#5 Lime Rock Club Race - May 2000 - Race Day

 Race Day

Number 88 takes the checker

Saturday morning, I pull back the curtains in the motel and look out at the parking lot. Hey, its not raining! The lot is still damp and its pretty gloomy, but it looks like some asphalt is actually drying. The Weather Channel is calling for cloudy but dry, with a chance of showers later in the afternoon. So things are looking up. A leisurely breakfast next door and it's time to go to the track.

Pulled into our spot in the soggy paddock, at least that hasn't changed. Look at the track over the fence. Starting to dry up out there. Today's schedule is a practice session at 9; qualifying at 10:15, lunch, drivers meeting at 1:30, and racing at 2. First order of business for me is to change from my rain tires to my race tires, the newly heat-cycled Kumhos. Midway through the process I get called away to the drivers meeting. Nothing new here: a review of today's schedule and prayer to the gods for continuing dry weather.

Back to my paddock space and finish putting on my tires. Hang out until my race group is called for practice. Take my time and head out to the grid. As I pull in I was told that I missed the 5 min mark so I can't go to my #11 spot, but must start at the back. Didn't really bother me, as this was just a practice. But I learned that when it is important, make sure that I show in plenty of time.

Looks like the non-rookies finally showed up to play, now that there is a dry track. Yesterday our race group was averaging about 15 cars, but today there is 26 for this session. I prepare myself to be passed a lot more aggressively than yesterday.

Out on the track and into the session. Track is pretty good, just damp in a few sessions. I start bring down my lap times. My hot-lap is acting erratic, so I'm not sure of my times. I think I'm doing 1:08's and maybe getting into the 1:07's. Usually I'm not at my best the first time out, but do well in the second sessions. Since the next session is qualifying, I concentrate on being smooth and working the line, hoping to peak the next session. There's a bunch of fast cars out there today as compared to yesterday in the rain. But I point them by and I'm feeling comfortable.

Toward the end of the session I'm noticing a lot of activity at the black flag station just before the downhill. Every time I go by there is a pit-board with a car number, either being put up or put down. I see the checker and take my cool down lap. Entering the hot pits, one of the pit workers points at me and pulls me out of line. I'm immediately on the defensive. I think "What! What did I do? I ran a clean session. Why do they want to talk to me?" The worker comes over to me and tells me I've just been black flagged by Lime Rock noise control. My car dB level is from 90 to 96 dB, over the 89 dB level allowed at Lime Rock. The pit worker is apologetic, "It's not us, it's the track. Park the car and go talk to the Scrutineer in the tower."

Panic sets in. What am I going to do? I have a muffler already on the car. I was totally un-prepared for this. I've run Lime Rock in the past with this car and didn't have any problem with the sound level. I park the car and hurry back to the tower. I find the Chief Scrutineer and ask him what I can do. Unfortunately he had little advice. "The track is really cracking down. They flagged lots of cars in the last session. Must be the weather." There was a ceiling of low clouds probably under 500 feet. That could be not allowing the sound to escape. "Try putting downspouts on your exhaust tips, pointing the exhaust to the ground. One more violation and you have to put the car on the trailer."

Drive back to my paddock spot. Panic continues to increase. What am I going to do? I don't have any downspouts. My car's muffler can be detached to allow megaphone straight exhaust tips and make it really loud, but nothing to reduce the noise. That's what the muffler is for. I talk to Dan and Tom about it. Maybe we can find some exhaust piping, they'll check the paddock while I check the Lime Rock store. No luck. The store has plenty of t-shirts and duct tape, but nothing like any exhaust piping. Running back through the paddock I notice most of the teams are prepared for this. They just went back into the trailer, pulled out the curved downspouts, bolted them on their cars and now are standing around laughing about it. There was no laughter from this racer though.

Back in the paddock, the cooler heads of Dan and Scott come up with an idea. "What if we build a downspout?" What? Sure, whatever. Another run through the paddock finds us a sheet of aluminum and some tin-snips. I'm dispatched to find large hose clamps and leave Scott and Dave banging on my car.

After trolling through the paddock, I score some hose clamps from a couple of nice racers. Hurry back to the impromptu metal workshop and help finish attaching the makeshift downspouts. Just in time. Qualification time is right up. Looks waaaaay uggggly, but it might do the job.

Time to head for the grid. Looks like a sound control station at the bottom of the downhill leading to the pits. Tell myself to short-shift when hammering past. Out on the track with the other cars. Do a couple of warm-up laps to get settled. Looks like a another sound station at the end of the back straight leading into the uphill. That's not good. My car usually backfires and shoots a ball of fire as I up-shift into fourth. Have to feather the throttle there too.

And so it goes. Around the track, shifting at 5000 to 5500 instead of running it up to red-line. Plus dodging traffic. Trying to go fast while not using much of my engine's power. I know my lap times are suffering, but I can't do anything about it. Don't even know if the downspouts are working. If they're not, one reading over and I'm done. Better to start last and race than not.

And start last I did. Or as close as possible. I qualified 24th out of 27 with a best time of 1:07.6. At least I'm in front of Ernie, the 944 turbo that went flying into the bushes yesterday. Okay, time for lunch.

I'm hanging in the paddock, feeling pretty pleased. I might be starting at the back of the pack, but I'm excited. I'm going racing!

After lunch, Group 5 was called to the grid for their race. And then Group 4. And soon it was time for mine. However sometime in this progression, the skies turned black and (again) it started pouring. By this time I was thinking of attaching water skis to the back of my car.

Oops! My dry tires are on the car. I need to change back to the rain tires. Park the car back out in the street, jack it up and do the tire change game again. Cool, I'm ready. Time to focus, chill out and get into the race mind-set. First let's move the car out of the way and put my gear in the car so all I have to do is hop in and go.

Back the car into the paddock space. Oh shit! The left front tire is binding in the wheel well. What the hell is going on? I can't fully turn the car. I get out and stare mystified at my car. Wait a minute … my (dry) race tires have different diameters front and back. I run 15 inch diameters in the front and 16's in the rear. Very easy to see the difference. However the rain/street tires are both 15 inches in diameter. However, the width is different. 225 cm in the front, 245 in the rear. Easy to see when you have both together, not so easy when standalone. And on the Yokohamas, the size is in very, very, tiny letters. I must have misread the size - I don't understand how, it was only pouring rain and dark - and put one of the rear tires up front and vice versa.

Okay, now's the time to be cool right? Hell no, time to panic. Nobody's around, almost time to grid for my first race, I've got the stupid tires on the wrong end of the car, it pouring rain. Maggie looks over at me and see me starting to freak. "What's wrong?". "I'm f*cked! I'm f*cked!" is all I can repeat and start working on jacking up the car. Luckily, Tom, Scott, Dan and Fran are up in the stands watching the group 4 race. Fran looks back to the paddock and notices the burst of activity where there should be none. She dispatches the crew to the rescue and we put the correct tires in the correct places this time with 5 minutes to spare. Now I'm ready!

Time to go. Grid up way, way in the back - remember those crappy qualification times?. Out onto the track and start the slow drive around. Down the downhill and I certainly can't see the starter stand from here, it must be a mile away. Doesn't matter, I hear the roar and like a good racer the sound impulse travels directly from my ears to my right foot which gets planted to the floor. Can't see where I'm going in all the spray, but I'm going to make sure I get there fast!

Down into turn one, lots of water, spray and terrible visibility. Wait until you see some red lights in front of you, and then wait some more before hitting my brakes. I'm on the outside again and once again pick someone off going for the inside on the 2nd apex. Through the esses and onto No-name straight, hot on the tail of another 911. Through the uphill, still dogging that 911. Coming into West Bend, my favorite turn in the wet with that surprisingly grippy concrete patch. Keep pushing the 911 ahead of me and whoa!! they get way loose in front of me and barely gather it up. They immediately head for the inside of the downhill and signal their intention to pit. No more racing in the rain for them. Another position gained for me. I'm not proud, I'll take it.

After a couple of laps I had passed the rest of the back of the field and found myself in the middle of the pack with no one around me. For 7 or so laps it was like a ghost town. Even looked like the corner workers were asleep as I came around. While I was working on the back of the pack, the front pack had zoomed off. This was tough mentally. I had to keep telling myself to "Keep racing. work those corners, be smooth, go fast!" Hard to do all that when there was nobody to chase.

Eventually I caught up with some others and made a couple more passes at the end. I ended up 5th in class out of 6 (class D) and 12th out of 21 cars in the race group (Classes C, D, and E). For me the race was a great success despite the weather. Had a lot of fun, met some great racers and new friends, my car went on the trailer in the same shape it came in, and had some good dicing on the track.

I'm hooked on this racing stuff. Next up for me is the first Watkins Glen Porsche club race in August. Hope to see you there.