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.
There has been plenty happening lately (I am bicycle racing some and I’ve done some driver coaching), but I haven’t taken any time to write about it. This, however, was an important week that capped off an unusually strange year…
Last Sunday was my first visit to Alpenrose Dairy since I broke my femoral neck there, almost exactly a year ago. I managed this while previewing the opening race of the 2009 Cross Crusade bicycle racing series. Thursday, I strapped into a race car for the first time since before the cycling mishap.
Part of the fall-out of the cycling crash was the necessity to make some difficult decisions. The first was to yield my place as a driver in the Miatacage.com effort to win the 25 Hours of Thunderhill in December – it was the best thing for the team, but also put me on a path that lead away from being reliably effective as a race driver.
Working Out the Bugs at an Early Season Cross Race
The nice part was that it allowed me to focus on rehabilitating my injury and regaining some of my fitness more quickly. I was racing the bicycle again at Tucson in March (5 months after surgery) and I feel very healthy – that is a reasonable accomplishment with which I am very pleased.
Return to the Scene…:
Upon arriving at Alpenrose on Sunday, we walked toward the place on the course where I had fallen. There is a concrete stairway on the grounds that makes an interesting (but totally treacherous, in my view) feature for a cross race. As last year, the morning was a bit damp and at 9:30 (before the start of the second race) there was already lots of wet dirt on the black-top where riders must dismount their bicycles.
I stepped onto the course and ran my foot across the dirty surface where the racers would leave a grass area to make a 180 turn on the approach to the dismounting zone – F*** ME, it was super slick!!! I didn’t need this – let the two hour long freak-out session begin.
My race (Masters 50) would start at 11:40. We watched the start of the Clydesdale (200 plus pounders) and Cat C (like Cat 4 on the road) race and observed the carnage. Every third rider was hitting the ground – HARD. How smart would it be for me, knowing how dangerous this course can be, to race here?
Searching for Grip…
There was a break scheduled for after the Cat C race, so I returned to the car to get kitted up and prepare to have a look at the rest of it – but especially the stairs. Everybody and their brother (and sisters and all of their kids) was out there. It was mostly okay, but the course also utilizes the famous Alpenrose Velodrome which is concrete on the apron and is painted on the smooth banked concrete surface. So – lots of hard surface with dirt and / or mud on it (or wet paint). Perfect… Even better was that because of the slow movement of the preview caravan, I was diverted from the course before reaching the stairs. So, I wouldn’t have the peace of mind of some perspective and having done one low speed dismount there prior to lap 1 of the race.
I had, by now (and sensibly), managed to persuade myself that racing this day was a bad idea. Ken, Carrie and Emma Sutherland had come out to see about this sport that was filling the void left by auto racing, and I informed them that I would be able to explain it to them during my race, because I wasn’t going out there just to entertain the Portland hippies. Carrie was understanding, but Ken thought it would be good if I started at the back and just rode around – after all, I was entered and everything…
I did have a pretty good starting draw for riding around at the back – so, what the hell? My number in the “starting lottery” was picked seventh of ten. What that means is that everybody with a number that ends with a “2” would start together about two thirds deep in the field.
I’m glad that cross is popular, and eventually it all sorts out, but it can be frustrating (and a bit dangerous) when lots of guys that haven’t been on a race bike since last December are starting in front of you. No, I don’t have a plan that you would like and that would also solve the problem… But, what this means is that the faster guys starting at the back (like my friend Gregg Leion who drew the eighth number) would be blowing through the field at the start. Gregg is retired so he doesn’t have to bother with being at work Monday morning and therefore can take big risks…
It all turned out okay – some of the 130 Master B’s that started 2 minutes ahead of us ended up on the ground before reaching the first turn (or the actual start line), but we were fine. I had a good race and after starting somewhere around 60th of 84 old dudes, I not only stayed upright, but I also made it to 17th place – which gets me 2 points and a call-up for the next race in the series (meaning that I start nearer the pointy end).
That’s one demon slain.
And then, back at the race track…:
The Miatagace.com Race Team has been preparing for the 25 hours of Thunderhill pretty much since, for the second year in a row, we led most of the race only to have a mechanical failure within sight of the finish. Part of that preparation has included renting the car to other drivers so that the team budget can be supplemented – money fixes everything… Well, the car has been knocked around a bit as a result, and it would be useful to run it.
As this weekend is the final SCCA Regional Race of the year (two of them, actually) at Portland International Raceway. Race weekends always begin with an un-official test day, which would be Thursday. This would be the best last chance to do any testing before Thunderhill, and there were some new suspension bits to try and decisions to make.
Drivers Will Schrader and Jonny Davies would handle that task along with crew member Josh McKinney. Chuck Hall had made lots of changes to his Spec Miata for this season, but had only run it once. He was in town to evaluate any other changes to make over this winter. He invited me to come out and do some laps so that he could have a second opinion.
I suppose that driving a Spec Miata, for me, is a bit like riding a bike – it’s not a sure thing that I’ll do it properly… The car ran well earlier in the year, but we would have the challenge of running on two sets of questionable tires (a mostly used up set of R-888’s from last year, and some RA-1’s from 2003).
The good news for me is that I’ve spent a lot of time racing on tires that others would have thrown out (or had). We started on the 888’s which some guys didn’t care for, but I liked the couple of times I raced on them last year – they feel a bit more like “real” race tires. We did air pressure and ride height adjustments to get the balance right and the car was a comfortable “loose-ish” – just like we want it.
One of the coolest things I saw all day was an old (mid – late 1970’s) March Formula Atlantic car. In my first session, it passed me leaving the chicane and it was neat to see the massive rear tires (those cars were only low 200’s on horse power). All of that mechanical grip made them a blast to watch when there were fields of 50 of them “back in the day” – aerodynamics, schmerodynamics. Cool stuff.
The Business End of a March 76B Formula Atlantic
The first laps on the nearly eight year old RA-1’s felt like the dirty, damp concrete surface at Alpenrose. After a half dozen laps they began to gain some grip and the lap times started to come down. I ran a good series in the high 1:32’s and low 33’s with a handful of laps within 2/10ths of a second – I was pleased with the consistency and the behavior of the car, so we called it a day.
Perhaps the most interesting thing to me was that I was comfortable in that particular car. I’ve spent a fair amount of time in it over the years, and the driving position and mirror set-up have always been a challenge. Cyclists can think of this as a seat being too far forward, or handlebars that you don’t like the feel of – it makes a difference.
Today, however, everything was fine even though the car hadn’t changed. I think that not having the recent perspective of something that I was used to contributed to that. This makes me think that I could have done better adjusting to such changes in the past. I learn something every time I go to the race track.
You wouldn’t think of the Mid-Columbia region as motorsports hot bed, but we have quite a bit going on here (drag racers, circle track, speed record and lots of road racers). At one time there were six Spec Miatas living within several miles of my home in Hood River (I think there was one for every 1,000 people that live in town)… And living in Hood River makes us the closest active road racers to ORP. Several years ago Jonny Davies and I drove out to the field in Grass Valley, Oregon where a race track now exists – If you build it they will come…
the view of Oregon Raceway Park from the road outside of Turn 2
Back then ORP was merely an inspired field of dreams, but nobody was sure how the venture would turn out – they have now held a sanctioned sports car race. That is a massive accomplishment.
activity around the registration trailer
I had planned to drive out to the track on Sunday of the Founders Grand Prix to see how it had all worked out, when I received a phone call. Holly Remington, who seemingly has had every responsibility at every car club in the Northwest, called to ask if I would drive the Pace Car… Really? Wasn’t I recently, banned, fined and then un-banned and then un-fined for some sort of unacceptable behavior..? …never mind that, and could I also bring a Pace Car? As it was Holly that had asked, I said yes.
My first thought was to call Tim Urness at the Chrysler / Dodge dealership in The Dalles to ask if he was interested in being the “communications” guy (and if HE could bring a Pace Car). Tim is an easily certifiable motorhead and is also the guy who organizes the summer drag races that happen at the Dallesport airport (which is also the location of the top secret Team Hoodwinked test facility). We’ve been talking about a trip out to Grass Valley, and this seemed like a perfect excuse to go. Tim called me back from the veranda of a beach house in Virginia to tell me about the 80 degree weather he was enjoying, and the appropriately cooler temperature of the cocktail he was sipping – and, to tell me that he would arrange for the Pace Car.
The Urness Motors supplied pace car
Tim and Mike (Tim’s brother) had recently taken a 2010 Dodge Challenger R/T with a six speed transmission on trade – he thought that car could handle whatever pacing might be necessary. And it did.
There were a couple of notable highlights for me over the course of the weekend. Importantly, nothing bad happened – although I was “Red Flagged” while giving rides to the Medivac crew. I, of course, ignored the flag because the man holding it was not displaying it from the proper location… there are rules about these things and I know better than to disregard rules at a Conference race.
the medivac paramedic about to go for a ride
It was an honor to be asked to drive the pace car at such an historic event. And, it was a huge privilege to be able to drive a couple of laps with Bob Caspell (the man who shepherded the track into existence).
It was fun to take the crew members of the Medivac Chopper on tours of the track and I enjoyed spending some time with Bill Harris (who I know from working at ProDrive) who shared the Pace Car work load by handling communications.
one of Sunday's races entering the track
ORP will be a great Drivers School / HPDE track. Not having raced there, I’m not sure how I feel about it as a race track yet. It is very “turny” with a lot of elevation change – it is certainly technically challenging. Some tracks are very “racey” (meaning that they practically beg for you to attempt passes) – ORP is not one of those places. It may be nearly impossible to pass a skilled driver with a “wide” car – we’ll see.
The setting is spectacular and the weather in that part of Oregon is much drier than on the west side of the state. It is little more than a two hour drive from Portland – a small price to pay for access to a very interesting race track.
