FP sessions

First off, let me say "Damn it".

Secondly, congratulations to Nigel Saurino on bringing a great car and doing a great job of hustling it. The prod class needs some younger drivers like the Saurino kids, but sounds like Nigel may be stepping up. Class family and first rate effort.

Thirdly, I think I had the only car that could of run with Nigel, but needed a mistake free drive which I couldn't do. I followed Nigel into T-6, turned in and clipped the secondary inner apex curb. I didn't realize I had made a mistake until it launched the car and I was completely out of shape. To make matters worse, it took me what seemed like an eternity to get the car into reverse. I will post the video soon. From there is was one of the loneliest races I ever had. All week I had been hoping for some open track - I finally had it, lap after lap. I had no idea what position I was in, but hoping to go FCY for the three cars that were in the wall in T-2.

Thanks to George Bachman/Midwest Motorsports and Craig Chima for the power. It was more than enough to get me on the pole. I've been relying on Craig to help me learn this car as quickly as possible during the year. He was a huge help.

Thanks to Peter Morton for allowing me to drive his Lotus. It is a blast to drive and was the car to have in FP at Laguna Seca. Probably not a good pick for Daytona.

Thanks to Hoosier Tires - I still love driving these LBC's on the bias-ply tires, but I think I will be making the switch to the S-radials next year in whatever I find to drive.
Thanks to Carbotech Brakes. When we went up in June to race at MRLS, I thought if I could just get a good brake package in the car I could really have a good shot. Danny Puskar recommend some compounds F/R for the car and I just loved them. It was a key part of the package.

Thanks to David Kizer for crewing with me all week. David's wife Cat won the Runoffs in HP in '79. He and my dad met there but haven't had contact in 30 years. The Kizer's now live in OR and he has a Lotus 7 street car, as well as friends that race vintage 7's. He offered his services for the week and was a HUGE help and source of knowledge. During the first session of the test day I found out I had a slipping clutch. It was drive able enough to cycle in my race tires. But we pulled the engine after that missing the second session. Made some changes and hoped for the best on Tues. In Q1 I was cycling in some other new tires when the car started to run on 3 cylinders. Found a spark plug that was "cored" - the entire center from electrode to tip was blown out, with most of it still plugged into the spark plug boot. That was a new one for me. Next day we blew the head gasket after a few laps which dropped me down on the grid (p-7). So ran three out of four possible sessions, but had not really had a chance to run on hot tires. Wed was the AM session that looked like it would be the best temp of the week.

For Q3 (Thurs), we had lapped the valves, changed the head gasket, changed fuel, changed spark plug wires and all seemed OK with the clutch. Going out 7th I followed Saurino and Little Bill for a bit but Nigel pointed me by. So then I caught a few of the other cars and started to see some good lap times. I think I had a 1:40.7, then a 40.3, then a 39.9. On the lap that we were black flagged I was ahead of my best lap before having to slow. So I felt a lot better after the early week struggles.

It was odd having "home track" advantage for once. It wasn't much of a advantage since I had not been to Laguna since 2000. The San Francisco region for many years didn't have Nationals, the race groupings/schedule were not to my liking and the track has the sound restrictions. Got to go there in June which was better than most people. I know that many use simulators (iRacing and video games) so they don't come in cold so not as much of an advantage. At least my HP lap record survived the week! I think the track must have been paved shortly before those lap records (and they haven't run Nationals there in many years). The track is still in pretty good condition, but must lack the grip of those days.
 
Seriously Brian.........all the British car guys were rooting for you!!! As you well know..........racing is a roller coaster ride. Jay
 
Here's my video from the full race: http://youtu.be/CBEJFoYruaQ

Brian, I remember your flag falling off in T9 on lap 1. You can see it in the video. I hope someone returned it so you can use it at Daytona next year ;)

As you can see, the longer the race went the more used up my car became. I'm sure more experience would lead to a better long-run setup and better knowledge of what to do with the changing conditions. I had a 2nd gear (T11 and later T2) oversteer to manage and an understeer pretty much everyplace else. You also get that by over-driving the flat corners, which I did some of for sure.

When I went off at 11 on lap 9, you can't see the floor of the air dam spit out with all the dust and gravel, but it did. With that went some brake ducting, although it didn't affect too much. The air dam is shot which is good as I need to come up with something nicer after looking at the Huffaker Engineering cars. Mine looks like a Chumpcar compared to those beauties!
 
EPrill":25fzk0pm said:
Brian, I remember your flag falling off in T9 on lap 1. You can see it in the video. I hope someone returned it so you can use it at Daytona next year ;)
Click to expand...
HP racer Mike Bachman's girlfriend returned the flag. I had the flag all season and the first time it falls off is the end of lap one of the Runoffs. I think it upset my aero and caused my spin in T-6 :) I can't imagine a scenario where you will see me at Daytona, especially in the Lotus.

Here is my video from Qual 3, the highlight of my week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7-Qped8YcU&feature=youtu.be
I was catching all of the cars that had been faster than me, so I knew things were finally "good". At about 7:40 Eric gets held up by a HP Honda Fit and I'm not sure that he sees me coming. He did at the last second. Moments later in the Corkscrew I got a bit squirrely and dropped a wheel at the exit, followed by catching Gary Wittman going into T-10, thinking I'm going right when he points me to the left. That was an exciting lap. The next lap I catch Huffaker which was good for the pole.

Race video coming...at least the first 1.5 laps of it.
 
laps 1-2 race video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDfqTr0i6IQ&feature=youtu.be
I should figure out how to get the rear view video overlaid on there. Saurino was giving me a push at the start, which I didn't realize until Eric told me.
Can I put a vote in against curbs that launch your car? I suppose it's to deter drivers from cutting the course, so it works in that regard, at least with a Lotus 7. Probably something you only do once, as I wouldn't be close to them if we went back to MRLS.
 
BLinn":1yj6b74u said:
laps 1-2 race video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDfqTr0i6IQ&feature=youtu.be
I should figure out how to get the rear view video overlaid on there. Saurino was giving me a push at the start, which I didn't realize until Eric told me.
Can I put a vote in against curbs that launch your car? I suppose it's to deter drivers from cutting the course, so it works in that regard, at least with a Lotus 7. Probably something you only do once, as I wouldn't be close to them if we went back to MRLS.
Click to expand...

You are a brave guy running that close with essentially open wheels. :shock: Seeing that you hit the red curb I am surprised you had a car to carry on with, those have taken corners off of cars and broken wheels. Great drive back to 6th.
 
WOW! That's some crazy driving. Total oversteer into all of those corners is bound to give you a "non precise" apex. Cool video though! I wonder if his tires could last through the race driving like that. :think:
 
Pretty sure he was going to drive it all out....to the scene of the incident or win going away.


Bryan
 
Too many man-made hazards at tracks - luckily no one else was involved - and open-wheels breed some horrific incidents. While I'm at it I saw a flag station obscured by fencing - can't react to a waving yellow real well if it isn't seen until you are fully committed to a corner.
 
I really don't recall but it was over 90 degrees left - also don't recall which race it was.
Wish I could be more specific.
Sorry!
 
Yup. a Sat or Sun race I think.
Also saw some real lousy work at Mid-Ohio can't cite the year.
Thank you for your interest in this.
 
Ouch! I never liked those "too big" inner curbs. They seem to destroy front suspension rather well.
 
FIAT90FP":3awp865f said:
Yup. a Sat or Sun race I think.
Also saw some real lousy work at Mid-Ohio can't cite the year.
Thank you for your interest in this.
Click to expand...

Are you suggesting that there was bad F&C work out at MRLS? I was there flagging.....we were universally lauded for our work. Drivers, stewards, etc. all made a point of remarking about the excellent job we did. I asked my captains on Friday and Saturday to allow me to blue flag the prod and GTL races as I know most of those drivers. This is fairly unusual as it upsets the standard positional rotation but both captains thought it was a good idea.

As for the flagging stations, most were elevated stands that had excellent views of the turns. This gave us superior sight lines for both yellow and blue flagging. All stations were behind concrete K rail that lined the entire track. There were several stations that had workers at other locations (either up or down track) acting as safety personnel. We had so many F&C workers that we had folks 'stashed' everywhere and all of the track was covered by the F&C team as well as MRLS safety vehicles. it was an extremely well run and safe event.

Hell if I was president for a day, a comp license would require 2 days volunteer work to maintain. Most drivers have NO idea what it takes to make the sausage of an SCCA race. The thousands of man hours of prep work BEFORE the weekend even starts. SCCA volunteers are a huge component of the workers corps for F1, IMSA, CART, NASA, NASCAR road course events, Vintage....you name it.

F&C, like ALL workers, are volunteers and we can't play without them. Let's not castigate or diminish their effort when it's on our behalf.

Dayle
 
Hmmm! Dale, don't think he commented on the quality of the F & C workers for the 2014 Runoffs.

"Too many man-made hazards at tracks - luckily no one else was involved - and open-wheels breed some horrific incidents. While I'm at it I saw a flag station obscured by fencing - can't react to a waving yellow real well if it isn't seen until you are fully committed to a corner."

And as for Mid Ohio, I had a corner worker blue flag me for most of a Runoff's race. I saw the worker at the social that evening and I asked him why he blue flagged my car every time I came by and his answer was--"The driver behind you was a friend of mine and I wanted to be sure you knew he was behind you & trying to pass." My response was that this was the Runoffs and every driver behind someone was trying to pass. No, I didn't tell him where he could put his blue flag!
 
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