NASA PRO-RACING BUTTONWILLOW RACE PARK

(APRIL 9-10) DAY 1

It was 8:30 Friday morning and the truck was packed, the racecar on the trailer and we were off to Buttonwillow from San Diego. They predicted 20% chance of drizzle but it was a beautiful sunny day. We hit some slow moving traffic in LA but by 11:30 it was clear sailing up the Grape Vine to 5000 feet. Once we hit the top of the mountain all you could see below were dark billowing rain clouds. My heart sank as I realized I didn’t remember to pack the rain tires.

1:30 in the afternoon and we arrived at a blistery cold and wet racetrack. It wasn’t raining at the moment but who knew what was going to happen next in sunny California now-a days. We unloaded the car, toolboxes, spare parts, tires, (not rain tires), and all the other odds and ends you need for race day. Just when I parked the truck it started to rain. I mean I don’t even have wipers on the car, just a plastic jar of Rain-X. Cars had been testing there all morning in and out of the rain showers. Bright and shiny racecars had mud all over them from off track excursions, and the usual smiles that generally beamed over race weekend were looks of concern and some outright pissed off expressions.

We took the two front wheels off the car for new Hoosiers to be applied at the racetrack tire shop. We filled the 5-gal jugs with race fuel and went down the list checking the car for Saturday’s battle. By the time we were settled in, there was no time for testing, but I didn’t need no stinking testing.

7:00 Saturday morning we left the hotel in the rain on our way out to the track. It didn’t seem that wet once we got there so I was a little hopeful. It was about 45 degrees and skies were pitch black but everyone went on with business as usual. Our warm up session was scheduled for 9 AM which gave me plenty of time to get my tech book signed off and my windshield sticker so I’m allowed on the track.

9 AM and I’m strapped in my car on grid waiting for my warm up laps. Since I’m running two new Hoosier tires I need to break them in like you would when you’re embedding your brake pads. The plan is to take a couple of easy warm up laps then a couple of faster laps to heat up the tires to race temperature. Once you’ve done that, you park the car and let the tires cool down to ambient temps. To do it correctly you should let the tires sit for 24 hours before you use them again, but my tire budget doesn’t give me that luxury. I’m finishing up my fifth lap before I’m going to bring the car in. I’ve just come off the front straight through turn one to a buttonhook (they call it "off ramp" on the track map) and the car spins out of control. I think, "The track’s cold, I braked too late, ya-da ya-da, I’ll bring the car in and chill." I finished the lap and drove the car into the garage and lifted the front end. I checked the new front tires and everything looked fine. Best of all I thought, "No rain!"

11:25 AM and it’s time for race qualifying. There’s not a drop of rain and it’s probably about 55 degrees and I’m ready to rock-en roll. I’m out on the track with about twenty five Honda Cup cars made up of Hondas and Acuras, a half dozen SER Nissans and another half dozen cars in my Super Unlimited class. We had the Axxis twin turbo Nissan Z, Bobby Labonte’s old 500 HP NASCAR, Grand-AM fully built BMW, Mazda RX7 turbo, and a supercharged totally built Mazda Miata.

I take my first lap pretty conservative to get my tires up to temp. I start pushing down the front straight on my second lap, hit turn one perfect, come up to the buttonhook ("off ramp") and I spin out. What the hell! I get the car turned around and I’m off again pushing, braking, feathering the accelerator through a wide sweeper called Talladega (called Riverside on the track map). Talladega is a 150 MPH power drift that takes you up to a turn called Magic Mountain ("lost hill" on the track map) where you get a little air going over the top then down onto a left hand bank, then quick right then left down a small straight. All is good until I hit this little sweeper that brings you onto a series of S’s. I didn’t go out wide enough and the first apex of the S’s came up real quick. I’m going back and forth and back and forth and almost lose control of the car but I catch it! Then it’s down another straight to a hard, and I mean hard, left-hander onto the long front straight. All is well and I’m pedal to the metal down the front straight, brake a hard left hander on turn one, sweep out to the right then pull to left, apply brakes before the little buttonhook ("off ramp"), and spin out. What the? To make a long story longer I must have spun out there four or five times. I brought the car back to the garage, lifted the front end and the tires were fine. We had a driver’s meeting and it’s two hours until the race. I thought to myself, "I should check my rear tires." A fellow racer came up to me and asked about my spinouts. I said, "I guess I’m braking too late." He said, "Maybe it’s your tire pressures, you know the track is really cold." I thought, "That’s got to be it," so I took 3 pounds of air out of each tire.

3:05 PM it’s cloudy, breezy, and cold. Race time and Super Unlimited is driving onto the track for our warm up lap. The Axxis Nissan had pole but he was still putting on his helmet when we were waved onto the track. That meant he was held and had to start in the back of the group. You snooze you loose in racing. That means the super charged Miata had pole and for the life of me I had qualified 3rd and now I was along side the Miata in 2nd for the start. "It’s time for some major break away power," I thought to myself, so I pushed my boost controller to high boost. We were going pretty slowly so I was in second gear. I guess the Miata guy had never taken pole before. Green, green, green, I hear in my earphones and accelerated like frigg-en John Shepherd. I must have been 10 car lengths ahead of everybody by the first turn. I braked perfect and made turn one easy and I came up to the small buttonhook ("off ramp), and I spun out. Everybody had plenty of time to see me so they all drove around me with no problem. I gassed my car and spun around and flop-flop fizz-fizz I had two rear flat spotted tires and it was like I was driving on a big rubber square. As I accelerated it got worse and worse. I made it back to the paddock and DNF’d. (DID NOT FINISH THE RACE!)

Back in the garage I checked the rear tires to see the worst crappiest excuse for tires that there is. Why I didn’t check them when I thought about it is probably the stupidest thing I could have done. Not only did it cost me a possible 1st place, I get absolutely no points for the race. What a big waste of time! Spilt milk…

NASA PRO-RACING BUTTONWILLOW RACE PARK

(APRIL 10) DAY 2

Sunday morning came and the birds were singing and the sun was shinning. I had new Hoosiers on the back of the car and just finished my warm up laps breaking in the rear tires like I’d done to the fronts the day before. Everybody at the track had ear-to ear grins and the smells of race gas, fresh brake pads, and smoking tires permeated the air like a sweet fragrance. It’s race day and we’re all happier than snot!

11:25 AM and I’m ready to qualify. A field of 40 cars is on the track and my tires are hot and sticking like I’ve become one with the track. I begin passing everything in sight, on the right, on the left, through the turns, on the inside apex of that damn little buttonhook ("off ramp") that I’d spun out on so many times the day before, on the front straight, I feel invincible and the car is performing fantastic.

3:05 PM and I’m sitting in grid with the other Super Unlimited cars waiting to go out onto the track. It’s warm today so I’m getting a little uncomfortable in my driving suit, shoes, gloves, helmet, Hans device, and earphones crammed in my ears. The grid marshal holds up three fingers showing three minutes until track time and everybody starts their engines. I qualified second next to the 500 HP NASCAR and when he started his motor his exhaust began blowing right into my face. My wife had a radio head set on so I asked her to stand in front of my window and shield some of the fumes.

We get the heads up and we pull out onto the track. We begin scrubbing our tires and speeding up and braking hard to build up some heat in our tires during our warm up lap. We make it to the small back straight, turn left onto the front straight and form a tight pack of cars. The whole time I’m looking up at the starter, waiting for him to wave the green flag but he’s got his head pointed in the opposite direction. We’re about 50 feet from the starter’s platform, almost in the middle of the front straight when the starter looks in our direction with a startled expression on his face. It was like he didn’t know we were coming. He grabbed the green flag and almost dropped it to the ground and we were off. In a roar of carbon monoxide we came up on turn one. The NASCAR had the inside so I let him go. I accelerated up on his butt about a foot away and we went through the buttonhook like I was attached to him with a trailer hitch. We blew down a short straight to a quick right then left hander, then another quick sweeping right, then a straight to what’s called the "bus stop", which is a left handed straight to a quick left right onto the long "Talladega" sweeper. Another slight left-hander and you brake hard, then right over "Magic Mountain". It’s so cool to watch a train of cars fly over Magic Mountain landing left, correcting right, turning left down a straight onto a small hard right sweeper until you hit the S’s, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left on another straight before an ass busting brake locking left hander onto the big front straight. The course is really technical and that’s what makes it a blast…

Our Super Unlimited pack did two complete laps in perfect harmony. On the third lap at my favorite turn, yes the little buttonhook ("off ramp"), I missed a shift and two cars in my class passed me. Damn! Now its catch up time. I lost my momentum so they started to pull out. I’m on the beginning of Talladega when I notice clouds of dirt blowing across the track. Then I see dirt, gravel, the front valance of a car, then other miscellaneous car parts all over the track. I knew if I braked I’d go sliding, so I just feathered the pedal and made it through. I could see my run group slowing in front of me, and then I saw the pace car in front of them. "Sweet", I thought to myself. There were three Nissans and a Honda, then the three guys in my group behind the pace car. I pulled in behind, then the pace car began waving them on one at a time. The Nissans and the Honda pulled far enough out to block the Super Unlimited group. When we made it to the front straight everybody in my group was able to pass them except me, right at turn one. Now I’ve got four cars to pass before I can catch up to my group. Here I was in second place and now I’m in fourth because I missed a shift, and on top of that I’ve got four cars to pass on this technical track before I can even reach them. Boda Bing! Boost 2 is on and I’m pushing, shifting, braking, heel toeing, accelerating, braking. I mean I was like a drummer with a full double bass kit and every muscle of my body was doing something different all at the same time. Oh yeah, I had to remember to breathe at the same time too. I have a video of the entire race and it looks to me like one of the Nissan guys, who’s not in my class, was blocking me. "Eat sh#t" as I passed him over Magic Mountain. Then the next three cars became only a faint memory. I saw the Super Unlimited RX7 turbo and pushed that much harder. I looked down at my EGT gauge and I swear it was doing circles. When I get my sights on somebody, that’s a real motivator for me. I caught up to the RX7 and passed him just before turn one on the front straight. Then I saw the Dodge turbo SRT and it was going to be his turn next, when I saw a corner worker swinging a black flag. A BLACK FLAG? Then I saw another black flag at the next corner worker station and then another. Then I realized the race had been black-flagged and was being stopped. I was pissed! There were still fifteen minutes of race time left and the race had been stopped because of a half dozen serious accidents by the Honda and Nissan guys. As I finished my cool down lap I could see cars off the track all over the place. My adrenalin was pumping like an oil well and I never saw the checkered flag. I took 3rd place in class and have no idea how I did overall. I’ll just have to wait and see what the official results are.

According to the race director, even though the race was prematurely ended, I’ll still receive my points and third place finish. We loaded up the truck, trailered the racecar and drove back to San Diego in four hours. Thank God there wasn’t any traffic on Sunday night…

However upset I may have been, it’s still the greatest thing in the world to be upset with. It’s also a lot easier to be mad at something else than yourself…

- Greg

And yes it looks like I burnt my EGT probe!