueblo when my header cracked back in July, ending that race for me.
Sunday
For once, the weather forecasters got it right...unfortunately. They had called for 30's, rain and snow. That's
just what we got, so I decided to bag it and head home with an intact - and clean - race car. The tow home
was quite treacherous in the snow and ice, with many cars spinning off the road and getting stuck. I felt
very thankful for my enclosed trailer today.
Most of us had very successful weekends. Lawrence got some laps in the Cheetah, Jeff came down in his B-Mod
championship Cheetah (minus extra wings), and they chased eachother a bit in the Time Trials. I am
hoping that the three of us
with perhaps Grant (Radical) and Patrick (thinking of swapping to XSR) can have a little regional series
among us with our "preStohric" sports racers.
Summary
So, a good end to what I would call a successful first season on the race track. No DNF's, no accidents, no
"close calls", two race wins, and a track record.
By my own evaluation, I think I am driving pretty well. Consistency is pretty good and improving, and my speed seems
to be respectable. I certainly have a pretty small bag of
racecraft to dip into, but I suppose a lot of that just comes with experience. At least I'm not dangerous, and that's
what counts.
Let's do it again next year! A new engine, maybe some new goodies, and perhaps a national license to go run with
some really fast guys a few times to see how I stack up against a higher level of competition.
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