VIR

[Catch22]

Yep, it was a whole lot of fun. My first long enduro and hopefully not my last.

We were certainly not the fastest ITB car on the track and we knew it going in. Our plan centered around reliability, stints (1.5 to 1.75 hours) dictated by the fuel tank, and staying out of trouble (especially after dark). Well, the plan worked as we won the thing.

No mechanical issues, no contact, no brake pad changes... A truly flawless race that went 95% in line with Crew Chief Lee Grimes' plan. Our crew was awesome as well, with gassing and tire changes all going off without a hitch.

I am, however, still amazed at how many people completely forget they are in a 13 hour war of attrition as soon as the green flag drops. Man, people just immediately started driving like they were in an ARRC sprint race. Forcing themselves under people, donuting doors, and just plain wrecking each other while driving a balls-out sprint pace.
Not us. All of our drivers stuck to the plan, stayed out of trouble, and took care of the equipment.
I started the race and then finished it 10 hours later. I can't describe how amazed I was to find that the car felt exactly the same at 8:45pm as it did at 10:45am when I handed it over to Kirk.
Now THATS how you win an endurance race!!!

Big thumbs up to our drivers and crew. Winning something like this is no small feat and it was a total team effort.

[JeffYoung]

Greg, you are right about taking the high road....one semi-objective comment.

I typically drive a TR8 in ITS. A friend and I built a SM to run this enduro, and to try and rent out next year to cover the cost of doing an enduro each year.

First time this weekend driving an SM. As an IT driver, I've always wondered why these cars always seemed to be bumping and banging off of each other.

I think, after 2.5 hours in the car on Saturday, I can make two perhaps helpful non-driver specific observations for non-SM drivers:

1. An SM makes you feel like superman. I'm not kidding. It is underpowered, handles great (and predictably), and stops well. You can do things in that car that would get you killed in your IT car. Case in point: when I get the Uphill Esses exactly right in my TR8, I am much faster through there than I am in the SM. BUT, if I am even a few inches off, I'm toast, off the track and possibly in big trouble. WIth the SM, I could go flat out through the esses using a couple of different lines. The SM would recover just fine.

2. Lifting in the SM is death -- the car just comes to a halt and the rest of your competitors sail away. As an IT driver in a car with torque, I can back off, and then get back on the throttle and not totally kill a lap. In the SM, any lift would have dire implications for several corners at least. I think this encourages, at least it did with me, trying to find ways NOT to lift at all.

My first session I was certainly guitly of playing Wreck Pinata, puttin gthe car in the tire wall in Oak Tree with an ill advised pass of an ITS car that was just going to run me down on the backstraight. After seeing the cost to my team (2 laps pulling out the right front fender) of that move, I settled down and just tried to be consistent.

So, while I like and respect the car, I think I am going to put down teh crack pipe and stay with my TR8, which requires me to be more precise and stay out of trouble to go fast. The Miata, on the other hand, just tempts you and tempts you to do things you shouldn't.

The solution? An SM only run group. Let them have fun in those cars because I do think they are/need to be driven differently than most other IT type cars.

[Catch22]

Lifting in the SM is death -- the car just comes to a halt and the rest of your competitors sail away

You've apparently never driven an ITC car. Lifting... anywhere... anytime... kills the whole lap dead and often gets you passed. Spec Miatas are A Sedan cars in comparison to a carbed '85 Civic econobox.

SMs are no more of a momentum car than most ITA, ITB and certainly ITC cars. The drivers of these cars might *think* this is the case, but its not. The front running SMs have a better power to weight ratio than most, if not all, ITB and ITC cars and are about even (maybe a tad lower) than the ITA guys.

I think its more a matter of overpopularity and a bunch of guys that really aren't all that good driving cars with no real advantage over each other. They can't get away from each other, so they eventually end up hitting each other.
This is a very broad generalization as there are some damned fantastic drivers in SMs. But there's a hell of alot more SMs out there than there are good drivers in them.
And THATS the problem, In my humble opinion.

Their own group... I'm all for it. As soon as someone figures out how to put even MORE in the already full weekends. I'd love to see some of those 10 to 20 car formula groups combined, but it ain't gonna happen.

oops. I feel this one falling off topic. Way to go Amy.
Friggin troublemaker.

[VBDgraphics]

Great race guys... congrats to the A3 GTI and team members! We had "another" hub failure in the left front...(same issue as 2 years ago in the 12 Hour at Summit) check your qualifying sheets though, we were on pole in ITB not the Mustang...(all good though) Just goes to show why we love endurance racing, anything can happen at anytime, thanks to the other A2 GTI for a parts donation to get us back out for the checker... This was a good and clean race and we'll be back for sure next year and we have left something on the table for sure............. Greg Shaffer / Paulo DoCouto

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Custom Motorsports Graphics at: www.vbdgraphics.com

[evanwebb]

Hi all, I'm getting in on this late but I'd just like to chime in and say that it was a great time racing with Kirk, Scott, and Greg at the 13 hours! I learned a ton from these guys and I'm looking forward to doing some more enduros in the future! Woohoo!

[m glassburner]

The 25 hr is coming up soon

[jlucas]

Originally posted by m glassburner:
The 25 hr is coming up soon

Yup, we'll be there. Hopefully the new pads will last more than 3.5 hours.

------------------
Jeremy Lucas
Team Honda Research
Kumho - Cobalt - Comptech

[Greg Amy]

<font face=\"Verdana, Arial\" size=\"2\">...I feel this one falling off topic. Way to go Amy...Friggin troublemaker.</font>[/b]

That's my job, and I do it well...

As someone that has raced SM, I can say with confidence that both John and Scott are quite the bright and observant fellows. Combine their two posts and you've got my sentiments exactly.

What can be done about it? Not too much, as it requires inward reflection by the participants, and there's no evidence that this will happen any time soon. If/when it does, though, I predict a hell of a firestorm.

Greg/Paul: Mea culpa on the oversight of your pole position. Well deserved! It's quite possible, then, that we didn't qualify second. I seem to recall that Ron was in the grid position in front of us because I was giving him grief on the grid about how our ace starter Scott Giles was going to run him through...

Hey, Mike, in the "small world" category, it turns out that Natasha's dad flies the same kind of airplane that I do. I noticed the airplane circling VIR mid-afternoon during one of my driving stints and recognized the make and model, and made an inquiry on a separate email list to find out who it was. I was pleasantly surprised to find that he was scoping out the yellow-and-purple RX-7 that his son-in-law was driving!

www.euliss-uftring.org/pictures

And, damn, that Acura TL is wicked fast. I loved having that car come by me because I didn't have to worry about their dive-bombing me; they'd simply wait for a straight and - BAM, GONE.

To get back on point about endurance racing and VIR, I have a well-proven system to avoid conflicts whenever possible. I call it "aggressive yet leave yourself an out." I suggest that the biggest conflicts on the track came when a passee was trying too hard to let people by. Remember the topic we had a few weeks ago (maybe in the NE forum?) where we talked about the passee's responsibility when a faster car is coming through? I made it clear that my position on the matter was to drive your line, be predictable, and keep your speed up as best you can. This way you become predictable so the passer knows where you're going, you'll maintain your speed through the corners (thereby helping both drivers), and the faster car can then plan on using their strong suits to pass you at a safe and convenient place.

To illustrate this, let's take an example of where one of the ITE cars was coming up on me. If it's on the straight, I made it clear well in advance to the passer that I saw them, and I made it clear to them which side of the car I wanted them to pass me. In that manner, there was clear communication that the passer has been seen and that I will accomodate them. in extreme examples, such as in the slow left-hander before the Snake, I'd even gesture wildly out the left window with a spinning motion of my left hand that I will delay my turn-in and they should aggressively work to pass me there. However, I would NEVER drive offline to accomodate the passer; if they couldn't make it happen offline and in a safe place then it didn't happen.

There are a few places where a pass is unsafe (in my mind) such as after that left hander, again into the entrance to the uphill esses, and through Roller Coaster. In those cases, I made it clear to the passing driver that I was *not* going to accomodate them there by either waving a "no" with my hand inside the car and/or by drifting towards the middle of the track, thus discouraging the pass. However, once done I would make sure that I kept my speed up through the esses and while flying through the corner (at South Bend, for example) would gesture the side for them to pass me coming out of the corner.

As you can see, I was not only managing MY own car, I was managing the OTHER drivers as well. I was not "blocking" them per se, rather I was managing when and where they could pass me, and limiting it to safe places. This kind of attitude is slightly different than in sprint races, because I realize that sprints don't give you the luxury of time, but the same ideas and rules apply.

Let's take the other point of view. If I were a driver in one of those well-handling-but-low-powered vehicles coming up on a slow, underpowered, 300-lb-heavier box, the last thing I'd want to do is dive-bomb the box into a slow corner. The result, at best, would be two cars now going much slower through the corner side-by-side, with the possibility of the fatter box - now having been forced offline - understeering out of the corner into me. Not only have I significantly increased my risk, but I've needlessly killed any semblence of a good lap, especially given I could easily cream him coming out of the corner.

Instead of losing 2-3 seconds on the lap with that method, I'd lift or brake about 100 feet earlier, keep my momentum up through the corner, and go screaming by on the exit. Even better, it's possible the refrigerator will get a good exit out of the corner, and now I have a free aero tow for at least half the straight, possible regaining that lost half-second.

So, because in general that was not happening, I as the refrigerator driver had to take a different tack on actively managing the slower cars. In that case I had to, in many cases, take a much more aggressive stance to keep cars such as this from dive-bombing me. If a certain well-handling performance car was in tow down the straight I made it clear which side of the car they were to pop out and pass, and I made it clear that I was going to accomodate them. However, if it appears that the driver was coming from too far back and they were going to try a Hail Mary pass (which was pretty damned obvious based on their "body language") I'd make it crystal clear that I was *not* going to accomodate them by moving over to make sure they KNEW there was not going to be a hole when they got there. For the most part, the other drivers got the word and backed off and drove their normal line, and as a result they - TA DA! - killed me coming out of the corner. Funny how that works out.

I believe that the end result was no hard feelings among the fast cars, as I did my best to accomodate them in a safe place, probably no hard feelings among the faster more experienced small-but-well-handling drivers, but quite likely some cussing from the slower SWH drivers. No apologies for that last group; trust me, that nasty-tasting medicine was good for you in the end.

Our results were no significant contact and a race win. You decide if the tactics are valid.

GregA

[Kolin Aspegren]

Our team was driving the 05 SSC Neon. We
ran a pace 7 seconds slower than what the
car could do. The idea was to save fuel
and of course race nobody. We won our class
by 7 laps, overall do not know. Hope we
stayed out of everybodies way who was
racing,Crackerjacks must have been giving
out free SCCA licenses that day. Witnessed
stuff never seen before, care to guess
what class. We drove very slow and still
won so no worries.

Lots of fun

Kolin

[gsbaker]

Originally posted by Catch22:
...But there's a hell of alot more SMs out there...

We have, what, 11 days to go before we see this scene again?

http://www.isaacdirect.com/images/ARRC%252...07-0727_IMG.JPG

I must admit, these guys are fun to watch when they are the only flock on the course.

G

[lateapex911]

Originally posted by GregAmy:
........ I noticed the airplane circling VIR mid-afternoon during one of my driving stints and recognized the make and model......GregA

Glad to see that driving a race car on the track with lots of other race cars gets so much of your attention Greg!

Does Kirk know what you spend your time doing while you're in his car?? ("Hey..that plane looks JUST like mine...hmmm...THATs a pretty cloud..looks kinda like a bunny rabbit....") {ooops...thats a 'hair' to you.... }

hee hee hee...


------------------
Jake Gulick
CarriageHouse Motorsports
ITA 57 RX-7
New England Region
[email protected]

[This message has been edited by lateapex911 (edited October 26, 2004).]

[Greg Amy]

<font face=\"Verdana, Arial\" size=\"2\">...Does Kirk know what you spend your time doing while you're in his car??...hee hee hee...</font>

This, I believe, was the same driving stint that I kicked out some fast laps and the crew chief came on the radio to tell me I was so consistent I was boring him...




[This message has been edited by GregAmy (edited October 26, 2004).]

[Knestis]

Sheesh.

To clarify, the grid list had us 2nd behind the 02 Golf and ahead of the Sattele Mustang.

Our fast race lap was a 2:31.015 which sure gives me something to shoot for next season. All sheeshing aside, I'm pretty impressed with that.

K

[This message has been edited by Knestis (edited October 26, 2004).]

[Greg Amy]

Results are now available at the following URL. PhilsTireService GTi was upgraded to 28th of 65 starters overall due to DSQ of a couple of Miatas.

http://bellsouthpwp.net/r/i/rickcone/SCCA/...3Hour/index.htm

[Knestis]

Did you notice the html "time cards" that you can download? All 287 laps of our race.

K

[jlucas]

cool

[Knestis]

We have a more complete write up of our adventures at the 13 hours, at http://it2.evaluand.com/gti/enduro04.php

I hope those of you who frequent this board and participated in our success are appropriately recognized for your contribution...

K

[ShelbyRacer]

Originally posted by Kolin Aspegren:

Our team was driving the 05 SSC Neon.

Man that team had slow pit stops... Musta been the idiot fuel guys.



------------------
Matt Green
"Ain't nothin' improved about Improved Touring..."

[Kolin Aspegren]

Matt we had the easy part, you guys
made Kevin,Erich,and myself look
good. Joe Leonard puts together one
hell of a good team.

thanks for everything

Kolin

[Greg Amy]

<font face=\"Verdana, Arial\" size=\"2\">We made 6 laps before...</font>

Ron, I just realized I've got some in-car video of the first 6 laps of the race. It shows the after-action of the guardrail incident (doesn't show it happening) plus some clear video of an altercation with a Spec Miata a couple of laps before that...