Sunday, October 26, 2008

Mid-Ohio - Great Pumpkin Race

REVIEW:
If you had asked me anytime between the first race of this year (VIR) and Oktoberfest (Watkins Glen), I probably would’ve told you that I anticipated attending this race at Mid-Ohio just simply for fun. If you’ve been keeping up, you may remember that I incurred a penalty at VIR for hitting a tire wall in practice. That penalty put me on probation for 3 months, took away all my points for that weekend, and docked me 20 points off of my season total points. I didn’t know if it was even possible to recover from that.

The results from Oktoberfest changed things. I had beaten out the biggest field of competitors this year at my home track of Watkins Glen in 2 of the 3 races. The feature race had the only 200% points multiplier of the year and, with up to 10 bonus points for the 12 racers finishing behind me, it added up to be the largest and 2nd largest possible single points finishes possible for the series. Had I not snapped an axle in the 3rd race, I may have been able to hang on to pull off a hat-trick, but alas, the 2 wins put me back in contention for the national championship!

So, going into this race at Mid-Ohio, there ended up being a lot riding on these results. I was going to need a few wins through the remaining races this season in order to pull to the front of the national points race. I was only facing one other competitor in K-Prepared, but he was a formidable opponent. I’ve been battling all year with my nemesis, the #82, John Negus.

THIS RACE:
For this weekend, we would have a 40 minute sprint race and a 60 minute enduro, which requires a pit stop. I had dedicated support in the form of my crew-chief-for-the-weekend, Kevin Kreisa, who is my mechanic/badass fabricator under the name DTR Performance, and my friend Jeff Chiang who, for some reason, had offered to help me out again. Since I had to pamper my voluntary crew, I rented a garage, which we shared with my friend Tim Smith and his co-driver Doug Thoms. You may recall that Tim and I traded paint a couple times at Watkins Glen among some close, hard racing.

I had made some significant upgrades to my car before Oktoberfest and I was expecting them to translate into a decent drop in lap time. I was hoping that Negus would no longer be able to keep up with me, but it turned out that he haad also made some major improvements, too, and not only to his car.

It had been raining at Mid-Ohio for the last day or two and, although it had stopped, it wasn’t even 40 degrees in the morning, so that moisture wasn’t really going anywhere. Practice was wothless for me, as we had experienced some delay in having the car prepared that morning, so I only got a few laps, and in cold and wet conditions at Mid-Ohio, it makes for a pretty treacherous time.

For qualifying, the track was wet and we were on rain tires. I had a decent run, but was taking it somewhat easy in consideration of the conditions. Negus qualified just ahead of me. Well, rain is the great equalizer for horsepower, and we would be starting 6th and 7th out of the entire field! We were definitely going to be needing to watch our mirrors for faster traffic coming through, as the conditions dried up for the race.

The start of the first race was crazy. There were faster cars slicing up through the field and when we all reached Turn 1, there were 2 IP cars in front that were spinning and sending the rest of the field scattering to avoid them. NO ONE made contact, though! After narrowly sneaking through that, I worked on closing down the gap between me and Negus. It took about half the race, but when I caught him, I tailed him for a lap before finding the opportunity to take him on the inside of T12 (the drop into Thunder Valley). I was able to hang on for the class win!

The Fun Race was rediculous for me, as my car was oversteering horrendously on the practice tires, which I have some theories about... I decided to just have fun and put on a show for those watching, often drifting through many of the turns in a full tail-slide. I even made a trip into China Beach (off the end of the back straight) for them when I had braked a touch late and was still on them as I turned in. The car snapped around and I went off down into the gravel. I missed it... I hadn't been in there yet this year! After several attempts, I made my way out to the cheering of the crowd that was watching from madness. I drifted through the grass, flashing my lights at them, and continued on to the end.













THANK YOU TO ANDY WELTER FOR THE FANTASTIC PHOTOGRAPHY!
http://www.the-welters.com/racing/bmwcca/oct2008/index.html

On Sunday, there were a lot of people who had come to see the race. Not the least of which were Katy and her parents! Just prior to the Feature Enduro, a rainstorm came through that had everyone scrambling on tire choice. Looking at the radar, it looked like it was going to pass, so I stayed with dry’s. That was the right choice. When it came race time, Negus turned on the heat. He qualified several spots ahead of me and was pulling me early in the race. I had Charles Benoit, in an I-Stock E30 M3, pressuring me from behind. I started slowly closing the gap on Negus and had closed about half of it after 5 or 6 laps. But then Benoit took me on the inside of T7 and the side-by-side through 7-8-9 countered the ground I had just made up on Negus. Benoit got by and I had to put my frustration aside and think about what I could do. He was quicker than me in the straights and I figured that if I could stick close enough to him, I could use his draft to help me catch Negus. While doing this, it only took a handful of laps for us to catch him. And, in the meantime, I set my personal best-lap of a 1:44.556. We caught up with Negus and Benoit got by him.





We were at the 40 minute mark and my guy Kevin told me over the radio to "pit on the next lap". I acknowledged this, but I wasn’t going to pit until I had caught Negus and put some pressure on him. If past experience was any indication, all I had to do was get close to him and he would put himself off. I caught him and as we were going into the carousel, he went in a bit hot and had the car sliding around the ouside of the turn. I tucked in under him, but keeping as much distance as I could so that I could either accelerate or brake, depending on what his car did. As soon as I saw the opportunity, I jetted ahead and watched Negus spin off into the gravel behind me. I called in to Kevin that I would, indeed, pit on the next lap. My friend Dave Cochran happened to capture video of the incident!:


The pit stop went smoothly and I headed back out. A lap later, Benoit exited the pits and we had ourselves a great battle to the end of the race, with me crossing the finish line merely inches off his bumper. I could hear Katy and her parents cheering when I pulled into the pits at the end! It was great to have the support of so many people around, sticking out the cold weather!

The results from this race weekend positioned me to need to simply finish one of the 3 races at Barber Motorsports Park in November in order to clinch the K-Prepared National Championship. The Barber write-up is coming next…