Watkins Glen PCA Race Weekend

Looking over part of the paddock

Despite the gloomy weather - the sun only came out a couple of times - it was pretty much dry running for the weekend, enduro excluded.

Thursday
After an uneventful 5 hour tow, I settled in the lower paddock behind the grandstands on the front straight, paddocking with E class racers Mark Weining and Denny Wasser.

Mark's 911 Euro SC reflected in his new trailer

Even though I haven't received my formal letter about my 13/13 "violation" at LimeRock, I was required to attend the Orientation Meeting aka Bad Racer School on Thursday night. The classroom was full and after an hour we were released, while the Rookie Candidates stayed for more info about racing with PCA.

Just a little cosmetic surgery after LimeRock. Nothing to see here, move on ...

My paddock mates had headed on out to the Seneca Lodge for dinner earlier, so I retired to my trailer for the evening where a nice Wolaver's Oatmeat stout was calling my name.

This was a big weekend for 944Cup. We had 48 racers in SP1, SP2 and SP3 signed up, with 37 in my class alone. At the driver's meeting it was announced that PCA Club Racing was putting on a greater emphasis on technical compliance at the racers and they have brought a big team of techs and their focus this weekend will be the 944 cars.

Hear! Hear! I say. I'm all for that. There were a lot of 944 Cup cars which we had never seen before. I'm racing for year long points where we have sealed DME's and it would suck to have somebody come in with a non-stock car as a one-off race and take the wins away from the legal cars. And since we're racing with PCA mostly this year, we'll never see a dyno at the track.

Action down in turn 1

Friday
Practice session 1 was damp, but the track had decent grip. The car developed a miss in the session, which came and went. Full power, and then it would start bogging, and then back to full power. A bit disconcerting indeed.

Back in the paddock I fiddled with spark plug wires, pulled the distributor cap and checked for loose connections but didn't find anything. I found a real mechanic - I only play one on the internet - and Jerald laid hands on my motor, sprinkled holy water from an empty Wolver's stout bottle and beseeched the gods to deliver this racercar from the pit of despair. "Go forth and see if it happens again." advised Jerald, and he wandered off.

Practice 2 and the car ran fine. Thanks Jerald! That blessing really worked. At the end of the session as I was passing the black flag station I was told to go to impound. Not just me, it turns out but the rest of the 944's. Looks like this is the start of the compliance checking, I'm good with that. I ended in the last row and waited to be called for 45 minutes.

Finally I'm pulled into the garage. The PCA tech guy said "Open your hood and remove your j-boot", handed me a screwdriver and started to walk away. I said "How about a hand here, I don't have any hood shocks." He said "Use your head to hold it up" and walked away to go bullshit with some other folks. Gee thanks PCA. I know you're a volunteer, but come'on. If you don't want to be here, why are you here?

A bystander was nice enough to give me a hand with the hood and I pulled off the hose. I found a tech guy and he measured my throttle body diameter with a caliper, said I was good, and sent me on the way.

Practice session 3 was next. Since we were having 2 races on Saturday, the times from this session were going to be used as our qualifying times for the 1st race. I put on some decent tires but didn't really improve my times, being a good number of seconds off the pace. The car occasionally stumbled, but for the most part ran okay.

At the end of the session, another call to tech. This time, they were doing safety inspections and the experience was much more pleasant. The tech gal was helpful, pleasant and chatty. 5 minutes later I was heading back to my paddock spot.

The next and final session for the day was the Practice Start and Fun Racers. No Way was I doing those. I may not be too bright but I am trainable. With a 13/13 from my last Fun Race appearance at LimeRock, I see no reason to participate. No points, no upside. I was done for the day.

Saturday
The night was cold sleeping in the trailer but when I opened the trailer door Sat morning, the sun was up and shining in the east. An hour later the clouds had moved back in to stay for the rest of the day.

Race one started in the morning. I got a good start in the race picking up several spots. There was a good group of racers where we were all grouped together and the battling was great. Plenty of good racing was to be had all over the track. I had an occasional misfire but generally the car ran strong. I ran my best lap of the weekend, getting into the 2:22's (BTW which is still way slow for some reason). Van (Svenson) of the orange Jagermeister 944, started in the back and managed to pip me toward the end, moving up to 9th with a great run through the pack. I started 43rd overall and made it up to 28th overall, 10th in class.

Cloudy, cool, windy but dry was Saturday

Afternoon brought the 2nd sprint race. Unlike the morning's race, the result wasn't as good. Though the racing was close, intense and fun. Which is why I'm here.
On the start I did well, picking up 3 positions on the first lap, and another 3 on the next lap. Lost some and then got it back on the next. And then my race took a turn.

Going up the esses, I grab 5th gear just after the apex to turn 2 as I straighten the car and head up the hill. This time though, I couldn't find 5th, it just wasn't there. I fiddled and fussed but couldn't get it into gear. This meant instead of powering up through the essess, I was basically just coasting up the hill off the power. In a class like 944Cup where we are all close racers, this was very similar in result to throwing out a boat anchor behind my car. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh as all those cars cars I had passed went flying past me.

I finally found 5th going down the back straight but with the limited speed I lost some more spots going into the bus stop. The rest of the lap I clawed some of those positions back again, but once again in the esses, same issue, same result. I started dropping down the leader board with a thud. I changed my strategy to going for 5th after the esses, running the car at redline which was making me cringe in the car. This compromised my speed onto the back straight leading to more lost spots at the bus stop. But at least it stopped the hemorrhaging, converting it to merely a slow painful death. I'd lose just one or two spots, instead of the three or four. I could then get one or more of those spots back elsewhere in the track. There were a pack of us, about 10 or more cars, where we were going head to head, door to door all around the track. It was pretty intense and fun racing. Toward the end, a double yellow came out and we got a Nascar style Green/White/Checker shootout to finish the race. The battling became even more intense in our local pack with cars going 3 wide though the corners trying anything to get ahead. On the last lap and last corner (11) there was an opening at the apex, I dived down under braking and then saw the other car come down and start to shut the door on me. Don't hit me! I lifted momentarily as he came about 3 inches from my door and then was back on the power.

But it was just enough to kill my momentum through the corner. I passed him, but a gaggle of cars behind me weren't balked and I watched helplessly as they slowly motored by at about 2 mph and beat me to the checker. Argh!!!

So I tumbled off the 1st sheet of the results. I ended up 40th overall, 17th in class. Not the result I was hoping for, but the racing was awesome even with the mechanical difficulties. Now it was off to the Seneca Lodge bar where Guinness is on tap and a nice filet was calling my name.

Sunday

In the warm-up I tried a new approach for 5th gear, shifting before the turn in at turn 2. This gave up just a little bit of speed going up the hill, but not much, and also meant I didn't have to run at redline though the esses. I was hopeful for the upcoming race.

Swiss Army wrist watch duct-taped to roll cage for in-car timing- when
to come in for my mandatory 5 minute enduro pit stop

Our enduro race was scheduled at about 10:30, finishing up around noon. About 10 it started to spit rain, but not too much. By 10:30 the track was damp, but it still wasn't raining heavily. I had hope that it would dry up so I left my dry (slicks) tires on.

On the pace lap it was lightly raining but not too bad. If it stays like this I have a chance. Everybody else has rain tires, and if it clears I'll clean up as they cook their tires. I get to use my rain light for the first time and notice a couple of cars with them. As we head onto the front straight the rain intensifies and now rooster tails start appearing behind the cars. I do a lap, conditions are getting sketchy, the next lap and the rain is coming down pretty good and it obvious that the best decision is to bag it. So I came in and loaded up. And it turned to be the right decision. Within the first 15 minutes I watched as several crunched up cars were brought in on a tow hook. As I was packing up and leaving, I kept on hearing about double yellows on the PA, so it must have been a mess out there. Congrats to Tyler and Bill Comat who took 1st in Cup but the overall win also.

But my car was still in the same shape it arrived in. I need to find out my electrical and tranny problems but that could wait. I headed back home in the rain. I had some great racing with friends and good weekend at the track. It's all good.

Bill Comat's brand new Michael Mount built motor - must be ok, as Tyler
brought it home 1st overall in the enduro.