944 Cup Nationals - some pics

Just got my CD of pics from the Nationals. Here's some that I like. (I'm in the pink car if you couldn't guess).

944 Cup Nationals - continued

The cute stewardess handed me a drink as I thundered along at 50,000 feet in the Alpine Motorsports private jet. "We should be landing at Danville in a couple hours. Do you want your usual sushi lunch?" As I stretched and started to drift off to sleep in the comfortable leather seats I thought I could really get used to this. As I sleep, the flight started to get a bit bumpy, with several sharp jolts.

"Hey Wake Up!" Bam! Wha? What? "Aren't you leaving for VIR?" asked my wife as she leaned over me in the driveway. "I thought you wanted to get there early for registration. Isn't it a 6+ hour drive?" So maybe Arrive & Drive racing came in several flavors, and I can only afford vanilla. But even so, for the first time in about 10 years I was heading to the track without my giant safety blanket, my trailer. Tools, spare parts, even A/C, all abandoned as I hustled down I-95.

I make good time and am at the track, through registration and wandering the paddock by 4 pm. No big pink trailer. Well, it's nothing that I can control, so I grab myself a beer and start visiting.

Spoiled Boys Racing - The Crowell Brothers

Mid Atlantic racer Glen Evans

Early next morning, the pink trailer is waiting in the paddock and starts disgorging it's cargo of racecars.

 

#356 - My race car for the weekend

 First up is the driver's meeting. The SCCA Pro Racing representative welcomes us to the event and goes over some of the weekend's rules. Next is chief 944 honcho Dave Derecola (DD).

After the meeting was the first practice session. This was to be my first time in the rental pink car. We got the seat, belts and mirrors adjusted. A quick lesson on the controls and I headed out onto the track. The session was basically a throw-away. The car was a handful to drive with the rear stepping out under braking and impossible to trail brake. I had no confidence at all in the car. After debrief with Nick, we concluded the used tires on the car were dead and we would put on fresh Hoosiers for the next session. The front shocks were firmed up to put some more weight on the rear to help with the stability.

Bill Repass - Mid Atlantic racer

Second session saw the car totally transformed, it became predictable and I settled down and started to relearn the track. I don't know about you, but as I get older, it's getting harder to just jump in a car and go fast. I need to sneak up on it. I wasn't a threat for the title but I was improving. After the session, it was time for drinking beer and some dinner from our 944 Racing Chef Joe

The Real Racing Chef - Joe Boschulte's #08

Joe's Tools of the Trade

Tomorrow morning started off with our Qualifying session. I continued to improve, knocking a few more seconds off my time and ended up mid-pack. The last Saturday session was the Qualifying race. This would set the grid for the Championship race on Sunday. I started ok, gained a bunch of spots on the start, then slowly over the 45 min race lost those spots . I wasn't as aggressive with somebody else's car as I would have been with mine. I was self insured so any dings/bang/booms were at my cost. Discretion is the better part of a lower MasterCard bill.

My "teammates", sharing the other 2 pink cars were Karl Troy, a 944 SuperCup champion from South Carolina, and Nick Esayian, a pro driver on the Realtime Acura World Challenge team. Karl is a very fast driver and once the car was setup for him, quickly left me in the dust by a couple of seconds. Nick on the other hand, was handicapped by jumping from his front wheel drive Acura with sequential shifter into a (new to him) rear-wheel drive Porsche 944 with a manual H pattern. For a couple of sessions, we ran nose to tail, swapping leads with equal times. However by the Qualifying Race, Nick started to figure out the car and started going fast. I guess that's why he's a Pro driver and I write code.

Nick Esayian being interviewed on TV in front of the Pink Porsches

Nick was very friendly and personable and I enjoyed meeting him. The two Nicks (Esayian and Riefer) were interviewed by SpeedTv announcer Greg Creamer about the Pink Porsches. Another interviewee was our own DD about the 944Cup series, it's history and future. Coming to a TV screen near you!

Dave Derecola - have we created a media monster?

Sunday was for all the marbles. One session, the Championship race. Instead of our usual rolling starts, we were doing it World Challenge/Formula One style: a standing start and when the red lights go out, off we go. All very exciting but in actuality, a bit confusing. We were supposed to go onto the main straight into our assigned grid spots. Hang out for about 5 minutes and then do a sighting lap of the track and then back to our spots and wait for the red lights. However all of a sudden the red lights come on. Wait a minute, we haven't done our outlap! Everybody's tires are stone cold at 9:30 in the morning with paddock gravel bits still on them. Oh shit, the lights go out. Along with everybody else, it's time to go!

Sunday's race was more of the same. Gained some spots, lost some spots, ended up about where I started. Had some good battles. It was all good. Car made it back to the paddock with no damage to it or my MasterCard.

Battling with Canadian Rod Herrera

Canadian Chris Green took the win and Championship trophy. That's the 3rd year in a row the Canadians have taken the Cup. Must be something about those donuts, eh?

 It was nice being a pretend pro driver, having wet towels and bottles of chilled water handed to me before getting out of the car, not working on the car, having lunch prepared, etc. All I had to do was just drive. Nick and his family were great, the cars were well prepared. If you are in the south east, you can't go wrong with the Pink Porsches. Economically it makes sense if you don't already have the infrastructure to go racing. However, I already have the trailer, the tools, the lift, the F250, the spare parts cars and all the rest. So I climbed back into the Subie and pointed it north, back to where the stealth car awaited me on the lift. But it was a fun weekend.

2010 944 Cup Nationals

Time for a break. All summer long I've been working in the garage and not racing. Now's it's September and that means it's time for the 44Cup National Championships. Once again it's at the great track VIR just outside of Danville Virginia. This year, there's a change to the structure of the event. The weekend is a Pro Racing event, the SCCA Pro Racing World Challenge. If you watch any racing at all on the US telly, World Challenge - formally known as SpeedVision World Challenge - was one of the most exciting racing series around. It featured real production cars such as Porsche 911s, Corvettes, Vipers and the like in the GT class and Mazda, Acura and other small bore machines in the Touring Class. Cars that look and are pretty much close to what you can buy down at the car stores. The series, like most racing series over the last several years has lagged abit, but seem to be in the rise again with great car battles.

This year 944 Cup was invited to be part of the weekend to run as a support race. I was psyched to be part of the event. I always love to go to Nationals - I've done badly and also done very well - but it's great to be with all the top 944 drivers battling it out on the track. I've been preparing since spring, I got my car inspected and got a SCCA log book at the Glen event. I joined SCCA and applied for my Pro license. I was ready, all except for one minor detail:

You can't go racing if you don't have a race car that works.

Now my car works, but as we saw at the Glen, not really. The dyno told the tale after the Glen, a blistering 126 hp at the rear wheels. Bringing the Stealth machine to VIR was just taking a knife to a gun fight. Just wasn't going to do it. But a ray of (pink) sunshine is peaking over the horizon. Nick Reifer of N-Tech Racing was bringing his rental posse of pink 944's to Nationals.

A call to Nick revealed that 2 of the 3 cars were being held for some of the WC pros to race with us, but one was available. However, last years Nat's Champion Bill Comat had dibs on the ride. After some gentle baderging of Bill, he decided he needed to not divert his energies from supporting his son's bid for the Championship and passed. So after a signed contract and a few checks, I became an Arrive & Drive racer. Time to see how the other 10% live.