June 2005 Race

NASA PRO-RACING WILLOWSPRINGS INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY

(May 21-22)

It’s been 6 longs weeks since my last race and it seems like a lifetime. Work’s been a$$ busting and I’ve had a whole bunch of other life’s conflicts that made me feel like I had a thousand pound weight pulling me into the depths of the Pacific ocean. Every time I walked by my car in the garage it seemed to call out to me saying, “Drive me, drive me real fast!”

It’s Friday morning, thank God, and the Flying Banana is trailered with fresh meat on all four corners and the gas cans are spilling over with 105 proof VP race fuel.
Life is good… As a matter of fact life is frigging great!

It’s 8:30 and we’re off to Lancaster up in the high desert of California. San Diego is a cool 68 degrees and I hear it’s supposed to be in the 90’s at Willow Springs. I’m so happy to be getting out of here that I don’t even care about the two hours of traffic we sat in going through Los Angeles. We hit Hwy 14 and it’s home free driving through the spectacular mountain views with their snow-covered peaks. I sound like one of those idiot travel channel hosts.

It’s almost 1PM and the track is in sight in the far off distance. All of my problems dissipate into oblivion and I’m ready to rock’en roll. We reserved a garage a month ago knowing it would probably be hot this time of year. We unloaded the truck, stowed the gear, and pulled the car off the trailer. Set up in the garage we make all the double checks on the cars status. I always make sure the car is ready to race before I show up at the track. I’m always blown away when I see the other race teams pulling rear ends, dropping in engines, and all the other major work that can go into setting up a car for a race. “To each his own,” I always say…

The track is full of cars testing for Saturday’s race. The smell of hot rubber, exhaust fumes, and high-test race fuel makes me feel all warm inside. Or, maybe it’s the fact that it’s 95 degrees. We arrived so late it’s not worth it to me to pay $225.00 for a couple of hours of track time. We took a walk around the paddock and checked out the competition and said our hellos to our big family of racers. Everyone has big ear-to-ear grins on their faces just like mine. There’s nothing better than a race weekend! We checked into our hotel but I can’t sleep in anticipation of Saturday’s events.

Saturday morning and it’s an absolutely beautiful day. We arrive at the track and begin preparation for our warm up laps at 8:20. I put on my race suit, shoes, gloves, Hans device, earphones, and helmet. I’m all buckled in with the window net up and I head out to the grid area. There were a dozen cars in front of me and another dozen behind. The grid marshal gave the thumbs up and single file we headed out onto the track.

Willow Springs raceway is billed as the fastest track in the West. The track is 2.6 miles with nine turns and you use your brakes sparingly. It has a very long sweeper between turns eight and nine and a pretty decent front straight away. There’s some good elevation changes in turns three, four, five, and six, with some of those being fairly off camber. After you hit turn seven it’s pedal to the metal, power drifting through eight and nine then sling shooting out onto the front straight. It’s that sling shot off of turn nine that’s the killer. I’ve seen many a racer over shoot the apex at turn nine at 160 mph and roll his car into oblivion. The thing is, where you think you should lift on the accelerator you should actually push. When you lift your car gets all squirrelly and you’re going so fast you get a little confused with what you should do. I have one of those on videotape from this race. (Video will be up on-line shortly) I was literally going sideways on turn nine and the guy behind me thought I was gonna be toast. I let the steering wheel slide in my hands and I accelerated out. It scared the crap out of me!

Anyway, I did my 25 minutes of warm up on the track keeping a pretty controlled pace. It’s been a year since I’ve raced here and my last two times were DNF’s (Did not finish). The car felt good hugging the corners like they were in love. The engine sounded mean and the tranny was smooth shifting like an F1 sequential gearbox. It was back to the pits and a quick once over on the car to get ready for qualifying in 2-hours.

My race group included 944-Spec Porsches, Honda Cup Challenge with Acuras, SE-R Nissans, and Spec Miata cars, all running on the track at the same time. My Super Unlimited class included Steve Bernhiem’s 800 hp twin turbo 933 Porsche, another 911 SC 600 hp twin turbo Porsche, the newest gen 800 hp twin turbo RX7, a 500 hp totally built Mustang, and let’s not forget a brand new race prepped 600 hp Z06 Corvette. Oh yeah, there was me in my 90 Plymouth Laser pushing 330 hp. The field is set…

Qualifying came and went, and I have absolutely no idea how I did it, but I qualified fourth in front of the Mustang and the Z06. Both of those cars sounded like frigging thunder boats with their 18-inch slicks spitting rubber like fire breathing dragons.

THE RACE

The Super Unlimited group got to be out front this race. Not like the last one where all the idiot Honda guys went crashing all over the place in front of us. Plus the fact there was so much HP in my class they figured we’d catch up to the smaller bore cars too quickly and scare the crap out of them.

We were on the track behind the pace car scrubbing and heating up our tires. We crept around turns eight and nine in our 2 by 2 formation heading for the front straight. The 911SC had pole, the RX7 was in front of me, the 993 Porsche was on my side, and the Vett and the Stang were behind. The green flag dropped and the roar of Super Unlimited group sounded like an F-15 taking off from an aircraft carrier. The 933 (Steve Bernhiem) took the lead at turn one. I must have been at least four car lengths behind at this point. I mean my tires weren’t even warm and these guys are absolutely balls out. I must have been doing something right because the Stang and the Vett were still behind me through turn seven when all of a sudden the Stang passed on my right. I was surprised that I was able to keep up with him through eight and nine on partially warm tires. We hit the front straight and the ZO6 blew by me like a rocket. I should have down shifted into 4th for that power ban. I finally did, but too late.

Once I made it to turn one I could see the Porsches and the RX7 at turn four. I thought holy crap those guys are fast. I could still see the Stang and noticed that the Vett was pulling away. I thought to myself, “Just be consistent, drive your race.” At lap two I noticed the 911SC had pulled off the track. He probably knew that my little DSM was gonna catch him and blow by, so he knew he better just give up now. Yeah right!

Now I was thinking how embarrassing it would be to have the whole field of Super Unlimited lap me so I now had a mission. There’s nothing better than a mission when you’re racing. Out of turn nine I down shifted to fourth and blasted down the front straight at 130 MPH. I lightly touched the brakes, down shifted to third and turned into the apex of turn one, swung out wide right shifting into 4th
and powered towards turn two a wide right-handed sweeper. Keeping the pedal down I could feel the G-force pushing me into my seat then leveling onto a small straight. I swing out right and down shift to 3rd coming to turns three and four, an uphill cork screw, then down hill still in 3rd I accelerate for a moment coming up to a tight left hander and the G’s are pushing in the opposite direction I lift a bit then hard on the pedal toward turns six and seven I shift to 4th. Turn eight is coming up and it’s 5th to 150 MPH. “Turn nine, turn nine, I know it’s just around the corner!” I think to myself. “Don’t lift, don’t lift, don’t lift!” Is my next conscious thought. I see all the skid marks leaving the track into the dirt then I look a bit further up track to see my way towards the apex. A slight turn on the steering wheel and I hit the apex perfect and sling shot out onto the front with my perfectly timed down shift to 4th and blast down the front straight to start the whole thing over again.

I am hauling ass and there is nothing in my rear view mirrors. When all of a sudden I see cars. Little Honda cars, little Nissan cars, little 944 Porsche cars, little Miata cars. I’ve found myself in land of irritatingly noisy little cars. I begin passing them on the right, then the left, then the right again. “Hey, this is kinda fun!” I think. My car is flying, like a flying banana. I have got my shifts down, my turns, the acceleration, oh the acceleration. It was so cool. I mean I was happy and my teeth must have shined right out my helmet from my big smile. Lap after lap the car and the track had become one. When all of a sudden just before the corkscrew, blaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!

The engine died. I have no gauges, no ignition, no nothing. I was able to pull off the track onto the field of rocks that fused themselves to my hot and sticky Hoosiers. “Oh my God!” I thought. I flicked switches up and down and up and down, nothing! I was absolutely speechless. It had to be a good 8 to 10 seconds before I heard another car come up the track. I was blown away!!!!!!!

To make a long story longer, I blew the 30 amp ignition fuse and to this moment I have not been able to figure out where the short is.

Believe it or not, I came in fourth place in class with 3 laps to go and I couldn’t race on Sunday. Steve Bernhiem, (the 933 twin turbo Porsche) could have passed me in points with Sunday’s race but his car broke. I’m still leading by 55 points for the championship. There is a God!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cars break, and that’s racing………………

Greg