#3 Lime Rock Club Race - May 2000 - Track Time with Schattenbaum

  Track Time with Schattenbaum 

Wednesday morning, time to load the car on the trailer and pack the tow vehicle. At noon, Maggie and I are off to meet Tom Holmes and his wife Fran in Newark, our paddock companions for the weekend. Tom was bringing his 79 911 SC G Class car. Tom is a good driver and his car is nicely sorted. Even though my car is lighter and in theory faster, he posts quicker times than me in his supposedly slower car. A nice uneventful tow up the east coast landed us in the vicinity of Lime Rock after 5 hours; love that EZ-Pass! At our motel, we meet Joe Hrymack, a fellow rookie candidate from New Jersey, with whom I had suffered together in the rain at the last couple of Summit Point track days. Also in the motel's parking lot, we met several other racers and DE participants, including one couple who had brought their two car trailer and dropped it off at the track. In the trailer was their 911 for racing, along with their BMW M3 for just traveling around town. Not a bad way to travel.

Up bright and early the next morning for the Schattenbaum Driver's Education day. There were so many club racers registered for the day, they created a new group: Orange. Gates opened at 7am and we wanted to make sure we got a good paddock spot for the weekend, so we arrived at the track before 6:30. It was a good idea. Such a good idea, that about 100 other cars and trailers had it before us. We joined the line all the way out near the road and waited in the gathering gloom.

Ah yes, gloom. Did I mention the most common topic of conversation: the weather? Wednesday night, the Weather Channel was predicting 90% chance of heavy rains Thursday, tapering down to a low of 60% for the race Saturday. Not something that I was thrilled about. I've never driven Lime Rock in the rain. Fact is, I've only driven the track 4 times total. Two years ago, a driver was killed in a club race when he lost control after hitting a puddle of water on the main straight. I was nervous enough about learning to coexist with other cars in the corners on dry surfaces, let alone wet conditions.

Finally after a long wait, we made it into the paddock. Dan Arkins, an 944 turbo F class driver from CVR, Tom Holmes from Delaware, and I set up together in the main paddock between the Main Straight and Big Bend. I had brought a 10x20 canopy which probably was the best decision all weekend. Got the car off the trailer and ready for tech, when I found out that the club racers didn't have to go through the tech line. All we had to do was to show our tech form at registration. Since I had self-tech'd my car and wasn't an instructor, I had figured that I would have gotten grief for that transgression. So cool, the first perk for being a club racer :)

Driver's meeting at 8am, the usual, "this is not a race, this is drivers ed, etc." and then the first raindrops started falling. Not good. I had bought new Kumho race tires for the race. My plan for the day was to heat cycle them by running them hard for the 1st DE session, then pulling them off the car to sit for the next 24 hours. Hard to get heat into tires when it's pouring rain.

Well, no time for worrying, this is a DE day, so I'm first up to flag for the next 2 hours. It started to pour. I was flagging at the end of the front straight, so I got to see a lot of folks skidding through the puddles in the braking zone, and sliding into the escape road, or spinning off out of Big Bend.

However toward the end of my flagging shift, the rain slacked off and the sky started to lighten. By the end of the two hours, it had stopped raining and the driving line was starting to dry. Well that's good news. I still had the new Kumho's already mounted on the car and didn't have to switch to my street tires. I don't have a lot of time at Lime Rock and I've only been there once with my 911. The last time I was running my bald and hard old Kumho's and was doing consistent 1:08's with one 1:07.8. Pretty slow I know, I need to be down in the 1:02's or 03's to be competitive. Today I was running mid 1:07's for the first session which was a good start. I pulled in and put my street tires on, Yokohama AVS1's, for the rest of the day's sessions. By the end of the day my best time was a 1:06.2. I was hoping for a 1:05, but I was pretty happy with that on street tires. I was starting to get a better feel for the track. I felt I was getting a good line through West Bend; carrying more speed through Big Bend and the Downhill turns.

Meanwhile, while I was playing around on the track, Tom Holmes and Dan Arkins had been hard at work on Tom's G class car. While lapping, Tom had experienced severe brake pedal fade. Bringing the car back to the paddock, it was jacked up and the brakes bled. However, steady pressure on the brake pedal would have it slowly sink to the floor. Eventually the determination was made that the master cylinder had gone bad. A search of the paddock didn't turn up any parts. However, Jim Newton of Automobile Associates located one back at his shop. Jim and Fran hustled off to Canton, about an hour away, hoping to get to the shop before 5 pm.

For me, with the track event done, it was time for race business. Found out where Registration was (in the Michelin tower, duh!), signed a bunch of waivers promising the rest of my assets to the CT Valley Region Porsche Club, got a cool (and warm and much needed later) sweatshirt, a poster and bunches and bunches of paper. Walk across the hall to Tech. Was given a logbook for my car and told to report to the Automotive Associates encampment in the paddock. They'll tell me what to do. What they told me to do, was to come back with the logbook AND the car. Sheesh, how was I to know? Back to the paddock, found my car and threw in my bag with the driver's suit and nomex undies, and back to Automotive Associates. They measured the thickness of my cage, tugged and yanked on my seat, looked at my safety gear, and advised me to move the waist belt bolts further back. The tech inspector, Jim Newton, initialed my logbook and sent me back to Tech in the tower. There I collected a sticker for my roll cage, one for my helmet, and one for the windshield of the car. I applied these and instantly the "coolness" factor of my car increased by an order of a magnitude!

By now, the Schattenbaum track event had wound down and as usual, they had provided dinner. Maggie and I wandered up and had some great lasagna and salad. Meanwhile the sky darkened dramatically and a monstrous thunder, wind and rainstorm moved in. We found out the next day, that folks were still without power throughout the region. Leaving the track for the weekend we saw lots of large trees that had been blown down. At Lime Rock, only the paddock road is paved. The rest of the area is either grass or dirt and gravel. Naturally this downpour turned what hadn't been totally soaked into a muddy and soupy mess. This was to remain the way things were for the rest of the race weekend.

6PM, time for my Club Race Orientation meeting, mandatory for rookie candidates. Despite the cool stickers on my race car, at this stage in my racing career, I was only a "candidate" to become a rookie race driver, not even a lowly rookie yet. On the evolutionary racing scale, at one end there's Aryton Senna and Juan Montoya and at the other, the "amoeba" end, me. At the Orientation meeting about 25 of us crowded into a small room to listen about the purpose, philosophy and goals of Club Racing, along with the rules for passing, and consequences of not completing those passes safely. The structure of the race weekend was explained and expanded upon. We were reminded that the goal of the weekend was to get our licenses and participate in the real race. It wouldn't do us any good if we do something stupid in the practice sessions and get kicked out before the main race. Unfortunately, one of the rookie candidates didn't show for the mandatory meeting, even though she had been at the track that day. As far as I know, this meant she was denied participation in the race and the ability to get her license. That has to be a real shame. Spend all that time, money and energy for nothing.

With the orientation meeting over, Maggie and I went back to the paddock. Tom and Fran hadn't returned with the new brake master cylinder. We lowered the canopy so we wouldn't find it in the next county tomorrow, and headed to the motel in the falling rain.

Next: Racing into Hypothermia