Qualifying is over – ended by a crash in the bypass. Will Schrader was in the car and was constantly balked by slower traffic – he never got anything resembling a clear lap. It started raining during the full course caution caused by the crash.
Our time of 2:13.256 puts us 7th in E3. Most others had just as much trouble as we did.
The car is now on the dyno to cross check against information from the data system, which officials put in the car earlier, to enforce rules that govern the hp / weight ratio allowed in our class – we’re going to be just fine.
Practice is about to end and after working all day to find some speed in the car, finally some is coming. We’re not there yet, however. The “silver car” (back-up)was 3 seconds per lap faster than the “white car” this morning. The race car is now within a second per lap.
Qualifying will start at 4:45, this afternoon. Live Timing
Post MealPreparing for Data Analysistighter paddock spaces than usual
Our Man Will
must have light...brakes are an important part of the Team MC strategy - we have themcalm before the stormour friend / nemesis Dr. Dan swapping a motor in his Cinco de Mayo costumeClaire - doesn't know what she's got herself into...
We awoke this morning to clearing skies and a damp track with temperatures in the mid 40’s. The rain had come early evening yesterday, so this was all expected.
Crew Chief, Brian Clemons and Ed Pavone arrived at the track in time for dinner last night, and Bruce Wilson and Jeff Jenks (the only new-to-the-25 crew-member) arrived just after mid-night.
The driver’s are currently registering for the day’s test session and Jonny Davies is now in the car first for the initial shake-down. Ken’s race car is here as a spare and is available to ensure there is time to get all 4 driver’s quickly re-acquainted with Thunderhill. All of them have a lot of experience here – Will and Ken are the current and previous Spec Miata lap record holders.
The primary task of the day is to find balance in the non-Spec Miata shock and spring package we are running. The car is more stable with this set-up, but it’s still relatively new to us.
If we do get rain during the day (there is a chance of showers in the vicinity) we will do fuel mileage consumption tests for wet conditions.
The big unknown when traveling south this time of year is weather in the Siskiyous. In the past, the forecasts have allowed for a reasonable expectation of a single day trip. This year, as with last, the caravan would include two motor coaches pulling trailers and a 3rd truck with another – we decided to have a head start, this time.
We left Sherwood yesterday at 6pm with aspirations of reaching Medford. After a stop for food and impromptu tour of Roseburg, we eventually stopped for the night at Grants Pass.
Some of the crew stayed in a hotel while the rest of us stayed in the Walmart parking lot – a first for me. Not to mis-understand, I’ve slept in (and near) many parking lots, but never when the owner was encouraging it.
Over the Mountain and Through the Woods
Interestingly (to me anyway), is that our first nature break of day two was at the unusually nice mountain rest area where Kirk Knestis and I had stealthily camped on our trip to the first two Renault Cup races of 1985. We had slept in sleeping bags next to the Klamath River – we would have slept in the race car / tow vehicle / race trailer, except that all of our tools, spares and camping gear were in there. We awakened to ice formed in our hair and no prospects for a decent meal – racing is so much fun…
History had repeated itself very compassionately, today. This morning, after a night of flawless temperature control via the coach’s heating system, Carrie made us bagels with cream cheese and we stopped on the way out of town for some espresso – this is much more civilized, and Will assures me is further proof of the existence of God. I am inclined to agree.
Continuing south, making the traditional stop at the Redding In-and-Out Burger, we eventually reached Willows early this afternoon to embark on another small town touring mission to fill the propane tank in Miatacage One. Meanwhile, Miatacage Two, with the spare car, and the truck with the race car, started set-up at the track.
Testing has just ended for the day and we’re settling into our home for the next 3 days.
Let the fun begin!
Ken, Will and Kevin Moving the Command Center into PositionBunkmates last night - we'll never know for sure what happened in there...Preparing to Prepare for Battle
It is two days before we leave for Thunderhill and it’s time to “switch on”.
An important part of racing is understanding the rules we’re working with and making sure not to run afoul in any way – it’s also a good idea to be aware of what you may be up against.
While doing the final preparations of the car, the subject of the “factory” Honda CR-Z’s entered in our class (E3) came up. I wasn’t there and the first I heard of any concern was when I received a call from Sean Hedrick asking what I knew about this – and if I would look into HOW that bitchin’ little piece had worked it’s way into E3.
I had seen the car at SEMA and gave it a second look (but not a third) – it is gorgeous, but surely it was nothing I had any reason to be particularly interested in. It had a big wing, a splitter and a retro-cool graphics package that made it look to be just another hotted up corporate promo piece – which is probably truer than not, but…
Honda CR-Z
Then, this story about how Honda is going “grassroots” racing caught one of the guy’s attention… He thought this was one of the cars entered in E3? Really?
Any yahoo can write a blog (duh…) so – we can’t just take this at face value – because, if we did, this car couldn’t be E3 eligible (they’re advertising too much horsepower, for example). On the other hand, we probably shouldn’t just ignore it. I’m most concerned that the car has a turbo and a custom built ECU, which both make the car unbelievably easy to quickly tune to higher horsepower numbers and back again in an un-detectable way.
I’ll continue to chase down the rules (that are somewhat complicated regarding these things) and figure out where we stand. I don’t mind a fight, but if I’ve agreed to fight with a knife (or a 20 year old chick car), I want to know the other guy isn’t packin’ a gun (or two) – well, at least I want to know what kind of gun it is.
The Miatacage.com Endurance Racing Team has won the “21 Hours of Thunderhill” two years in a row – and there isn’t a trophy for that. The first week in December we will be heading south to do the 2009 result one better and win the bloody thing for a change.
2009 Post Race Photo - all fingers and toes intact...
Sean Hedrick (Mr. Miatacage.com) is a longtime supporter of amateur sports car racing, in general, and Spec Miata, specifically. “The White Car” was built by members of the team with the purpose of winning this race in 2008 – we blew it… up.
The short version (long version is in here somewhere) is that the throttle body broke while we were leading the ultra-competitive E2 class by what I recall being as much as 5 laps. By the time we found a replacement we were down 5 laps and not much interested in finishing second. While 2 laps down, we decided to skip an under hood check to add some oil to the motor which was consuming lots of it. We don’t know exactly how much oil came out of the four holes made in the block when the connecting rod separated itself from the piston – but it was most of the rest.
In 2009 we were again enjoying a comfortable 5 lap lead when a rear hub sheered itself in two – yes, that IS weird… the car was towed back to the paddock where drivers Ken Sutherland and Will Schrader made repairs which allowed us to finish – in 15th overall and 2nd place in class E2.
Putting on the pressure late in the 09 race.
During 2009, I had raced the car a couple of times – so it was already well sorted when it came time to do the Thunderhill preparations. It really is one of the best Spec Miata’s I have ever driven. It has a safe cage with a nice roomy cockpit; it’s easy to see out of and is generally comfortable to drive quickly.
In 2010, the team made The White Car available as a rental (to increase the 25 Hour budget) and it was returned molested to the extent that it needed some real “body shop” kind of attention. The shakedown that followed resulted in more damage (which was easily repaired) and then the fresh enduro motor nearly suffered a catastrophic failure which required a complete rebuild after just one lap.
Everything is okay now as the team packs for the trip to Willows, California. Hopefully the strange luck has played itself out and this 3rd time will be a charm. The team of previous years is mostly intact and the driver’s roster contains only Oregon Region Spec Miata Champions (amongst other substantial accomplishments) – all of them are championship and race winners.
As last year, drivers Sutherland and Schrader are joined by Jon Davies and newly crowned Oregon Region SM champ Bruce Wilson. Brian Clemons will again serve as Crew Chief and Carrie Sutherland as Den Mother.
The entire team has been through this exercise at least once. Jason Rawlins (the owner of my 2007 Championship winning car) and his wife Cheree will be with us again. Kevin “Big Hands” Clark and Josh McKinney are back for the second time – this time possibly with Josh’s wife Holli and their newly born daughter (start them young…).
Perfect Pit Stops in 2009 - The Team Returns
Sam Davies will be joined by her younger sister Claire (neither of them are strangers to race cars, and Dave Sutherland and Ed Pavone (both longtime crew members of team leader Ken Sutherland) will provide “over-the-wall” experience. In addition Ed brings financial support to the team – you might say he is fully committed to the program…
I’ll be there to fill in when needed, file and defend protests, annoy competitors and report here on the team’s progress. If there is any doubt that we race because it’s “hard”, the fact that we are returning again, should put that debate to rest.
Sunday, I arrived in “race” mode at Portland International Raceway for the first time in over a year. I had stopped racing the weekly bicycle road racing series relatively early last season over concerns about the safety, and my last car race there was in August 09.
A Challenge:
The grassy areas outside the north and west ends of the track, where the cross course is, hold a lot of water. PIR is a city park and was originally built on land that had been the City of Vanport. Vanport had been built to house workers at the Kaiser Shipyard during World War II but flooded when a dike broke during a big storm – it is low and near a big river.
Storms are normal in Portland during the fall and this Sunday wouldn’t be an exception. I knew that the conditions would be tough for me, but that I would have an advantage in that PIR is one of my “happy places”. It would be wet and muddy, but I spend a lot of time there and I could think of that as a home field advantage. And, I could call upon non cycling related experiences to help me here.
A Psychological Advantage?:
A few years ago, my friend Garth Stein wrote a novel called “The Art of Racing in the Rain”. Rain can be a “happy place”, too, and for most of my driving career it was. A few years before that Garth had organized a racing clinic that, in addition to being a boon for Northwest Spec Miata drivers, was a research exercise for his book.
The leaders of the clinic were Don Kitch and Ross Bentley. They are both highly regarded proponents of the concept that mental preparedness is a massive part of success in sports – particularly auto racing (and I say bicycle racing, perhaps even more). They are both gifted communicators and I left those two days with a new respect for the discipline required to become successful in sport.
I suppose that’s a round-a-bout way of getting to the point that PIR is on my happy place list and I would be racing in the rain – that’s good. I think it is in Bentley’s “Inner Speed Secrets” book that all the hocus pocus, voo-doo, “be the ball” stuff is discussed – I’m a believer, and as such, got on with the task of preparing for what could be my day.
To paddock near the cross course at PIR it is necessary to arrive before racing begins at around 8:30. The start / finish line is just behind the turn 7 grandstand and the course runs out past turn 4 (between the track and golf course) on one side and down toward the center of the back straight on the other. I set up the Ten Guys Named Alex compound directly adjacent to the cross course, near start finish in the grass, and settled in for a long day of racing.
Big Mike, Slugging it Out with the Big Boys
The first race I was interested in was the Clydesdale race where TGNA teammate Mike Hall finished 3rd and a couple of my friends from Hood River also did well. The wind and rain came and went all day. Ken Sutherland was out again to see some bike racing, and as with any car race, we continuously observed the weather off to the west and discussed tire pressures – I wish I’d had some sway bars to disconnect.
The Race:
The course was a mess by the time my 11:40 start arrived – the wet grass becomes muddier with each bike that passes. 3 races, times 5 laps, times 200 racers – yes, 3,000 bikes. The weather, however, had temporarily become very nice. And, I had finally earned a call-up by climbing to 13th in series points at Sherwood. It seemed if ever I was to do well in a sloppy race, that this was the day.
Well, not so fast… The start went well enough and I rode the first half lap with my Hood River nemesis’ Gregg and Jeff but had a minor pedal problem that I might have dealt with a little better.
After the first run-up everybody’s shoes become packed with mud and I couldn’t re-engage my cleat after remounting the bike. I spent too much time trying to make it work. It got worse after the section that was so sloppy that it became a run-down. The gap became large and by the time I was able to work it out I was in danger of falling out of the points.
I needed to focus and remember the plan I had made for such a situation – there is an art to racing in the rain… but, how the hell does this part go??? The solution was to start riding through some of the many big puddles – this would rinse the pedals and shoes. It kind of worked. So, I got on with just riding the bike and trying to get some positions back. The racing was good and I think my “adverse conditions” riding is improving. I wish Ross would write a bike racing book… He could call it “Hey Dumb Ass, Most Race Cars Have Roofs and You Could be Warm and Dry Right Now!!!” Anyway, this isn’t “my thing” and I think he could help me change that.
Next:
I’ve got some ideas about how to attack some of the issues I’m having with these sloppy courses. Arriving early and camping near the start / finish line helped me mentally – and that’s half the battle. I rationalize that it has been just over two years since I did my first cross race, and I missed almost all of last season – patience. This reminds me a little bit too much of my return to auto racing in 2003 – I want to win now, but there are a bunch of guys that have other plans. I worked that out last time…
Technically, this IS girls fighting in the mud... That's good, right?
I do think that I’m done with Cross Crusade, for now. I’m going to do some racing up north and see how the courses and format there suit me. A big part of bike racing is figuring out how one’s skills can best be utilized to achieve success – I’ll need a broader base of experience to work that one out. There are some long time cross venues in the Puget Sound area and I’d like to see them, for starters.
The class structure is different in the Seattle Cyclocross series, too. They have a 45+ Cat 3 (like B’s in OBRA) – I think I might be okay there. And technically, I’m a Cat 4 – do I want to race, or do I want a trophy…? They race at Steilacoom on Sunday.
I hope it’s really wet and muddy – my new happy place.
This cross thing has been a bit of a challenge for me so far this year – almost like “real” racing… Well, it is real racing as it turns out, and that has made it easier for me to swallow the pill of no race driving for now.
Everything was going quite well until I got hurt at the beginning of last season. I battled bronchitis early in this season, which kind of sucked. Finally, Alpenrose went pretty well, and Rainier wasn’t horrible. But, it wasn’t until Sherwood that I finally had a result that matched what I was expecting each weekend last year.
There are some things about bicycle racing that can be frustrating. Amongst those things are the lack of confidence I have in the way scoring is done, and that some other important rules are vague, non-existent, un-published and / or change without notice – but, we are expected to understand and comply with them, anyway. The difference (for those that haven’t figured it out yet) between a bike race and a bicycle ride, is rules.
So, I made the decision to not be bothered by all of that pesky rules and scoring stuff and to just show up and enjoy the day. I would spend Sunday at the Sherwood Forest Equestrian Center for a race / ride – depending on my mood at race time.
Saturday night I had attended a Miatacage.com team meeting in Portland and slept on the sofa of the meeting room (surrounded by empty pizza boxes and beer bottles). I woke up at about 7:30 and drove straight to Sherwood. As I was there early, I had the opportunity to visit some friends and teammates, drink some coffee (thanks Chris King), eat some oatmeal (thanks Bob’s Red Mill) and to see some racing without being in a rush.
Steve, Sean, Brian and Big Mike – Ten Guys Named Alex
“Big Mike” Hall (Ten Guys Named Alex teammate) has been on the podium for all of the Clydesdale races (dudes over 200 pounds) – we call him Monster Mike now. The start line of the Clydes race is a crazy sight. Those guys are big and a bunch of them are built like NFL linebackers – it’s not just a bunch of fat guys. Mike nearly won one this time, but some big fast dude that used to be a smaller fast dude beat him – again. I had teased Mike beforehand about not bothering to talk to me after, if he didn’t win – this is the email I got from him on Monday (shared with permission):
Dude, I could not seem to find a solution for Coker. However I will continue to try. He even flatted and somehow caught me. I hate him…I really do. I don’t understand how a Pro 1,2 rider can race Clydes. Especially since he’s already competed with the Mstr. A’s. Shouldn’t it be the other way around. Like shouldn’t you start in the Clydes (provided your fat ass qualifies you to do so) and then move up to the A’s as you get stronger??? WTF?
On one redeeming note, he is most definitely taking me into areas of suffering I did not know I was capable of.
I was gonna come talk to you after my race but you told me I couldn’t unless I won. Well guess what? I didn’t win. Why? Because I suck. I can’t tell you how bummed I was to not be able to converse with you. It was only til now that I could bring myself to send you this e-mail.
In fact all I really wanted to say was congratulations on your top 10 finish before the OBRA scorers decide to drop you a few spots cuz someone emails them and says “Hey I finished before that Towey guy”!
Cheers.
Rivalries are great and my money’s on Mike to climb to the top of that one.
Parkers and Pumpkins:
I have some rivalries, too – so do you, even if you don’t know about them yet… My favorite rivalries have always been with good friends. In auto racing, most recently, the rival was Ken Sutherland, who has come to watch two Cross races this year – we had many epic battles. In Cross, I currently measure my results with the other old guys from Hood River – Jeff Parker and the Mountain View Pumpkins.
I sold a motorcycle to Jeff almost ten years ago, and rode a bicycle with him for the first time recently. I used to ride in the Mountain View kit and there are 3 left in the Masters 50 field – they’re orange and they look like pumpkin camouflage. They are all good guys, and I want to crush them – like evil pumpkins deserve.
Jeff had a great ride at Rainier to leap frog both me and Ed T. (who I don’t know – because I think he is a mountain bike guy and they don’t socialize with roadies), and Gregg Leion has simply been killing it every week. All three of them were in front of me in series points when the race started Sunday. They also all have “call-ups” which means that they would start the race in front of me, as well.
The call-up rule is one of the “secret” rules that I haven’t been able to locate yet – as near as I can tell somebody decided that they would call up 15 (I am 16th in points).
The Race:
I got a great start and was battling with Gregg through the first series of turns. My plan was to start fast to avoid the cluster at the run-up and then settle into a steady pace. Gregg eventually secured his position in front of me and began to make a gap. Last week Jeff had instructed his son to turn me into a fence line – a task he executed flawlessly causing me to become separated from my bicycle. This week, Jeff was in front of me as we approached the barrier before the creek. He slipped and augured into the plywood – I only stepped on him once.
Pumpkin Hunt – Chasing Gregg at the Start
Jeff caught me on the next lap – he started a conversation, no doubt to remind me that he was there. We got on with the task of grinding out the laps – Gregg continued to ride away.
What normally happens (ask any Cross racer about it) is that riders will go out too hard and then drop through the field like rain soaked oak leaves during a big fall storm. My former sports car racing rival, Ken asked before my race if there was any information that would be useful to me – I asked for time gaps and got them on the big climb. I thought that it might help me with my discipline.
The information helped me to keep the pressure on and with each lap the number of riders in front of me shrank. The race was six laps long and my middle four were all within 6 seconds of each other (three were within 2 seconds) – the last was the quickest of all and I was within two minutes of the winner. I am happy with the final result (9th), but consistency through the race is the most encouraging and more important in the big picture.
Making Laps – Beautiful Day and Lots of Grip
Even more important than any of that, however, is I was able to regain contact with and eventually pass Gregg (for the first time this year) having gapped Jeff and Ed. That means victory in the “Category Old Dudes from Hood River” race (ODHR – you can look it up on OBRA Results) – which is a pretty tough crew.
Speaking of tough, Sean Becker (TGNA) has been racing in Masters A and was in one of the lead groups for half of the race. Apparently he went “wet leaf” in a big way sometime after the midpoint. He did relay that while being passed by some tall skinny guy that a spectator yelled at him to pick up the pace because he was catching Ryan Trebon (former National Champion). Looking good, Sean – Bravo!!!
Debrief with Ken – Just Like the Old Days…
In addition to the teammates and other cycling friends, Ken, Carrie (the photographer), their daughter Emma (the cowbell shaker) all made it for the start. All of the support is appreciated and motivating – and contributed to the result. And maybe, next week, the secret rules will mysteriously allow me to have a call-up!!!
