NASA PRO-RACING BUTTONWILLOW RACEWAY PARK OCTOBER 2005

Pre-race Drama

It’s Tuesday morning October 4th, three days before my next race and I get an e-mail from NASA headquarters saying, “Dear racer, according to our records your medical has expired and your race license is now inactive and you may not compete in the upcoming event.” My jaw dropped and my eyes began to spin in their sockets.

NASA race license regulations require a physical every two years to be on file as a requirement to hold a racing license, and mine just expired. CRAP! I immediately called my doctor getting his answering service; “The office is closed today in observance of the Jewish holiday, Rosh Hashanah.” CRAP… CRAP! I got out the old Yellow pages and began looking for doctors to try and get an appointment. I remembered it always took me at least two weeks to get a physical scheduled with my own doctor, so I started to freak.

My very first call, this girl with this heavy southern drawl answers the phone. I explained my plight and she says, “No problem honey, the doctor can see you Thursday morning at 9 AM.” I remember hanging up and thinking, “I love the South…”

Thursday morning arrived and I’m sitting in the exam room listening to this doctor read the race physical examination instructions, out loud:
“Ability to rapidly operate acceleration, braking, and steering mechanisms / systems.
Vision, ya-da ya-da ya-da
Must have minimal chance of sudden incapacitation from any disease process.
Ability for rapid mental activity, problem solving, and decision-making.
Temperature extremes from 0 degrees (F) to 120 degrees (F) for long periods of time.
Smoke, fumes, vapor, caustic chemicals, and dust.
Loud noise and vibration.
Increased potential for exposure to fire.” When the doctor finished with the last sentence I thought to myself, “ Man… why is this guy reading this out loud, is he gonna be a pain in the butt or what?” He started slowly shaking his head side to side and then looked over at me. His stone cold expression turned into a big smile and he said, “Cool… let’s get started.” It turns out this doctor is a pilot, surfer, and SCCA racecar driver. He put me through the paces though, jogging on an inclined tread mill, taking my blood pressure and pulse before and after the run, then he did an EKG. He had me looking in this state of the art eye testing machine, and so on and so-forth. It was an hour of constant tests that I passed with flying colors.

I faxed all the forms and paperwork to NASA headquarters and my race license was reinstated. What a pain in the ass….

On To The Track

It was a five-hour drive from San Diego to Bakersfield to Buttonwillow Raceway. The drive was easy and the weather was perfect in the high seventies. We arrived at the track with all the usual hustle and bustle of cars testing and race teams setting up their cars for the weekend. We pulled the car off the trailer and set up in our garage. The paddock area at Buttonwillow is huge so I was able to drive the car around and check that all systems were good. We filled up all the five-gallon jugs with race fuel and I was pleasantly surprised to see the cost hadn’t increased at the track. That same VP fuel that I can buy in five-gallon cans in San Diego has gone up almost 30 percent.
Good to go, we went to the hotel and chilled…

Saturday

We arrived at the track at 7 AM to an awesome 65-degree morning. I got my car logbook signed and my race ready windshield sticker. Our first track time warm-ups were at 8:20 so I did a quick tire pressure check. The rears seemed a bit low at 34 pounds and when I went to look for my air hose I couldn’t find it. I blew it off thinking, “It’s just warm up laps, and I’ll be fine.” Stupid mistake.

On to the track off the hot pit lane we were under a double yellow flag. I drove into turn one pretty slow holding back a bit behind the car in front of me. I gassed it a little at turn two (a right hand sweeper) and I almost spun out. That was a little un-nerving but I figured the tires had absolutely no heat in them. I accelerated and braked hard on the little straight trying to warm up the tires. From that point on the car in front of me was going pretty slow and I couldn’t pass him because of the double yellow. We came to the front straight and got the green flag. I didn’t push it that hard because I figured the car wasn’t ready. I did turns one, two, three, four, and so on building up a little speed. The rear still felt a little loose but I figured what the hell, the tires are still cold. I finally came to Talladega (Riverside per map below), the long back sweeper, and I got the car close to 90 MPH. Then the turn Magic Mountain comes up pretty quick (It's called Lost Hills on the track map). This is the right hand, uphill, off camber, take a little air, you can’t see the other side, land on the other side, accelerate into a slight left hander, eee-haa, Dukes of Hazard, pedal to the metal drag race on the other side turn. I did everything just fine until I hit the other side. The car spun into a 180 right into the dirt and died. I got it fired up and back on the track without incident. I took it straight to the garage and checked the tires for flat spots. My front right was down to the cord on the inside portion. I brought three used spares with me so the change was made. I immediately drove to the tire center and added two pounds of air all the way around.

Qualifying

It was 11 am and I’m strapped in the car pulling out of my garage driving toward grid. “Holy crap,” I thought to myself. There looked to be fifty cars sitting there waiting to go out. The official count turned out to be forty-three. Both the American Iron and Camero Mustang Challenge were running in my race group. Because it was such a large group a pace car escorted the American Iron and my group, Super Unlimited, onto the track. Once we got to mid-course the Camero Mustang group would enter to give all of us some racing room to qualify.

After taking the first lap with some caution my car felt pretty dialed in. Faster and faster I began to push with confidence. I caught up with the Camero guys and started doing some passing. It always feels good to blow by a V8 here and there.
At the end of the session I came into the garage and my wife Kathy said it looked like my front brakes were locking up at turn one. She said she could see lots of smoke just before the apex of the turn. We pulled the front wheels and found one of the brake lines was leaking fluid on the pads and rotor. She saved my ass…

Saturday Race

Who’s in Super Unlimited? I usually don’t know who my competition is until after the drivers meeting when they post the grid. A lot of guys might not do warm up laps in the morning or if I only run a couple of laps like I did that morning I don’t see them. I know the SRT was there, he’s in the garage next to me constantly trying to play mind games with me because he’s in second place in points. I saw James Chen’s Axis 500hp 350-Z there, he’s third place in points but at this stage he’s out of the running for the championship. So the other cars racing were a tube framed, 1900 pound, 400hp +, RX-7, full race 600hp Dodge Viper, Grand AM 930 Porsche, and a race prepped Ford Focus…

It was 2:25 in the afternoon and we were going to do three green flag starts for the race. The American Iron would go first with flying (moving) start. Then the Camero Mustang Challenge would do a quick standing start, then Super Unlimited with another flying start. Sounded like a nightmare to me!

The AI and CMC started going around the track as one big group. The Super Unlimited had a pace car in front of us keeping all the action in check. The AI made it around and did their flying start. The CMC took their spots and executed a perfect standing start. The pace car took us up to the turn just before the front straight and pulled off. The Viper had pole with the RX-7 next to him, the Porsche and SRT were together, then me and the Focus, with the 350-Z coming up the rear. We were all supposed to come onto the front straight as a group and then get the green flag. But, noooooooo! The minute the RX-7 had all four wheels on the straight, (no green flag) he took off. So of course the Viper followed and it instantly became every man for himself. I knew we couldn’t do a re-start because then we’d have to stop the other two race groups. I kept the 350-Z at bay on the straight and about three turns, but with those 315 tires and 500hp he passed me.

The race was on and my car felt solid. The Ford Focus behind me became a distant memory and the Cameros and Mustangs started to come into sight. I was shifting through the gears clean, heel toeing, accelerating, and trail braking like there was no tomorrow. It was awesome and the car was reacting to every command. The Camero and Mustang guys on the other hand, were having a difficult time just staying on the track. I had two of them in front of me at Talladega (Riverside) and they both crossed in front of each other going off the track then coming back on almost running into me. I hit the boost control and went into hyper drive leaving their sorry asses in their own dust clouds. At one point going down the front straight I noticed the RX-7 was in the black flag station in the hot pit. When he finished his penalty he flew out on to the track within a couple of feet in front of me. I stayed on his butt and we passed one car after another until I got stuck behind a couple of Mustangs that were blocking each other. There were yellow flags springing up at different flag stations all around the track. Cars were doing off road excursions and one American Iron racer blew an engine and the car started on fire. On one lap I had come down the front straight onto turn one going out wide after the apex setting myself up for turn two, at the Off Ramp. The champion AI driver was coming on the inside of me with two wheels off in the dirt around the apex of the sweeper. There’s a great picture below of a dirt rooster tail coming up from behind his car. He eventually broke a drive shaft that put him out of the race. It came down to the final laps when both the Viper and the RX-7 were at the black flag station again. I passed them with pedal to the metal as the white flag flew and I never looked back. I took a podium third place finish with a dusty ear-to-ear grin. How cool is that?

Sunday

After early morning fluid and tire checks, I decided to only do a few laps in the warm up session just to make sure we were good. I took to the track in slow mode and began picking up speed as the tires got up to temperature. I did about five laps and brought the car in feeling pretty confident. Kathy had again noticed that I was getting some smoke while braking. She said the smoke was dark like oil and not like when the brakes are locking up. We lifted the car and pulled the front wheels off and immediately looked at the calipers to find everything was alright. I noticed some oil on the ground and my heart thumped. My motor does not leak oil and is kept clean enough to eat off of. The bottom of the engine was clean and as I inspected more closely I found that the spring clip on the oil dipstick wasn’t attached. What had happened was when I added some oil in the morning I forgot to reattach the clip. (A little history on the dipstick clip) The car builds up so much oil pressure that it blows the dipstick up and oil shoots out the top. Last time it happened, before I added the clip, I blew a half a quart of oil over a hot turbo. I had an engine fire that melted all the wiring in the engine compartment. That’s twice that Kathy saved my ass this weekend!

Qualifying

We did the same thing in qualifying that we did on Saturday so everyone did pretty clean runs. I did notice a turbo Supra with a big SU sticker on his car that wasn’t there yesterday, and he definitely was ripping up the track…

Sunday Race

We started Sunday’s race with two flying starts with the American Iron and Super Unlimited in front. The Camero Mustang Challenge again had a standing start behind us.

With the drop of the green flag we were off and everyone seemed dialed in from all the racing on Saturday. Everyone was driving real clean keeping their cars on track with a heads up attitude. My little yellow DSM ran with the best of them meeting all the challenges of the race. The RX-7 kept his nose clean taking first place and setting a new track lap record. I came in fourth in class and maintain a 100-point lead in the 2005 championship.

Final race is on the horizon

Well folks, our final race of the season is in four weeks on Veterans Day weekend. If I make it through and take the championship I’ll be a frigging happy camper. It would be so cool to have a DSM win the whole enchilada two years in a row. So, keep good thoughts about the “flying banana” and hopefully the last commentary will be filled with a win story for the Tuners…

Greg