I raced at the last F1600 series weekend of the season at Watkin's Glen, NY a few weeks ago. I ran a test day at Summit Point a couple of weeks before Watkin's Glen and after making some set-up changes I was able to take another .7 seconds off of my previous best time there on tires that had 8 heat cycles on them. That really boosted my confidence and I came into the WG weekend with a great attitude and ready to push the car and myself harder. I hadn't been to WG in quite a few years but I at least know the track and I drove a number of laps on iRacing in a Lotus 79 as part of my preparation. Unfortunately the WG weekend turned out to be a mixed bag.
We only had two practice sessions on Friday before qualifying in the morning (11:30 am) for Saturday's afternoon race at 4pm and the same qualifying and race schedule on Sunday. On my second lap of the first qualifying session a metal piece that holds a rod end for the shift linkage broke away from the frame so I couldn't shift the car. The piece had been brased to the chassis and I suspect that it breaking away from the frame was a byproduct of the wreck that I had at the beggining of the year. In order to get it fixed I had to find someone that could weld it back to the chassis but in order for someone to get to it I had to remove the right front suspension, the right sidepod top, and the right side panel. I also had to disconnect the electrics. Not a small amount of work and there was no hope of getting out again on the test day. My only hope was to make qualifying. The weather was also interesting that day. We had rain, sleet, high winds, and temps in the 40s. Not exactly great conditions! But I was there to race so I got the car stripped down and found someone to weld the piece back on. Unfortunately since it had been brased before it was not able to be welded because remnants of the brass from the brasing was still infused in the metal. The same group that had the welder had some torches and brasing rod so that it could be brased. Unfortunately I couldn't find anyone to brase it until I happened to find out that a friend of mine who I had raced against in FVs was able to brase -- he doesn't race FVs anymore but he was there to see the action. So he got the piece re-attached and I could then put the car back together. I wasn't able to start re-assembly until late in the afternoon and my wife, Terry, and I were there until 8:30 that night. It was supposed to be 25 degrees Saturday morning so I wanted to get as much done as I could that evening but our flood lights stopped working and although I did a little bit of work using the lights from the truck, that really wasn't cutting it. Terry was a real trooper because the conditions were pretty lousy along with my mood. :)
I finished up getting the car ready for qualifying in the morning and although I qualified 16th out of 22 cars, I was penalized 2 spots for missing a black flag. A number of other cars also missed the flag and were penalized. Although I spun once in the race, I had a good race and finished 14th. It was the first time that I really got to race against others in this car so it was good to experience that. Here is a video from the race up until my spin.
After looking at my data, I decided that I needed to change gears for Sunday's qualifying so I did that Sunday morning. I also made a couple of small set-up changes. I had a good qualifying session and took anothere 1.2 seconds off my previous best time which put me 15th on the grid. I was reasonably happy with that. One thing that I noticed though is that my car was a little too low in the front so I planned on raising it. Unfortunately the front corner of my car hit some sort of pipe cover that was located where we came off of pit lane and was sticking up over an inch. Unbelievably it ended up bending the front right corner of my belly pan away from the car so I had to take a cut off wheel and remove that piece of belly pan. I now have to replace the belly pan on the car over the winter as a result. Again, unbelievable.
For the race, I knew I could go faster and I was just looking forward to it. I again made some small set-up changes so I just wanted to get through the first few laps so that I could tell how the car was feeling and then I could push it harder if it felt good. A good plan but rarely do races go as planned. Coming onto the front straight to start the second lap one of the cars running in the top 10 lost the back end of his car and hit the outside guard rail and then bounced into the oncoming traffic. The car in front of me hit him pretty hard and I tried to squeeze between the crashing cars and the guard rail. The gap closed and I hit the car in front of me as well as the guard rail. Six of us ended up being involved in the crash and there were cars and car parts strewn accross the front straight. My race was obviously done. The left corner got the brunt of my crash but I also destroyed my nose and shock cover as well as some other bits. Obviously dissappointing but if you can't accept crash damage then you shouldn't be racing. At least I have all winter to fix it.
My wife's and my anniversary happened to be October 16th so we stayed in Watkin's Glen an extra day and enjoyed the fall foliage and the winery's. :) I'm really lucky to have Terry as my wife and crew. As I mentioned before, she was a real trooper and she sticks with me through thick and thin. She also does a great job as my crew. Some of the things that she does is documenting the tire temps when the car comes off the track, documenting pressures, and taking notes when changes to the car are made. She is also on the radio to me giving me much needed info while I'm in the car. Not only is someone like that absolutely necessary but it wouldn't be as much fun without her. Thanks Terry!!
No comments:
Post a Comment