Ever since Craig wadded up his 911 on the warm up lap at a Road Atlanta DE, I’ve known to approach the track with a healthy dose of caution and respect. She is like Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. You might have the night of your life, or wake up with an ice pick in your neck.
In three short weekends I managed to give what little assistance I could to Craig’s cheater motor installation, finish fixing my brakes, and do a little key enduro car prep. This included re-attaching my little plastic front spoiler, that is held on by little plastic clips. It is a source of constant amazement to me that this thing holds on as well as it does. I scrape it on my driveway, I scrape it on my trailer, it gets scraped at the track. And the little bugger just keeps holding on. Well turns out 6 of the 10 clips being broken is the tipping point.
The other crucial component was installing a seat slider.
My usual teammate James Clay of BimmerWorld Racing was too busy preparing to get his first victory at Road America to come and join our little enduro at Road Atlanta. We taught him how to win down in the Southeast SE30 land. If this were TV there would be a montage of Clay beating my car to h3ll, and eating Mexican food while Eye of the Tiger plays in the background. More on this later. The point being that Clay and I shop in the husky gentleman section of the store. My JV ringer Brendan Digel is more like a horse jockey. Race seats are mounted to the car in one fixed position, and typically for one person (me). If you fit great. If not, tough luck. Having Brendan strap wooden blocks to his shoes would get him to the pedals, but didn’t help him reach the steering wheel. So plan B involved mounting a seat slider. Putting all of this together is like solving one of those puzzles at Cracker Barrel with the golf tees. The seat adapter mounting plates attach to the factory seat mounts, the slider is affixed to the adapter mounting plate, this bolts onto the side seat mounts, which ultimately go into the seat itself. Of course none of this includes any directions. And really how important is the seat being sturdy and safe after all.
Friday comes and it is enduro time. Car is in good shape, Brendan can reach the pedals, and is up for the start and to take the first stint. After about 45 minutes lap traffic comes by once, and then twice, and then three times. No Brendan. We track down a race official and the car is dead and being towed in. Open the hood. The only tires I had to use were like 2 years old and bald. They were sadly out of balance. When you drive a car at a 100+ mph with square tires it shakes like it is going to fall apart. And then it starts to fall apart. This shaking caused a welded bolt to break off dragging the spark plug wires onto the hot exhaust manifold where they promptly melted. We swap on a set from Craig’s car and I go back out. Around the 5th lap I’m in a pack of spec miatas that are ganging up on me, and I enter turn 1 and start to brake hard while two cars are in my inside. The radio comes on asking something around the time I hear what appears to be a small child screaming under my rear wheels as the car’s back end suddenly wants to jump around and take the lead. All of this makes my brain sound a red alert indicating sensory overload!! Brake lockup meet Jim Robinson. I hear the haunting small child scream going into 3, 6, 7, and 10a. Or basically 80% of the turns on the track. Knowing that adding more flat spots to bald and square tires isn’t helping. I pull into the pits to make sure they aren’t dangerous. Brendan takes a look and quickly assures me they are indeed dangerous. We retire from the enduro. Checkers or Wreckers is the theme.
I chalk the brake issues up to heat on the track and the extremely poor condition of the tires. Sat. qualifying comes around and I go into turn one again and the baby screaming is back. Not cool. I struggle through it and have to brake earlier and softer than I’d like. Putting me in 7th spot. We had a few spectators come out for this race including my wife’s obligatory once a year attendance. If you invited your loved ones to any race this wasn’t the right one. I get an awesome start and quickly I’m in 4th? The brakes haunt me and Geegar puts his new found motor to work and sneaks by me while I struggle not to slide off the track in 7. We’re ultimately stopped by one red flag and then another. I finish in 5th. Craig manages a year high 4th place proving that racing isn’t all about talent and ability.
When you do DE schools they talk about a red flag and what to do if you see it. I never saw one outside of a race (and then only after a year or two of doing this) and they’re typically reserved for the worst accidents, but from the way they’re described in DE’s I thought a zombie attack, or some type of Red Dawn war would have to take place for a red flag to actually come out.. In fact it means sh!t has hit the fan big time and the ambulances and firemen don’t need cars doing parade laps in the background to help them do their job. We passed by the worst incident shortly after it happened and it looked like a 944 had hit a wall. It was only on the 2nd passing that I saw there was a Spec E30 in between the wall and the 944. Thankfully Bob was fine, his car however won’t be used for anything but scrap metal. Seeing a wreck where someone you know is upside down and possibly on fire isn’t as cool as you might think. It always reminds me of playing as a kid and doing something stupid (which is pretty much racing in a nutshell), its all fun and games until someone gets hurt.
My lackluster results on Sat. spurred me to action and I resolved to get right behind Mike Skeen of
MikeSkeen.com and stay on his bumper or go down in flames trying. We lined up so early for qualifying they thought we were in the wrong group and let us in! Awesome. The key to qualifying is getting a clear track and with 55 other cars having the same idea, the early bird gets the worm. Mike and I were 1&2 on the grid. I tried my hardest to stay with him, but I’ll admit Mike is in a different league. I managed a personal best time of 1.471 and that was with a slight lockup going into 7. But Mike and Travis (one of the chicken dudes) put down 1.45’s. My bag of tricks isn’t that full yet.
We had six hours to kill after qualifying and before race time. James and the BimmerWorld dude’s race at 12:05pm so we drove around to every restaurant in the greater Braselton area searching for free Wi-Fi. In the end we had to settle for my work aircard and Dave’s trailer, which apparently is lined with lead. Since I’ve used that PC internet connection in some remote venues and never had a problem. Five guys were huddled around my PC like an olde timey AM radio ‘watching’ internet updates of the World Challenge race. On lap 16 out of 17 with James in the lead I lose my connection. AAGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!! Thankfully James held on to celebrate his first World Challenge victory. I was genuinely more excited about that then my own race prospects. He even did NASCAR style donuts to celebrate. I can’t tell you how jealous I am of that. That is the fire that will drive me to one day win a race. For illicit victory donuts. Sh!t I might even put a checkered flag in my car on the OFF chance that I’ll one day win. Victory laps are important to do right.
My 1.47 was good for 4th spot on grid, a little bit closer to where the #008 DTOM Racing.com car belonged. Still struggling with brake lockup, but yet too lazy to try and fix it. I summon up all my Spec E30 powers to drive around any problems the car may present. A solid start and I hold position despite starting on the outside of turn 1. Craig’s cheater motor helps him again and he manages to get in-between me and Robert Patton for 4th place.
Craig’s back of the pack year hasn’t prepped him for the heat of the top half, and he tries to take advantage of Robert with a dive bomb that leaves him mowing grass off track. I giggle as I resume my rightful 4th place and start to concentrate on getting by Robert. Chuck Taylor has other ideas and when I lock up in ---wait for it---- 7. He sneaks alongside and it is a drag race. Finally my luck, much like BimmerWorld’s is on the turn. The 944 #27 ‘I love Ken’s Mom” treats me right and FOR ONCE gets in someone else’s way. I go inside on 10a and stick Chuck behind him.
Robert has used up a lot of his mojo trying to build a gap, I put my head down and notice that the water drops aren’t on the outside of my windshield and are actually on the inside and when I hit the brakes hard water from my cool shirt (an ice cooler, plus bilge pump, plus shirt with hosing sewn into it) is squirting up in the air like a little mini water fountain. At least that is what I think it is. I’m glad the puddle of warm liquid I now notice on my lower parts is just water. I catch up to Robert and on the second to last lap make my own Craig Geegar memorial 10A dive bomb move. With one notable exception I stay on track, but get bogged down and Robert having seen this play before bides his time and gets alongside me through 12. This is another turn where heroics aren’t encouraged, unless you want to see a red flag up close and personal. I tuck in behind and the white flag tells me a I can try one last time. Until I hit turn one and see a double yellow, and then turn three, and turn 4 and six, etc. We finish under yellow and the wily veteran is saved by the bell!
All and all a fun Sunday race. I still don’t like Road Atlanta, too much at stake and we have to drive our cars too much at the limit. One little mistake at the wrong place and you’re conversing with a tow truck driver and figuring out how to build a new car. I’ll link to more videos as they come up. I took one for the team and lent
MikeSkeen.com my camera so he could continue his attempt to do this for a living. A move that I wholeheartedly encourage.
Thanks to Brendan Digel for doing his best James Clay impersonation this week, complete with vomiting. Thanks to the folks that came out to visit, hang out, and watch. And congrats to BimmerWorld, racing is a sport of losing but every once in awhile the sun shines on you.
I'll put video up as it comes out.
