Pittsburg
August
2016
Despite
Pitt being out
of my towing comfort range, I decided to enter the RCFFS (Right Coast
FF
“Series”) races Aug 5-7 at the recently expanded Beaver Run track just
North of
Pittsburg. We would be running with the F2000/F1600/FA "pro" guys.
The Series is seeing some growing interest and had 27 cars entered.
The
track, now renamed
to Pittsburg International, has been extended to 2.8 miles. Money has been spent as
there are now real
buildings, acres of paved paddock, garages and lots of nice attired
staff. It is not up
to VIR standards, but way nicer
than Summit. However,
the “Pennsylvania
Penthouse” (an old house trailer perched on top of an old shipping
container)
is still there serving timing and scoring.
The
Series is a “run what u brung FF”
affair. Any
car, any year, any tire, Kent or Honda. A couple of guys run
new Mygale
Pro cars with sticky slicks. CF's make up about half of the
field; but no
there is no tire rule. I run the relatively hard (and longer
lasting)
Hoosier R60 tires mandated by DC Region.
With absolutely no compliance checking, some could be
tempted to augment
engine preparation. However,
what’s the
point? Everyone is
running for no points,
or cool trophies or anything of value.
It’s for fun. Time will tell if it is a workable concept.
The
track layout is a boomerang in shape.
There are 3 blind corners and 3 straights of 120 mph and 4
gear
length. There are EIGHT relatively slow chicane corners to waste your
time and
test your patience. The
old part of the
course is VERY bumpy and hard on the cars. (It will be pulled up and
redone by
next year it is said.) I
give this place
a grade of C minus. Learning
the blind
corners does raise the pucker factor for the first 10 of so laps.
Flying
solo, I head up
the road on Thursday mid-morning.
Easy
traffic. I was
somewhat taken aback with
the PA turnpike toll of $26 for 140 miles.
Didn’t expect it. I
was raised in
the time of nickel Cokes. Got
to Pitt
about 4PM and found my way to the Series paddock space.
As the “poor step children” of the weekend,
we were relegated to left field. Track
did provide a convenient porta potty and left field was paved. A few electrical
connections were available
for $25 PER DAY. If
I had known, I would
have brought my quiet Honda generator.
Instead, I got to hear other’s drone on for hours.
I
went to dinner with
Joe Marcinski, Mike Hummel and assorted others and wives. I would get to my motel
about 2130 (That
almost my bed time!)
Our
sessions each of
the three days would be at 0910 and 1545, so down time would be
considerable. For
the Thursday practice
session, I along with the other first timers proceeded with caution. It took the entire 25
minute session to
MOSTLY figure out what was around the next corner.
A couple of the corners were still a
mystery. I was
running my Summit gearing
which seemed to work fine. I
was very
surprised to discover that my times (2:01) were mid pack (16th
of
27) and within a second of 5 or 6 guys.
The
afternoon was
90+degrees HOT and everyone’s lap time should suffer it was said. Didn’t happen as I went
2.4 seconds faster,
but fell to 19th.
What? Three
of the Pro 1600 competitors were
running with us and were turning times 8 seconds (!!!) faster than me. Near the end of my
session, my dash went dark
and the engine started to run poorly.
It
was in the limp home mode for the last lap.
All those bumps had taken a toll.
The ECU connector seemed loose, so I reseated ALL the
connectors and
everything worked again.
The
Saturday morning session
was the qualifier for the afternoon race.
Not wanting to run my spec tires down to the cords again
like last year,
I had a new set mounted. As
I was
putting them on the car, I noticed a wheel weight lying on the pavement. Back to the Hoosier guys. Yep, it had fallen off. The first few laps of the
session, I seemed
to have lost my memory of the track in places.
Wow, but it came back.
I did not
notice any ANY improvement in handling of the car with the fresh tires.
I had
only a modest improvement (0.4 sec) in lap time.
Curious and disappointing.
During
the lunch hour
a group photo of all the FF cars, including the Pro 1600 was taken in
the south
paddock. Most of
the cars made it to the
photo. Mike Rand
was intrigued by the
contrast between a 74 year old CF driver (me) and a 14 year old Pro
1600 driver
Kaylen Frederick. Kaylen
won the Sunday
race. Rand arranged
to have us pose with
our cars. Oh my God
. . . 60 years!
Copies of the photos have not yet made their way to me,
but I will post
them when I get ‘em.
Saturday
Race. Got a decent
start and was running just in
front of Chuck Van Nostrand in about14th place on lap 6 when the car
just shut
down exiting turn one. Coasted
to a stop
in a safe place and turned into a spectator.
After the race had ended, I was able to fire the car and
“limp
home.” At this
point, I was ready to
pack up and head home. But,
I knew that
if I didn’t find the culprit in my wiring, it would drive me crazy all
the way
home. So, off came
the body and the cover
to the ECU again and data system.
All
connections would be examined again.
I
found the connection between the Honda harness and the data system to
be very
poorly seated. I
had to file down the
diameter of the small connector to get it to easily insert into the
female
connection. This
time, I secured it with
ample high strength tape. Again,
all
systems were now working.
These loose
connections were not helping my lap times.
So,
I decide to stick
around for the Sunday morning race.
What
the Hell, the car is likely fixed, the motel room is paid for, and I
could use
a good night sleep. Gas
her up, and
ready to go. I
would not be staying for
the Sunday afternoon race as I had things to do at home early Monday. I would be using the 6.5
hours until the afternoon
race to Race Home.
Sunday
Race. Off at
0910 for a 25 minute scrum. I
would
again start in 19th place and again I would be
aside Chuck Van
Nostrand. Chuck and
I run pretty much
close to each other at all the Summit Point races. Unlike the prior
day, the
pack had time to form up before the green flag.
I took a center approach to turn one and got around Chuck
and some
others (my camera doesn’t allow much view to my right). By turn 4 I had
overtaken
two more. After
this there were few
passes, except for the several cars that had gone off course.
A
double yellow followed on lap 5 for 3 laps or so.
I had a significant gap on the cars behind
me, but of course they got to catch up.
There was Chuck again filling my mirrors.
I nailed the restart, but so did Chuck.
It was going well until I chose to follow the
new blue Mygale on the outside going into turn one.
Bad choice.
He just about stopped for no apparent reason. Lost a place.
My task afterwards was to keep Chuck behind me. I made an error entering
the old North Track
and got two wheels off track. Chuck
pounced and pulled alongside but I recovered and out accelerated him. I botched one shift on the
following lap
giving Chuck some hope, but held on.
On
the 10th lap, the race had reached its time
limit and the checker
came out. I would
finish 9th
just behind David Gernert in his new Mygale.
My laps times were coming down in each of the green flag
laps. I was finally
learning the track. My
best rolling lap was a 1:56 which was 5
seconds faster than my first practice session.
Not
too shabby for an
old guy, but WAY OFF the pace for young guys in new cars. I’m OK with that.