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!