Last Round up
August 2013
I began racing sports cars 58 years ago at a driver’s school held at Marlboro, Maryland in a Bobsy Formula Vee. This could be my LASTRACE.
For the past 10 years, I have been racing under the Formula Race
Promotions (FRP)organization. It has been exceptional and totally free of
autocratic hassles. They provide driver
friendly events with great 
track time and 3 races
each race weekend. Heaven. Unfortunately, our little Right Coast FF
Series (RCFFS) has been unable to muster sufficient entries lately and has been
“voted off the island.” FRP has
partnered with SVRA’s low level vintage racers for the traditional August event
at Summit Point. SVRA has found a way to
include our RCFFS racers in their agenda.
At least there is a race to attend.
Upon arriving midday on Thursday to a paddock already crowded, I decide to nap space under two large walnut trees near the store. We had nice shade, relative quiet and a great breeze plus avoided having to setup the tents. There were a few falling walnuts to tolerate.
Mark Walthew and I took
my extensively repaired Crossle to Summit in July for a test day to make sure
all the work was done properly. It
was. Mark turned some good times despite
having to run nearly 4 year old tires. I
ordered tires for Mark and I from Hoosier Appalachian RacetTires. For
license renewal, I need to log at least one race this season. For what might be my last hurray, I wanted decent
tires.
Since the open SVRA test day had mixed groups of open and closed wheel cars, we decide to forgo this risk. We took our cars over to the mandated “annual” inspection. I almost got sent home due to my seat belts being out of SVRA (adsurd) specs of being greater than two years old. (This is a “VINTAGE” CLUB???) The tech guy after a hushed conversation with God or some other “official” on his radio, handed me a tech sticker and said nothing more. My car seemed to be leaking some petro and the tech guys bought my excuse that I have spilled a bit while filling the fuel cell.
We decided to have our FRESH tires mounted. We call Angie at Appalachian to find out where “Aaron and the tire truck might be. Angie for whatever reason, got our races confused with SCCA on Labor Day. Tires were NOT be there for us. She agreed to ship the tires by overnight express to the track. Mark looked up the track shipping department address for Angie. The Shipping office would call us when the tires arrived.
My car was still leaking a little petro, so
we disassembled a few layers to inspect the cell. A two inch crack was found near the upper
right side of the cell. It would need a patch.
We wandered around the paddock looking for some fuel safe epoxy
sealant. (of
course I have several types at home.)
Finding NONE, I decided to try the Gorilla brand epoxy found at the
track store. A small test batch was mixed, left to harden and later tested in
petro. It appeared to work. I missed the Thursday morning practice
session, but made it out for the qualifying. Mark would follow me a couple of
laps to see if my petro would stay confined. With 4 year old tires, I wasn’t gonna test any limits and came in after 8 laps when a time
a tick under 1:24, showed on the screen.
After last year’s expensive OFF at Turn 3, I was being VERY careful
(i.e. wimpy) at that corner. Adding to the necessity of caution were two VERY
fast, modern formula cars doing laps 18 seconds faster than the CF field. The biggest monster was a Formula Boss from
Australia with full carbon tub, wings, fat tires and a large V8 engine. The other was a F3 car. Both were carbon black and were hard to see
coming in the mirrors. (It has been said that SVRA has never seen a entry fee that they didn’t like.)
Doing the whole of
the day, we had trekked over (outside of the track) to the receiving office to
see if the tires had arrived. Nope. This being maybe my last race before
retiring, I really, really, really wanted to run on fresh tires. I was bumed. Later in the day, we called Angie for
delivery status. (She never gave us the
tracking number.) Angie said the tires
were in route. Obviously,
not true.
I approached the afternoon qualifier with no motivation or enthusiasm. My 1:24 lap was pedestrian and 9th of the FF’s. Damn tires, over steering in the Turns 6a thru T8. I was gonna try MORE RAKE, but held off waiting for TIRES! By now I am resolved to blow off the Sunday morning race and head home Saturday after my race. And so I did.
Saturday Race: Time is mid afternoon and there are still NO TIRES. I am gridded 8th of CF’s and 11th overall. Mark is aside me. I need this race to keep my license for NEXT year (?) should I be so inclined. I plan to circulate with great caution. I start off in second gear and am 11th of 14 cars for the next 6 laps and fell behind Mark by about 3 seconds. Several times, my semi functional right foot caused me to be delayed in getting back on the gas after heavy braking. Mark and Dave Fairchild were very busy racing (and slowing) each other and I was able to close the gap. I passed Mark in T1 and set about to reel in Fairchild. That took me four laps and turning my fastest lap of the event (an unimpressive 1:23.50). It would take a couple of tries, complicated by being lapped by the monster cars, to make my pass of Fairchild stick. I ran the last three laps of the race unchallenged to 6th place in Club Fords. My expectations were significantly exceeded.
I do want to run one more time with FRESH tires. We’ll have to see how long that fire within me burns. I have a couple of nagging physical ailments that need some attention. What the Hell.
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