NJMP PCA - Race Recap

The Summit Point PCA race is looming like a locomotive in the night only 2 days away, so I'd better write up the NJMP weekend before I forget.

On second thought, maybe I should wait until I forget. Then I can write a better story as I won't be unencumbered by the facts.

Nahh, warts and all is the Alpine Garage way.

I'm a bit late with this report, as my Siberian Husky alpha male Coyote got really sick just before the weekend and passed away less than 2 weeks later. So I've been a bit preoccupied.

Overall, the weekend started strong, had a bit of dip in the middle, but finished on an upbeat note.

For a New Jersey August weekend, you couldn't beat the weather. Mostly sunny skies with a few clouds, highs in the upper 70's, low 80's, with nights down in the 50's. It got cool enough that Saturday night I flipped on the heater in the trailer in the middle of the night. Quite a change from the usual brutal 90+ temps and humidity. Much appreciated Weather Gods!

This was a typical PCA 3 day weekend, Practices and fun races on Friday, 2 sprint races on Saturday, and a sprint and enduro race on Sunday. You definitely get a lot of track time with PCA.

I started the weekend with tires with 5 heat cycles, and they worked well enough that I kept them on all the way through. Not a single tire change. But I didn't get totally free from any work on the car as you'll will see.

I ran good times in the practice sessions, steadily dropping my times. By the 3rd session I had my best time ever, doing a mid 1:36. On the next lap I had over a 1/2 second in hand when I got clogged up in the Octopus behind a couple of other racers, killing my lap. So 1:35's are in my future with a little work.

Of course, Robbie Provost, bless his little black heart, did a mid 1:34 during the weekend (bastard!) due to him practically living at the track this year. This was my first visit to the Thunderbolt circuit since last November. Congrats to Robbie, he went on to win all 3 sprints.

After the 3 practice sessions came the fun races. While I wasn't planning on the fun races - no upside for me - my front brake pads were pretty much toast, and I planned to use the session to bed new pads in for tomorrow. I lined up at the back of the grid and was the last to go out. It was pretty funny as I circled the track hundreds of yards from the last batch of cars watching the corner workers frantically waving at me to "hurry up!". While the front of the pack took the green flag, I leisurely rolled back into the pits and off to my trailer, trailing the sharp odour of freshly toasted brake pads.

Still looking pretty, but that will change soon.

Saturday dawned with a bright blue sky and moderate temps. There was short practice session early on which I blew off. Lining up for Sprint 1 I was in the middle of the pack based upon my Practice 3 times. We were having split starts for the races all weekend. All the non-SP* cars (non-944's) got the first green flag, while us 944's lagged behind about 100 yards behind the 1st group. Out onto the course, and around the track, and we all took the 2nd green flag. I had a decent start, grabbing a couple of spots and made it safely through turn 1, the point of maximum danger. Downshifting for turn 5, my clutch pedal went to the floor and didn't come back. Uh-oh....

Reaching down with my left foot I popped it back up. A couple more corners it worked fine, and then it didn't come back up again and needed to be "helped". By the end of the first lap it wasn't coming back on it's own accord any more. Now while all this in-car drama was taking place, I still was in close battle with several cars. For the next 5 laps I managed the clutch pedal and also made some more passes. Soon it became the new "normal".

Coming under the bridge, hot on the tail of David Mann, thinking I had a good run on him and should be able to stick a pass on him down in turn one, I shifted up into 5th and not only did the pedal not come back up, it disappeared!

Keith Code - author Twist of the Wrist

Keith Code, the great motorcycle racer and coach, has a theory that at any given moment you have $1.00 worth of attention to apply to any situation.That's what makes racing so challenging. There's a plethora of shiny objects to spend on that dollar. Brake markers, grip levels of your tires, which way the track goes, where is my competitor, "is that a rod knocking?" and many more.  If you spend it all focused on your reference marks to doing the perfect line, you're out of money when it comes to see that waving yellow flag off to the left of the turn.

So there I was, a poster child attention deficit racer maxed out at the attention ATM. I've had originally spent a quarter on the clutch pedal issue but now clutch management was only allocated about a nickle. and only had about 2 cents left to think about the new issue since I was a bit busy at the moment. I issued some commands to the left leg to go find that pedal but it reported back that it couldn't find it. "Ok" said the brain with it's 2 cents of attention. "I heard a clunk a second ago. Could that be the clutch falling out of the car onto the track?" A second or two pause. "Can a clutch pedal even fall out of a car?".

Mr Brain finally recognizing that it needed to spend more money here or a lot of bad things could happen, made the executive decision to dive into the pits at the last moment, hard on the brakes with still no gears engaged and no clutch.  About halfway down the pit lane I found 2nd gear and pulled the clutch pedal up but headed in for my paddock spot. Not an auspicious start to the race weekend, a DNF for Race 1.

So while I didn't get dirty changing tires that weekend, a hour later found me under the jacked up car, bleeding the clutch pedal which is a real PITA on a 944. An hour after that, I finally had a good clutch pedal and was ready for Race 2 in the afternoon.

 Due to me making it only halfway the race distance, I was starting from the back for Race 2. No big deal, that just means I'll have a good crack at the "Hard Charger Award" for the most passes. I make a great start making it halfway through the field, moving right and then when it starting stacking up for turn 1, moved left. I picked up a couple more spots on the outside when Bam! I'm nailed from the right side by Steve Randolph. Steve went around in a spin, and a couple more cars touched as the incident unfolded. Other than body damage, my car felt unhurt and I could have kept on going. If this was a NASA or SCCA race, I would have, but this was PCA. Their rule is any contact, any contact, means everybody's race is done and you all have to come in, even if you're not at fault.

So I made my way around the track and into the pits. I stopped at the Black Flag station where the scruiteers provided me with paperwork and directed me off to Medical. Surprisingly even though there were 4 cars involved, I was the only driver who came in. All the others pretended it didn't happened and didn't come in until they were black flagged. In my incident report, it asks if there were any witnesses. I filled out: the entire green sprint group, turn 1 corner workers and everybody on top of the tower. I mean, come on, turn 1 lap 1, everybody was watching!

That poor side gets no respect ...

Back in the paddock I examined the damage. A caved in passenger side door and  mangled front fender. A large sledge hammer 'adjusted' the door. A few passes of my Krylon "Body Shop in a Can!" flat black paint added the final touches. Ready for Race 3 tomorrow. We all retired to the rear patio at the Old Oar House Irish Pub in downtown for some good beer and food.

Sunday morning and it was time to grid up. Since grid position was based upon lap times in Sprint 2, I was at the back of the field. Just like the start of Sprint 1, oh well.  Unlike Sprint 2 I survived turn one and carried on. I had a good start eventually making it up to mid-pack where I encountered Jim Rothenberg and David Mann. Jim couldn't keep me behind him and I got through after a few laps and camped on the tail of David. I kept on getting a run on him and he let me on by, hoping I'd make a mistake being in the lead and not being the attacker. We ran into the backmarkers, several D & E class cars. They were slow in the corners but fast to put their foot down. I was able to pass several of them and put them between me and David and Jim, just where I wanted them.

Then I ran into 'The Wall', a pair D & E cars that were determined to keep us behind them at all costs, even though we weren't racing them, they were out of class. I would be right on their bumper through a corner, only to watch them floor it coming out onto the straight. Only to brake very early where I catch them again entering the corner. Rinse and Repeat. My gap back to David and Jim rapidly dwindled as these guys blocked me. And I mean "blocked me" as in deliberately blocked. On several corners I pulled out to pass under braking on inside and car #2 would pull out in front of me and brake, go side by side with car #1 through the corner at a reduced speed, only to fall back into line and race to the next corner. This, to put it mildly, was a bit frustrating. Eventually the two out of class cars successfully pinned me into a corner, and since David and Jim had caught up by that point, David slipped by while they were concentrating on me. Once free of them, David started running away. In my case they continued blocking me until the end and we finished the race with David in front of me and Jim behind. Other than the dunderheads blocking me, it was a fun battle with both Jim and David.

Denny Wasser (112) one of the faster E class drivers, another E driver in
the 911 and I going 3 wide into turn 5.

Next up was the enduro. This time it was a 60 minute battle from start to finish with Alan Cohen. Al started in front of me but I was able to get in front and we traded back and forth, or ran nose to tail until little more than halfway when we both hit the pits for our mandatory 5 minute pit stop. I managed to get out in front of Al due to better time management, but my tires were gone. At this point in the weekend, they were on their 13th or 14th heat cycle and had the grip of a wet teflon dish sponge. My lap times were 4 seconds slower in the 2nd half of the enduro than the first stint. While I worked hard, I couldn't get the car anywhere near the correct line through the Octopus section. Sooner than later, Al was able to get past me and by the end of race had a good lead on me. Al took 2nd and me 3rd. It was an exciting battle, close but respectful with another great racer. The battle had me loading the car into the trailer with a wide smile to finish the weekend.

Getting ready for the Summit Point race

A familiar sight in 2013. Sledge hammers, sanders and bondo
were the most used tools to work on my car.

So while I have work ahead of me before Summit Point, the weekend ended on a high note with the 2 excellent races on Sunday that were close and competitive. Totally worth it.

Beep Beep

Coming back from Costco one weekend afternoon I was herded into the concrete cattle-chute under I-95 where the State of Delaware were (again) trying to fix the giant traffic mess where I-95, Del Route 1 and Route 7 all come together. This is the #1 failed intersection in the state and has been "fixed" many times before. So there I was, packed like sardines in a can with my fellow travelers, running in a concrete corridor with my old 2002 built to the highest safety standards in 1970 versus basically, everybody else.

I'm willing to bet that readers of this blog probably don't have an extremely high opinion of the driving skills of the American public. Just a guess, but if you're reading, you're probably interested in racing, or vintage cars or the like. In other works, interested in cars and driving them. But that's a minority position these days. For most folks, cars are an appliance, one that doesn't need much attention to the act of driving, time better spent texting, yelling at the kids in the back, or other activities. For those folks, Google's self driving cars can't come too fast. But for me, to keep my thin, lightweight German steel from be crumpled beneath a 4 ton F150 pickup, I rely on 2 things: driving skills coupled with a sense of paranoia (they are out to kill me) and a working horn.

As some hulking SUV started to drift into my lane that weekend, my hand went immediately to my horn button, followed by my foot to the brake pedal. The brakes worked, the horn ... not so much.

Safely back in the garage, it was time for some diagnostics. Horns are fairly simple devices, just add power and you get noise. I started with the horn button, pulled it off the wheel and the problem was pretty apparent. The wire from the carbon pin to the horn button was broken. How it works, there is a spring loaded pin (called the carbon pin by BMW even though it's not made of carbon) attached to the steering wheel. It makes contact to a electrically hot ring surrounding the steering column. Being spring loaded, it's always hot when you turn the wheel. The power is sent to the horn button from the pin. Push the button, the power is grounded and the horn blows. Simple. And the fix should be simple too. Just find where the smoke it getting out.


Backside of the steering wheel. The center fin is the turn signal canceller. The hole at the bottom
is where the carbon pin fits. New carbon pin assembly on top (with red wire), broken original below.

I pulled the steering wheel to get access to the carbon pin holder. This is a one piece device with the pin and a spring. I soldered the wire and we were good to go. Of course, this being the Alpine garage, my soldering gun died in the middle and there was a several hour pause as I had to go buy another one, but that's par for course. I reassembled the pin holder and was heading to the car when my sweaty fingers slipped (we were in a middle of head wave and the garage is not air conditioned) and the spring loaded carbon pin disappeared in low earth orbit.

An hour long search concluded that without the help of NASA it wasn't coming back so the Bimmer was mothballed for a couple weeks until I could come up with a replacement.I wasn't feeling comfortable driving without a horn.

Finally a replacement pin arrived from the friendly Penske BMW folks in CT. Not surprisingly it didn't fit. It wasn't their fault. I have an aftermarket Momo Prototipo wheel and the OEM pin that fits is probably something esoteric like an Isseta part. Not wanting to play parts roulette for the next 6 months I decided to work with what I got.

Now I could have used friction tape, silicon caulk, or some other to bulk it up. But I have something new in the garage and wanted to try it out. Enter InstaMorph, moldable plastic.

This would be my first chance to use it. It sounds pretty cool. Little plastic beads, heat up in hot water and they become moldable, shape to what ever you need and when it cools down, it's regular hard plastic that can be cut, painted, grinded, etc.

I heated a cup of water in the microwave to 150 degrees, dropped in a spoonful of the beads and waited 2 minutes. They turned translucent as they heated up. After the 2 minutes I pulled the mass out and I had a piece of squishy, bendable, moldable plastic.

The first task was to bulk up the outer cover of the pin assembly as it was too small for the hole. I applied a wrap of the InstaMorph to the outside and waited 15 minutes. As it cooled down it turned into hard plastic. Using my grinder I shaved the piece down until I got a good friction fit in the steering wheel.

Next the original pin was much longer than the replacement so I need to make a collar to allow the pin to rub against the contact ring on the steering column. A few more InstaMorph beads and few minutes later ...

Final result

Now this won't win any industrial design awards but nobody will ever see it and it is functional and that's what counts. InstaMorph, pretty cool stuff. Available at Amazon.

The Bimmer is back and ready for fall. Beep, Beep!

The Curse of Mosport

I haven't updated the blog in a bit. I've been busy with Family health issues pretty much the entire month of July, but I have several posts that were in a draft stage that needed finishing off, and this is one of them.

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Fresh from Watkins Glen, ready for the trip North.

I've been back from Mosport about a week now, but I'm still depressed. The car is slumbering unloved in the trailer, and the trailer hasn't been opened since I shoved it into its parking spot in the wee hours of Saturday morning.

So maybe this report will be cathartic (or not).

Now let me start off by saying. I love Mosport the track. It is definitely one of my favorite places in the world to go drive a car fast. An old Euro style racetrack, a former host of Formula 1 races back in the 60's and 70's, it has a wonderful layout. Sweeping fast curves, turns over blind hill crests, pucker-inducing off-camber downhill turns, lots of places to bite you if you do it wrong - but when you do a lap right, it's a joyous experience.

Mosport is now officially Canadian Tire Motorsports Park (CTMP),
but will always be known as 'Mosport' to racing fans.

It's set in rolling farmland and forests about an hour east of Toronto in Ontario province. I was last there 2 years ago with a round of 944 Cup. Since then the track had been bought by a group of investors, among them Ron Fellows aka the Mayor of Mosport, a famous Canadian sports car racer. They have spent several millions of dollars upgrading the facility and I was very interested in seeing the changes.


While I love Mosport, that passion is unrequited. It does not love me back. I feel like that geeky guy in high school or that shy wallflower girl, always hopeful, always showing up at the gate some evening, thinking that, this time it will be different, this time the uber cool Mosport will ask 'me' to dance. What can I say, I'm a hopeless romantic.


When I was there last with 944 Cup I had a great set of races with all the Canadian guys. No problems, no issues, just me, the car and the track and some fun racing with some fast drivers. Of course that was an anomaly in my Mosport experiences. But I was hopeful that all of my previous bad experiences were in a 911 and maybe, just maybe, my stealth black 944 went unrecognized by the racing gods.  (I told you I was an optimist.)

My own personal black cloud, which followed me all the way
from PA, setting in over the paddock Thursday evening

The trip up was horrid, and if I believed in omens, a predictor of the weekend. Within 15 minutes of leaving home, the skies turned dark and the clouds opened up in a torrential downpour. For the next hour, I traveled between 20-30 mph with my 4 way flashers on as sheets of rain flooded the road. The weather forecast was for intense rain storms that were predicted to sweep across the bottom of Pennsylvania and into New Jersey. Once I turned northward on I-81 I expected to move out of the storms and have a trouble free tow to Canada.

Silly me. The next 8 hours was more of the same as the storm cell seemed attached by a wire to my rear bumper. Maximum speeds were only 55 mph through all the tractor trailer sprays. The skies didn't clear until I crossed the border at Thousand Islands. The next 2 and 1/2 hours to the track were clear and dry, but shorty after I rolled into the paddock, the black clouds were rolling back in. Halfway setting up camp the rains came back and I fell asleep listening to the rain on the roof of the trailer.

Home for the weekend

Van showing up just in time to get wet from my rainclouds
You're welcome Van!

Friday morning dawned perfect. Blue skies, temps in 70's, just perfect racing weather. This was the Canadian Vintage Grand Prix weekend. A big spectator event loaded with lots of vintage racing machinery. 944 Cup was the featured marque this weekend. We were celebrating the original Rothmans 944 Challenge Cup series, the first single Porsche marque series. Race stars of the 70's and 80's competed all year long in identical 944's. Drivers like Ron Fellows, Scott Goodyear, Paul Tracy and others took part. Several of those racers were back during the weekend.

Some original Rothman 944's raced with us.

A nice 70's Lotus Cortina race car

Some open wheelers

Friday was practice, qualifying, and racing, with another 4 races on Saturday and Sunday. This should be an awesome weekend.

A gaggle of Alfa's across the way....
or should that be a 'rusting of Alfa's' ...

I lined up for the early morning practice session and we were released on to the track. I took the first lap slow as there have been some changes done to the track since I last been there. The vast grassy field on the outside of famous turn 2 - which has eaten many a race car over the years - was now paved. The turn was still fast and scary, but a mistake hopefully won't have the same disastrous consequences. Van, behind me in his orange Jagermeister car was running in 2 run groups that weekend, and having already had a session, was quickly up to speed and passed me.

Alright, outlap done, the track is still the same, just better. Time to get into the groove. I build up speed on the main straight and dive into turn 1. Some light braking before up and over the crest into the blind fast, downhill (and off camber in the middle) turn 2. Oh yeah! what a rush this track is. Into turn 3 and then full tilt under the Tire bridge - making sure I'm not too far to the right as it will suck you off the track as it goes off camber and downhill.  Down the hill and brake going uphill into Moss Corner, the double turn 5 complex, and back out on to the rear Andretti straight running up through the gears. Yeah baby, me likey! Sweeping through the last set of turns and back onto the main straight. Car's feeling good.

That lap was a 1:47. Now I know I won't be challenging most of the guys as this is their local track. But the last time I was here I got into the 1:42-43's and I'm hoping this weekend to knock a couple of seconds off of that. If I can dip in the 39's I'd be tickled pink.

So around for another lap, practice makes perfect - or more accurately, Perfect Practice make Perfect.

Coming out of Moss corner the tranny, normally loud with the solid rear mount, sounds a bit louder. What's that? The car feels like it's not accelerating. I try downshifting. Gears shift fine, motor's working, but something definitely not working. No power to the wheels. At the end of the straightaway I coast off the track into the paved runnoff area and up against the wall. Putting the car into 1st gear doesn't move it. The gear box is gone.

This is probably the time to tell you that this is the gear box that failed at the Nationals 2 years ago. A new case, another ring and pinon gear and a new short 5th from Germany and a year in the shop and I finally had it back in my garage. Since it also has my trick Guards LSD I really wanted it back in the car. The weekend before I spent 12 hours swapping the old one out for this one. With 2 people it can be done in several hours, but working by myself took quite a bit longer. A couple laps around my development though the gears to validate the install and it was rolled into the trailer.

So lets recap. I sunk a year of waiting for the gearbox rebuild, complete with a several thousand dollar bill; 12 hours of my time to install; 11 hours of the worst tow I've ever done. Only to get 3 laps on the trap. The spare tranny is back in Pennsylvania. No 3 days of racing on one of the worlds best tracks. No racing at the event that I've been looking forward for 6 or more months. My future holds another 11 hour tow back home once I got the dead car back into the trailer. Shop fees wasted. Race fees wasted. Diesel fuel bill wasted. Vacation time wasted. I would have been better off to pile a couple of thousand dollars in my barbeque at home and light it. I was gutted. The Mosport curse has struck again.

I'm sure I'll race again. The hook has been sunk in too deeply, there's no 12 step program for racers. But it's time for a break.

'Traitor Tranny' upper left, 'Ole Faithful' on right

One good thing did come out of this. The duty-free shop at the border had one of my fav beers, Sleeman Fine Porter, only available in Canada. So I bought a couple of cases. When I got home, they were removed and placed into the garage and the trailer doors locked, the car not to be disturbed for a while. But the beer ... that was a different story.

Thanks to Bill Comat for introducing me to Sleeman's

Trailer Updates

My winter time project - working on the trailer - has bled over into the spring, and now into summer. No problem since it was contracted to the lowest bidder (me) and while I do good work, I can't guarantee timely delivery.

So one of the things I always lusted for, was a nice backup camera system for the trailer. Now after over a million miles of driving tractor trailer, school buses, flatbeds, furniture vans and generally anything with 2 or more wheels and a motor, I don't really need one. I can backup like a pro and stuff my trailer anywhere, usually on the first try. But while I don't 'need' it, I did 'want' it. It appealed to my cool geek brain.

I scored a two camera system off ebay from Hong Kong. Only took a week to show up. This was a pretty nice package. Two color cameras with IR, a 4 inch monitor for the cab and a quick disconnect system between the truck and the trailer.

I put the license plate cam on, duh! the license plate of the F250. So I can do those trailer hookups with precision and not the truck/trailer 2 step dance everybody does ... Back up to where you think the trailer is; hop out and check. Nope, another 2 feet. Hop back in the truck, reverse a couple of feet, hop back out, opps too much, etc, etc.
And with the IR lights, I can do in the dark. Wahoo!

Rear trailer cam

With the rear trailer cam I can now see that State Trooper sneaking in my blind spot behind me and be a good boy.

Quick disconnects allow clean and easy trailer hookups

Here's the view from rear camera in the truck.

And while the cams are useful going to and from the track, the next upgrade is for when things don't go so well while at the track.

I've had an old Harbor Freight winch for many years in the trailer. It's been used on occasions but isn't a really a great tool, pretty much a cheap piece of crap, but it was cheap and it has helped in the past. But I wanted something better for the newly upscale trailer.

And recently HF has upgraded their winch line to the Badland winches which have been getting some good reviews from the 4x4 and Jeep crowds. With a sale and a 20% coupon I got a great deal on a 6000 lb winch. And also picked up a cool accessory for it, a wireless remote control. Now I can sit in the (dead) car and winch away while texting and listening to Pandora on my smartphone. Isn't technology wonderful?

Let's put this puppy in.

Well as you can see, this is big (and heavy) and I really didn't want it permanently in the way. So this is my solution. Let's mount it to a pintle (tow) hook so it can be installed when needed.

First order of business is to install a receiver into the trailer floor to accept the pintle.

And since it's going to be doing some work, let's weld the receiver to the trailer frame. No fair criticizing my welds here, as it was done in the dark, while laying on my back under the trailer.

The bottom of the winch gests bolted to some sheet steel and the pintle to that.

And in place and ready for action. Remote control mounted on top with velcro and ready to be grabbed. Wiring is a quick disconnect back to my battery box.

When not working, it's tucked nice and neat in the rear behind my wheel boxes out of the way.

And up front, a rubber cap seals the empty receiver for a low profile.

stealth install

Valentine Hard Mount Install

After opening my WRX's door on a hot summer day and finding (again) my Valentine 1 dangling as the suction cups had failed, it was time to put on my engineering hat. And this is what I came up with.

After thinking about it, I decided to mount it above my mirror - higher is better with radar detectors - in the area in between my visors. There's a small plastic adjustable visor that covers that area. I can use the mounting points for that.

small visor area after removal of said visor

Take one V1 mount, remove the suction cups. Make a template, first with cardboard, then with aluminum, to attach to the headliner area.

Bend, trim, paint and assemble, bolting the mount to the aluminum. Create a locating pin using a screw and locking nut.

Mount in place. The power has been previously done

The final install. Rock solid and not going anywhere.

A simple elegant solution. It took about an hour in the shop and used existing materials so didn't cost anything.

Pocono Revisited

The first race weekend of 2013 for me was at the newly refurbished road course at Pocono Raceway, deep in the heart of the Poconos. The main track is a NASCAR "tri-oval", 3 banked corners linked by straightaways. For road racers, there's several infield sections that come off the main track and back on. In racer parlance, this is known as a "Roval" course, or Road Racing + Oval.

I've been to Pocono a total of twice in the past 15 or so years. The first time was my first year doing Driver's Education back in 1997 in my 86 944 turbo. An uninspiring track and facilities, mixed with a fine disdain for out-of-region noobies from the hosting PCA region, seasoned with a disintegrating clutch on the 2nd day was a recipe for mutual disinterest. I avoided the track until about 2 or 3 years ago when there was 944 Cup race on the North Circuit. I won both races but even that wasn't enough for me to want to return again. I was of the opinion that a visit once a decade was probably the right frequency.

A partial section of the (long) main straight

Until last weekend. After having a fine time with SCCA for our Nationals last year, we were invited to come play on the newly reinvigorated Pocono track with them for a 944 Cup race. The track is under new management and unlike years before, actively want road racers to come visit. What a concept!

Our course was the Yellow outlined pavement, going clockwise.

In theory, the track is less than 2 1/2 hours away from me. But on a Friday afternoon, the Philadelphia metro area proved Einstein's theorem about the relativity of time. Despite leaving by 3pm, I didn't roll into the paddock until around 7:30 that night. Robbie from Provost Motosports, our new 944 North region director, was already in place, having done the test & tune day earlier. Jim Rothenberg and Bob Page were camped by the old Derecola Porsche trailer (bought by Robbie). Marty Okun and James Beirne had snagged garage spots. It seemed that I was the only paddock camper in the 944 group. By 9pm everybody had split and I settled back in the trailer as the rain rolled in and continued all night.

Saturday morning it was still raining. 1st session on the new to me track was Qualifying. This was scheduled for some time in the morning. One of my pet peeves (his name is Harvey by the way) is SCCA's scheduling method. Unlike PCA where there is a  time assigned for your slot so you have general idea of when your run group goes out, SCCA is a bit more free form. The schedule reads something like this:  9am-Noon Groups 1-6. It's up to you to figure it out when you are supposed to be somewhere. They do announce staging over the PA, but that's only audible in the garages, not out in the paddock where we were. Before the weekend was over, I did find a solution: RaceMonitor, a cool little phone app. They were streaming the Timing & Scoring data over the net. By taking a look at the app, I could tell what group was currently on track and suss out when we should be ready.

Soggy Saturday conditions at the 944 Paddock

We get gridded up for Qualifying and head out entering into the huge pit lane. The hot pits stretched the whole length of the straightaway and was very wide. You could hold an autocross just in the pits. Once we get onto the hot part of the track my first impression was "Wow, this is big. The track is crazy wide." My second impression was "Where the hell do I turn in?" Turn one was a dive off the straight into a entrance that looked as wide as the Mississippi. Gray skies, low light and rain and spray coming off the cars ahead didn't help matters much. I have my rear rain light blinking for all it's worth. We're doing about 2 minute laps, and after 9 or 10, the session is over. James Rothenberg grabs pole, with Bob 2nd, me 3rd. The cool thing is all the 944 racers are covered by only a 1.5 second spread. Should be a good race this afternoon.

Bob Page in the squishy paddock

Garages are refurbed and pretty nice

Not just 944's and tin tops, lot's of open wheel cars too

After a steady rain all morning, by 2pm there were patches of clearing. Our race was scheduled for around 4 pm. Looking at the radar, it seem that most of the storm system had cleared us and was headed for New Jersey. Time for dry tires!

Race 1 was pretty interesting. I started 3rd and by the end of the lap I was up to 1st. Lots of cars off on the first lap and we had a full course yellow. I blew the yellow flag coming on to the front straight, just flat out missed it. In my defense, this was probably only my 10th lap on a new track, and the 1st lap where it wasn't dark and raining. But I still didn't see it, it was my mistake. But the race gods, aka the officials took pity on me and didn't call it.

Marty Okun and his 924

After a few laps I see Bob Page on my tail. We go side by side for a while and eventually he gets past me. So I'm tucked behind Bob's bumper and as we go past start/finish I see the 1 lap to go sign. This is it! Turn 5 is a sharp right hander from the North infield onto the back straight. I've been consistently fast off the corner before this. Bob liked to swing wide left to maximize his run onto the long back straight leaving the whole inside unprotected. This time I got a great run off the corner and went down the inside. While it might compromise my speed down the straight I figured if I get in front of Bob, I should be able to keep him behind me to the checker. Unfortunately Bob came down on me and we touched. Bob started a tank slapper on the back straight, while I whoa'd up to see which way he would go. Meanwhile Marty Okun who had been a bit behind me comes flying up. Not being involved in our battle, he's able to take a clean line onto the straightaway, leaving Bob and me in his wake. Both of us scrambled after him, but Marty beat us all to the checker, with Bob taking 2nd and myself 3rd.

Robbie Provosts wide 924

While Robbie was strong at the beginning of the race, he soon faded and was gone. Something broke in his car. He soon loaded up and was gone back to his shop, hoping to fix and return. It didn't happen and that was the last we saw of him. Jim Rothenberg went off on the first lap and beached in the mud. Pulled out and washed up, he was ready to go on Sunday. Jim Beirne closed out the field in his 924.

Sunday dawned bright and breezy. Race 2 went off about 10:30. SCCA was nice to give us a "split-start" with the rest of the field, allowing all of us to race together. 944 Cup brought up the back of the field. Ahead of us was the rest of the cars, ITA, ITR, ITS and Spec Miata. We hung back about 100 yards from the field, and when they got the green, so did we. The straight is so long that by the time we were turning into Turn 1, we were already moving through the back of the group ahead. With a 45 foot wide racing surface, we were 3 wide through all the infield. By turn 2 I was up to 2nd, passing Marty. Bob had gotten a great start and was up ahead. I was chasing after, focused on the blue 21 car. I had passed a spec miata on my right and was in the middle of the track. I turned in to turn 4, a right hander, putting the power down at the apex, when WHAM! and I was spinning off the track. That little Spec Miata punted me off and kept going. I had to wait for the rest of the field to pass by and made it back on track. I worked my way up to 3rd before the race finished, but wasn't close enough to get to the 2nd place car of Marty. Bob took the win.

At the time, I had no idea who punted me. After the race we were all impounded for 20 minutes but no driver came forward. This is another one of my pet peeves (this one is called Sam). If you hit somebody or even don't hit them , but do something stupid to another driver, go find them and talk to them. To not do so is just wrong. I filed a protest with SCCA for the incident, forking over my $25.

The Punter

The Puntee - me! Poor quarter-panel, it gets no respect.

Luckily I run video, and it actually was working. Considering it was the 1st race weekend of the year, that's pretty amazing. My afternoon was spent filling out paperwork, talking in the hearing and showing my video. As I was being called to the grid for the last race the ruling came down, my protest was upheld unanimously  the other driver was totally at fault and received some sanctions, and I got my $25 back. My prize was I got to repair my car. While I was fiddling with the paperwork and such, Jim and the rest of the 944 gang help pull my fender back out and off my tire with a sissors jack, so I could race later. Thanks guys!

Race 3 was good. While I still had no idea on where to turn in for turn 1, I would occasionally get it just right. Just not with any consistency. Bob started on pole and got a great jump on the field. I got into 2nd quickly, but kept getting tangled in  slower traffic with some IT cars. They were slow through the infield, but faster than me once we got onto the straights. Meanwhile Bob got into clear air and drove away. Toward the end of the race my oil pressure was started to drop, so I backed off since I wasn't going to catch Bob. I backed off enough to tease Marty behind me, but not enough to let him catch me ... We ended the day with Bob getting another win, me in 2nd, and Marty in 3rd.

So, will I wait another 10 years before coming back? I don't think so. While the track doesn't compare to Watkins Glen or VIR, they have made light years of changes since the last time I've been there. And all for the better. The course was wide, affording 3 wide racing. The asphalt was grippy and the course was fun to run. The run-off grounds no longer looks like a car destroying moonscape. Is it perfect? Far from it, it's still a work in progress, but I've changed my opinion from once every 10 years, to Yeah, I'd be happy to come back.

But before that happens, the Glen is in a couple of weeks. With 70+ 944's taking the green, that should be an awesome weekend. So you know where I'll be until then, coated with bondo dust in the Alpine Garage.

Ahh, the smell of bondo in the morning ... cough, cough, respirator please ...