2003

     No winter events. The worst snowstorm in the recorded weather history of Maryland. Minor flooding.... <shrug> Running the NASA-Virginia program for 3 years had all but killed my autocross spirit, and so the miserable winter of 2002 didn't even make me yearn for an open parking lot. In fact, the first event of the year, the VMSC Opening Day autocross, wasn't even something I actually felt like attending.
     I rode down to the event with Pat in the Lightning. I didn't even have my helmet, much less my driving shoes, magnetics or anything. When I got there, a couple of people made the usual stupid "oh, you're attending one of our events" comments, but several others asked about what I was going to drive. The two "best" offers were Andy Turnbull's Sentra SE-R (GS) and Terry Baker's BMW (SM). Unfortunately, Terry's fixed seat meant that I could hardly reach the pedals comfortably, so I opted for the SE-R.
     My number was in the fourth heat, so I got to watch Andy run and get some hints from him before I ran. The last time I'd autocrossed was four months previous, in a WRX, so I was rusty to say the least! My first run was conservative, and I managed to be less than a second behind Andy. The second run, I stepped it up a little bit, but I whacked cones, and was just a couple tenths back from Andy. My third run.... cones again and slower. WTF? You'd think a narrower car would make it easier for me to get through clean! I backed it off for the last run, and managed to go coneless, but was slower on raw time than my second run. Oh well. I ended up in second in GS (mainly because Jeff Jacobs and Mark Chiles ran Jeff's Mini in the "Pro" class... hmmm, wonder where VMSC got that idea?), just a hair under 0.5 back from Andy.

me at se divs
sliding through the rain at SEDiv #1, photo by shane lovely

     I hemmed and hawed about the next event I was going to do. DC Region was having a practice day on the 23rd, but then so was PCA. After a little credit/no credit problem with DC Region with regards to an event I didn't run last year, I really felt that the DC Region had enough of my money to last them for a while. Then, my coworker, Connie Law, asked about showing her son about autocross, and so I decided I would do the DC event, even though it wasn't my first choice.
     Considering I wanted to get some seat time in the Camaro before the first Precision Racing Organization event (in Nashville), I ordered my Hoosiers and managed to get them just in time to mount them for Sunday. I wanted to scrub them a little bit, plus see how they worked on my car. First thing I noticed? 275s are big tires!! Other than that... well, it was kind of weird to be running my own car again. I hadn't autocrossed it since August of last year, and I hadn't autocrossed a Camaro since I'd run Ron Bistrais's at Nationals.
     Well, the Camaro handled like it always does, especially when you drive it too fast into a corner. ;) I hit cones on my first two runs.... but I was just taking people for rides anyway. I took Connie's son out on my first run, and a friend of Andy's on my second one.... then I got the rerun-charm Tony Powell (aka, George Perinis, at least for this event!) for my third run. At the top of the hill, there was a cone down, and I stopped momentarily, pointed it out, then kept going briskly to the finish. They didn't want to give me a rerun because, "it's a practice event; it shouldn't matter if the cones are up or not." What ever . I mean, if it shouldn't matter if the cones are up or not, then why were we counting them to begin with? <rolleyes> Anyway, they gave me the rerun, and I slowed down a bit to get a clean run. My last run, I had former student Dave Kersey in the car with a video camera, and I gave him his money's worth... I got down to a class crushing 65.8 (good enough for top 10 PAX, at least if you use the 2003 numbers), oh, and how can I forget... "fastest ladies time of the day"! Criminy. I hate that designation.

     Well, the PRO event got cancelled.... on Tuesday. At 5:00PM Friday night, I decided on the SEDivisional event being held in South Carolina. My other option was the VMSC event, but looking at the weather forecast, I figured I might be able to get one dry day in at SEDiv, whereas it was supposed to be cold and rainy all Sunday in Richmond. So, I packed my Hoosiers, plus two Kumhos (rain tires, ya know!), and got down to Greenwood around 2:00AM. Ick. I was sooooo buzzed on Red Bull, I couldn't sleep, so I read a little until I started fading, then I went to sleep.... around 4. My wakeup call was at 6. :p
     It's a good thing I got to the site early. The paddock was barely wider than a two-lane highway with one shoulder, and as it was, I had to park a good 1/4 mile from registration and the grid. Once registration opened, I found out the bad news.... or maybe it was good news.... I wasn't sure at the time -- FS was in the last run group. I figured the last group would have a better shot of dry runs on Sunday, but it also meant that I would have a late start home. <sigh> So, I was also tagged as the "runner" (aka, Tim Aro's job) for the second heat, so my day was going to be pretty easy up until running. I walked the course a couple of times in the morning, then once more at lunch, and helped Brian Flanagan change tires during third heat (he was trying out Falkens vs. Kumho MXs). Poor Brian spun a bearing in his BMW's motor during a serious of reruns, so all of our tire-changing efforts were for nothing. He ended up taking his third run in Michael Fiyak's WRX. Anyway, next up was fourth heat and the 7 car FS class.... 6 Camaros and a Mitsu 3000GT VR4 on street tires. One of the Camaros was also on street tires, then there was me (Hoosiers), Matt Carson (Kumhos), Tommy Pulliam (Hoosiers), Jerry Grigg (Hoosiers) and Jim Fossum (Hoosiers). Some of us were really praying for good weather on Sunday, except for Matt and Tommy.... Tommy because he had a set of full-tread Kumhos on his trailer.


me at sedivs
coming towards the finish at SEDiv #1; photo by Ian Stewart
      The course was a tweaked version of the North Course from 2001... the course that most people didn't get to run (Pat did). I'll have to post a course map later, but to fit it on the Michelin lot required some, ah, shrinkage. :) Anyway, I got a good bit of push my first run, plus hit a cone at the end of the slalom, so I wasn't sitting in a very good position. I worked on looking ahead more my second run, and got a couple of tenths faster, plus ran clean; that was good enough to move me into third place, but I was still a frustrating 1.5 back from Tommy! I just couldn't figure out where he was going that much faster than me. I made a point of watching his run as much as possible before my last run, and saw where I was hitting the brakes, but he wasn't, so I tried some things different my last run to improve barely 0.2. Thankfully Tommy had a cone, but I was still 0.1 back from Fossum... and then Jim took off another 0.5, and I was definitely solidly in third place. :\ 
     Part of my problem, I know, was the cocksure attitude with which I approached this event. Looking over the entry list, seeing Grigg, Fossum, Carson and Pulliam, I saw three people I'd beat before, and someone I'd run pretty close to. I didn't walk the course with the proper frame of mind; I walked to know approximately where it went, but I never really paid much attention to what I should be looking at when I was "looking ahead." I never really felt bad on course, but I know I wasn't pushing the car hard enough at all.
     Saturday night was terrible. I seemed to be the only person with a hotel room outside of Clinton, so I went back to my room and fell asleep. No dinner, no hanging out, nothing. I wasn't going to drive 40 minutes to Clinton, then turn around and drive back. I wasn't going to go straight to Clinton with filthy clothes (though Flanagan did help me put the street tires back on the car), so I kind of put myself into this social bind. I woke up around 10, changed and turned on the Weather Channel to see that there was a 100% chance of rain in the morning, with clearing in the afternoon. FS had a chance!
     Sunday morning, it was pouring out, and it was cold . The Weather Channel was forecasting 1-3 inches of snow in the DC area, and John confirmed we had 2 inches at 10AM. Roanoke was worse off, with reports of 4-6 inches coming from the Blue Ridge connection. I was just glad I had my rain suit and the runner job.
     Tommy had changed to the Kumhos, and I waited until lunch to make my decision. Matt Carson and I had discussed maybe putting his tires on my car, or just me running his car, but with the weather trying to clear, and Jerry and Jim sticking with the Hoosiers, I decided to stay with them too. I changed tires, and brought the car to grid.
     It stopped raining just before we ran. It was still wet on course, and it was very noticeable. The chill air ( maybe 50 degrees) wasn't helping things, as the Hoosiers are more of a warm weather tire. I all but skated through the first offset/slalom-like cone, and barely hung on for a clean run. Heath McMillan got some good footage of my sideways, but I did catch it, unlike some people! Tommy, meanwhile, ran a disgustingly clean, fast run, and Matt was almost two seconds faster, but had a cone. I prayed and prayed for drier conditions for second runs, and got my wish. I dropped 2.4 seconds by sliding less, and by making sure I had proper tire pressures in the Hoosiers. Turned out one of my rear tires from Saturday ended up on the front when I did the swap. That surely didn't help handling on my first run. :) I was feeling pretty good about my second run, until I heard the 3000GT run 1.1 seconds faster than me, and Tommy with a 1.3 second improvement. ugh! Last runs, I hung it all out. I almost spun twice on course, and a third time coming through the finish lights (again, Heath was taping this run), but it was a lot drier, and I dropped another 0.9. Damn if the Mitsu didn't get a second improvement too! Tommy, however, only managed 0.2 better, if it was enough for a convincing win over me. With their older Hoosiers, Fossum and Grigg didn't have the grip they needed to come close; and I got by Matt by 0.002 on the day, keeping my lead over him.
     I took the course much more seriously on Sunday, so I'm sure that had something to do with how I finished, tires notwithstanding. I have to wonder how I would have done if I'd been on full-tread Kumhos, or if I'd tried to use the two Kumhos I brought on one end of the car. Ah, the what-ifs.... :) I know I've run closer to Tommy than 3.2, and so I'm pretty disappointed in myself because of that, but I made mistakes, and I will rectify them for next time!

     Ugh. I just got home from what had to be the worst run event I have ever been to. How bad was it? Well, I got there around 9:40AM, waited in line 45 minutes just to get registered, froze my ass off all day (wind chills were easily in the 30s, if not lower), did my worker assignment, only to get ZERO runs. Yes, that's right folks, the Susquenhanna Region (Appalachian Sports Car Club division) was sooooooo on the ball today that they managed to get 4 runs in for the first two heats, 3 runs in for the third heat, 1 run for the fourth heat, and ZERO for the fifth. Needless to say, I was in the fifth heat, and I'm pissed. I'm still thawing out, and I'm frustrated and just generally angry as hell over the fact that I wanted to use this event to see what the Firebird was like, and to get a little time on street tires before the Dallas ProSolo next weekend. Well, it took a lot of incompetence to screw up this badly, and to piss close to 100 competitors off to the point that many of them probably will wait a very long time before running another Susquehanna event. I'm supposed to get reimbursed, but frankly the $20 reimbursement isn't going to cut it, especially when I'm sure they are going to try to recompense us by sending vouchers for an upcoming event rather than outright giving us our money back. Unfortunately, there is nothing they can do to reimburse me for the time I lost sitting around up there all friggin' day. They could freakin' pay me to run the rest of their season, and that wouldn't make up for the 12 hours I wasted today. Oh yes, I'm pissed. (later note : my check was returned)

     versus lipsinic
at the line saturday morning, versus pat lipsinic; photo by gabby garner

     The start to the Dallas ProSolo weekend was a pain in the neck.... literally. Stressed out from running home, finishing packing, then running to Pat's so he could drive me over to BWI ended up with a neck spasm that wouldn't go away all weekend. But, I made the flight easily (BWI is a breeze to go through, and Continental's eticket counter is awesome), and got to the hotel around 11:30PM local time. I walk into the room to see Grainger..... and a drunk Chris Ramey. Yikes! Well, after cracking on each other, we finally settled down to sleep, and I think Ramey finally stopped carrying on conversations around 2AM. The wake up call at 6 was pretty unpleasant, and knowing there were only 2 towels in the micro-supplied Microtel bathroom, I actually volunteered to be the first one in the shower. A stop at Whataburger later, we were on our way. I'd already been warned that the courses didn't make very good use of the available space, and the design was a trifle.... uninspired, so when I got there and got through an amazingly easy registration, I walked the right side twice and the left side once, and then wandered aimlessly until my morning runs.
     A couple of people I knew were there, besides the obvious three I was rooming with. Russell Blume and Gary Gaither were sharing Gary's Subaru in STS, and Kiko Seibt had made the trip to take us on in STX. Kevin Youngers was running DS in his BMW, and Bob and Patty Tunnell were there with their AS BMW. Randy Chase and Darrin DiSimo had come from opposite ends of the country to dominate CS in borrowed cars.
      Probably the most annoying thing about this particular course had nothing to do with course length or design; it was the downhill start. You had to be on the brakes to start, period. There was no way around it. Unfortunately, the BMW, as I found out, does not have the "instant on" power of the Camaro. In the
ramey's z06
maybe one day, i'll get to drive this car ;) ; photo by chris ramey
morning, I tried just sitting on the brakes until the second yellow, and while I was cutting good lights, there was no acceleration. I was getting miserable times. Brian was using a heel-toe method, cutting decent lights, and was a good bit quicker than me, though a little discouraged at the Subaru launch, which he was seeing for the first time.  
     The afternoon dragged a little bit, mainly because the small turnout (130 give or take a few) meant there were only three shifts. We had to wait for worker changes, because people who were working couldn't get their cars in pregrid. Brian was up first, and he improved, a little, sitting on a 30.4 on the right, which was 0.3 from Kiko's fastest clean time. A 30.5 on the left was 0.4 behind Kiko's leading time too. Brian was getting more and more despondent over how he was doing; evidently, he's pretty dominant locally, and from what I've seen, he's a damned good driver. The car didn't feel that bad too me, so I wasn't sure how much of it was Brian and how much of it was car limitations.
     My afternoon runs, I knew I had to try something different at the launch. The idle-launch wasn't going to cut it if I wanted to be competitive. So, I decided my only option was to try the handbrake. I braced myself against the armrest, holding the handbrake up all the way (that was the minimum to keep the car from rolling!) and keeping the button pressed in. At the second yellow, I dropped it, dropped the clutch and went. I think I had it revved to about 3500rpm; it was hard to tell, 'cause I was trying to do so many things at once. :) Anyway, I was still getting 0.6 and 0.5 lights, and I managed to drop my right side time to a 30.6, a 1.7 improvement. My left was still shaky, and I threw away my second afternoon left-side run by letting the FM F500 I was paired with distract me. I still improved on the left by 1.1, but I could have done better. Brian was definitely bumming at this point. I don't think he quite expected me to be that fast in his car. I know I didn't expect me to be that fast. 

pushing out in the turnaround
pushing out in the turnaround; photo by chris ramey

     Dinner was at a seeming hole-in-the-wall place pointed out by Tommy Saunders. It was quite good. Then we went back to the hotel room, and just made fun of stupid people on TV, as well as continuing to crack on each other. We would have gone out for beer (and Jim Beam for Ramey), but it seems that Texas is the complete opposite of Maryland when it comes to liquor stores. We actually fell asleep early (11 or so), and when that alarm went off at 6, I thought Ramey was going to kill Grainger. However, Matt was already in the shower, and none of the rest of us wanted to get up. Ramey did, however, all but throw the alarm clock on the floor when the snooze alarm went off at 6:10. :)
     Sunday morning, I finally looked at the results as they currently stood. I was in 5th place, 0.3 back from Pat Lipsinic, and 0.8 from Brian. I felt I could definitely catch Lipsinic, and I knew Brian could go faster, if I could convince him of that. He was up first, against Kiko, and he asked me exactly how I was doing the handbrake thing. I told him, and I think he tried it, redlighting his first leftside run and not going particularly fast on his right side run. Turns out, he missed a second upshift after trying an experimental downshift to first in the first turnaround. His second two runs were a little better, but still no improvement. :( His second right side time was 0.001 slower than he'd set Saturday afternoon.
dallas pro
looking ahead into the first turnaround; photo by hart photography
 My turn, and this time, I wasn't the odd driver out; I was paired against Kiko's codriver, Oliver. I ignored the characteristic WRX revving as the lights came down, and continued to cut 0.5s. My first run, on the right, took not quite a tenth off from Saturday afternoon, and my left side would have been faster if not marred with a cone where I pushed out carrying too much speed into the final turnaround. I came back, and didn't think much about those runs.... I just wanted to drive with a clear head, and push harder, harder, harder. I wasn't going to try to downshift, I wasn't going to try anything different at the    
lights. I just needed to look ahead (easier said than done with my neck hurting so bad when turning to the left), and the rest would follow. I already knew that was the case from previous runs; it just took a lot of confidence to not look at the walls of cones in the turnarounds. Anyway, I shakily launched on the left side for my final run there, and managed to redline it and spin the tires off the line; a micro-lift and the car hooked up, but I already felt that I'd lost a huge chunk of time. I made sure I looked at the first slalom cone to avoid pushing out in the first turn, then shifted the focus to the last cone and the turnaround. Coming in to the turnaround, I kept yelling at myself to look into the next slalom, and the car rotated so beautifully coming out of the turn, it could have brought a tear to my eye.... except now I had to keep in mind not to carry too much speed into the next turnaround. I shifted focus to the third and final slalom, and that got me to carry less speed into the turn.... back on it, and zip through the cones.... yes! it felt clean! I had a little adrenaline rush! But, I didn't know what the time was, and couldn't hear at the far end.... as I came up to go onto the right side, I see the time, and I see Teucci's face.... 30.4?! Um..... no, no one was behind me and Ivers was on the right side course, so that was me! I felt a trifle embarrassed, then pulled up to the line for my final run. Lights came down, Oliver surges forward, but I don't get fooled by his redlight. I evidently cut a .508 light on my final launch, and go tearing through the first slalom... the car feels good, but I can't hear the time when I'm done. I hear the reaction time, but not the actual time, and then I finally get word from someone in impound -- 30.0!? But wait, what's that? A cone on it? I definitely didn't feel a cone.... Ah, but Brian confirms it; the same cone I evidently nudged in my previous right side run, the middle cone in the first slalom. Oh well. One stupid little cone costs me a second place finish, $250 in BMW money, and my first ever Challenge appearance. It figures. Now I know why Strano hates them so much. As it was, I almost got into the Challenge. I qualified 35th.... my best ever.
 
     Topeka.... in April?! Yeah, I went to the Topeka ProSolo the last weekend in April... very odd, to say the least. Looking at the entry list before I left on Friday afternoon, I see that STX has six people entered, but I already know that one isn't going to make it. I'd talked to Teucci Thursday evening, and all but begged him to reconsider, but he was pretty adamant about not going. Oh well. All that meant for me was that I couldn't ditch and run L2, because I would leave STX to the hands of Fauth and company.
     My flight was not the most fun thing in the world. No, nothing scary beyond the fear that the seeming incompetence of the flight crew would mean I didn't get to Topeka before Saturday morning. I will certainly try to avoid flying USAirways in the future, as they provide nothing except half a can of soda for free, and the delays everywhere (BWI, PIT, MCI) were unacceptable. At least they didn't lose my luggage. :\ So, I finally made it out to Kansas City, managed not to kill the little whiny, self-centered bastard children that were on the flight (a class of fifth graders from a very well-to-do KC private school), managed not to kirk on the stupid woman sitting next to me (a chaperone of the whiny babies) who didn't know the definition of personal space, and I finally get to the rental car company. A twinge of fear hit me when the woman behind the counter remarks, "Well, let's see if we have anything left!" Fortunately (?) they had a car, another Neon, but this one had 26K of rental miles on the odometer. What's that in "regular" driving terms, 500K? This car was in sad shape. Once I got on the road to Topeka, I noticed some.... disturbing noises from the engine. I was really concerned I'd be getting a ride in a tow truck, that's how bad the engine sounded. However, I made it, and for the first time driving out there, I even got to the hotel without getting lost for once!
     So, I get to the hotel, where Pat's been all evening. He's happy to see me, and I asked about the course, and who is present, and about an hour later, finally I'm hit with the not-so-great news.... The car seems to have a bad front wheel bearing. I was like, "Okay, so you replaced it, right?" I'm thinking it's the sealed hub, like mine, which is only a matter of taking off the wheel (5 nuts), the caliper (2 bolts) and the hub itself (4 bolts). He says, "No. I thought it might have been a warped brake rotor, so I went to O'Reilly's and got a new rotor, but I wasn't sure about install because the shop manual is too vague." Okay... I know about vague shop manuals, after the debacle with the '85 Escort head replacement last summer. So, I ask, "Well, why didn't you get someone to help?" So, I get this runaround about "not knowing anyone." I was all but rolling my eyes. "Uh, Grainger?" He says, "Okay, I know one or two people." I was like, "Um... Dean? Lindberg?" I could have covered at least a half-dozen people he definitely knew right away. He obviously was just uncomfortable asking for help. So, I told him to get the bearings, races, and seals in the morning, since he'd already registered, and we could get a bearing packer from Sears, and we'd be okay. He seemed skeptical, but said okay.
     Next morning, I got to the event early, while Pat topped off the gas and got the bearings. I immediately encounter Darrin DiSimo, who is also looking to see if registration is open. No such luck, so we walk the courses. They were very different from Dallas -- only one slalom this time! -- but still relied on looking ahead to take the best line. The start was a sweeet straight, not quite as long as the infamous Danny Popp 1/8th mile, but still a beautiful sight to a V8 driver. :) After walking each side once, registration was open, so Darrin and I get that done, then I go back to the paddock to see if Pat's back yet. As I walk over, I see Chris Ramey, so I say, "Hi," and talk to him a little bit. Then I see Pat come in, and a blue WRX is looking at where I parked the Neon, so I need to go move it out of his paddock. Turns out the WRX is Reto Koradi, one of the STX competition.
     Anyway, Pat didn't get the bearings and such yet, so we leave to get the parts and come back about 25 minutes later. We didn't find a Sears on the main drag (Topeka Boulevard), so I ask around the paddock to see if anyone has one on site. No such luck, but Mark Chiles tells me there is a Sears over on Wannamaker. We decide that if Pat could make it 1200 miles on a shot bearing, it should be okay for at least the morning runs (especially since he admits the noise actually started two weeks previous, after an Autocrossers, Inc. event he attended while I was in Dallas). Rich Wise was there driving Grainger's Achieva in GS, and he and Grainger both say they've done plenty of GM wheel bearings and it's not a big deal to change them. Plenty of people said they could help out if we needed it, so we were set, even if Pat did think they only offered to help because I asked them.  <rolling eyes>


impound
no april trip to topeka for the green terror; photo by karen kraus
      So, morning runs commence, and I'm the odd person out, being #148, and no other two driver STX cars. :p I hate running by myself. Oh well. Pat immediately set the pace for the class, with a 34 on the left and a 33 (plus a cone) on the right. Everyone else was in the 35s and 34s, respectively. The second runs come around, and he redlights his left, but cleans up the right. He's ahead by a good bit, as Lipsinic is 0.9 behind on the left and 0.8 on the right, and a rookie, Matt McCabe in a bone stock Mazdaspeed Protege on OE tires, is 0.3 back on the left and 0.9 on the right. My turn, and I get behind the wheel of the Foumula for the first time. I smack cones on the right, and run a miserable 35.7 on the left. I notice how sweet the diff is -- a T2R -- and try to use it to my advantage on the second set of runs, but only improve 0.2 on the left. I clean up the right, but a 0.7 reaction time negates any time improvement, so I settle for fourth after the morning runs. I would never move up in the standings. :(
     The afternoon runs, we didn't mess with the car, as the small size of the event made things move very quickly. We just weren't sure we'd have enough time to pull things apart and get them back together for group 4. As Pat was leading the class, I was again relegated to the second driver lane :p and helping him with his runs. He started off with a whopping 1.1 second overall improvement by dropping 0.6 on the left and 0.5 on the right on his first two runs! Damn. He coned his second set, and sat back to watch Lipsinic get within 0.3 on the right and 0.1 on the left. McCabe also improved to a 34.6 and a 34.1. While Pat was raving about how much better the car felt compared to Ft. Myers, he was certainly getting nervous about the Impreza and the Protege. I managed no improvement on the left (two cones'll and a redlight will do that!) and 0.6 on the right, so I remained at the back, only ahead of Reto. Two redlights on my last two runs really had me annoyed.
     Impound was amusing. As soon as I arrived and opened the hood, everyone was swarming the car. I think, in a way, Pat liked the attention. Evidently, at Ft. Myers, no one even looked twice at the car. This time, however, it was the center of STX attention. The question even came up.... "How can you tell if it's a 305 or a 350?" :) I think Pat's gonna get the Formula 350 stickers for the car now, just to be obnoxious.
     Dinner was 12 or so of us at Outback. After a quick Sears trip for a bearing packer, and some phone tag, we met up at the Wannamaker restaurant and managed to pick up not just our "original group", but several others as well.  While there, for some reason, we started playing cell phone tag across the table, and while Braun was attempting to "tag" me, Ramey called to say he might swing by for drinks later. However, by that time, we'd decided (well, some of us) to hit BabyDolls afterwards, so I let him know and he said he'd get us a table. :) So, afterwards, several of us went to the club, and met up with Ramey and Dan Chadwick. Braun controlled himself this time, managing to stay conscious the whole time we were there. :) The saddest part about going to the club was that no one got a lap dance, and only Telehowski even went up to the stage! Everyone just sat there and talked "shop". <shaking head> I guess I was just surprised, that's all.
     The next morning, Pat started by yanking the wheel and starting the bearing job. I walked the course, and when I came back, I saw the bearings. They were no longer in their little "cage." In fact, all that was left of the bearing "cage" were two thin strips of metal. He said when he pulled the rotor, the bearings started to fall out of the ruined cage. Not a good thing! So, he needed to work, as did I, so Rich and Matt were going to continue the job when they were done running. After they came into impound, Rich started to pack the bearings, and Matt gloated a little while about his DS win over Kevin Youngers, then he, too, went to continue the job. After I was done with my impound job, I came by and saw they were putting things back together. Considering Pat, Matt and Rich were all there, I felt redundant, so I went over to watch SS. Ramey asked me to get reaction times for him, and to help with the tire warmers, so I did, and I also dropped the hint to Lindberg that group 4 needed a bit more time before being called up to grid (so Pat had time to get into pregrid). So, I got to watch Ramey eek out a meager lead over John Ames, then as soon as Pat pulled even close to pregrid, Lindberg waved them up.
     I think Pat was mad at me for helping Ramey and not standing around watching them finish the bearing job. It seems that getting the caliper back on the rotor was easier said then done without the pad separator, which is why it took them longer than I anticipated. He wanted air in the front tires, but I didn't know anyone who was in grid right then, so I wasn't going to grab just anyone's air tank to use. :\ I think he blames his poor Sunday performance on me... which means the fact that he went no faster on Sunday morning is somehow my fault. Actually, he did go slightly faster, but coned it; he hit the three cones at the finish. Without those three cones, it would have been a 0.1 improvement. Considering McCabe got some Falkens to run on Sunday morning (from Ron Williams), and Lipsinic dropped in time too, that 0.1 would have been enough to keep the lead. As it was, he finished in third, 0.136 back from Lipsinic, 0.079 from McCabe.


i'm not sure it really qualifies....
pat should be happy this wasn't in the class...; photo by karen kraus
     Me? Well, I just plain sucked Sunday morning, mostly because I was upset and worried that he was pissed at me for not standing around. I definitely wasn't concentrating on my driving, nor was I concentrating on looking ahead. These two things culminated in what had to be the absolute stupidest thing I have done on course ever. My first left side run, I pull up, stage, lights come down, second light goes off, I let out the clutch, and.....fucking stall the car. It had to have taken me a second to even realize what had happened, and I restart the car, launch and just drive too hard all around the course, praying that I'd be lucky enough to get a rerun. No, couldn't happen; I end up with a 38.384 and a 3.7 reaction time. So, it wasn't even that good of a run (thank you for overdriving!). I go to the right, still pissed beyond comprehension, and only go 0.008 faster. I return to grid, and Grainger comes up to the car, but I tell him, "Don't talk to me right now." Okay, actually, I wasn't that nice with what I said, but I was mortally embarassed, and I really just wanted to either break something or just crawl into a hole and die. It's hard enough for me to run open class, but to be having a mediocre weekend and then do something as freakin' amateur as stalling the car? I seriously can't express how much I really just wanted to disappear right then and there. I had two more chances to redeem myself, and of course, I blew them. I smacked two cones on my next right side run, and the time was slower anyway; then I managed a 35.0 on the left -- somewhat vindicating myself with a 0.5 improvement, but it was no where near what I needed to qualify for the challenge, or even for a trophy. I would have to settle for second-to-last. :\
     I took the car to impound, and Lipsinic remarks that he thought he was upset when he redlit his last left side run. I shrug, and just wander aimlessly. I was so upset, I barely even remember what I did after that. Pat had qualified for the challenge, so he put his car with the impound crew, and took the Neon for lunch. I just moped around. No one could say anything to console me, and I didn't try to solicit consolations anyway. I did put my name in for the bogus challenge, but wasn't drawn. I volunteered to help out during the challenge rounds, and worked with Lindberg in the gridding of the cars. Pat was 18th qualifier, and managed to redlight on his first run against McCabe. He decided to spend the rest of the afternoon sulking in the Firebird while I continued to work the Challenge. He did manage, by virtue of being the third remaining car in the Challenge, to get $100 for the Honda Street Challenge, so he shouldn't have been too upset. At least he was in the running. I just sucked. :\
     Matthew Braun, running Jerry Onks's Corvette in SM2, managed to win the challenge. On my way back to the airport, I passed him and Telehowski, and he called me on my cell phone to tell me, "You can tell all your Celica buddies that I'm going to run the Corvette at Petersburg." He had originally signed up to codrive with Chuck Frank in GS, but after doing so well in Jerry's Z06, he and Jerry decided it would be worthwhile for him to run it at Petersburg also.
     So, after this event, I think I'm done with STX for the year. :\ Back to FS, where I feel at home.

     Last weekend.... it rained. In fact, it's been raining, and raining, and raining.... but I still drove down to the Tarheel event, since I'd promised Scott Johnson (my Petersburg Pro co-driver) I'd be there so he could practice. I caravaned down with Pat and George, and hoped the weather south of Richmond would be better than the crap in Maryland. No such luck. I had brought the Kumhos to practice on, but Scott and I decided to just run on the street tires. It was probably more helpful for him to just learn to be patient with the car anyway, plus I didn't have to get totally soaked changing the tires.
     The course was sort of like an old DC region practice event that was run at VMP a couple of years ago, only tighter. Jim Pastorius set it up, and I think it would have been tight in the MR2. Needless to say, a lot of cones were hit. The rain didn't help the conage, either. The car was a handful on the street tires (I didn't even do anything with the pressures; might have helped to have dropped the rears down), and Scott managed to keep it pointed straight most of the time, but only got within a couple of tenths on raw time. Officially, he finished second in FS, about 0.6 behind me. Being on the street tires, and not taking things seriously, I was surprised to see I even finished as high as 30 on the PAX index; there were a lot of Azeni-shod GS Celica drivers. Pat actually had one clean run in the Foumula, and managed to crush George (again) and finish 12th on index. Courtney was FTD in the STX Mini, and Richard West was top PAX in his Subie.

petersburg!
ummmm, what does that say for the class???; photo by kelley nelson

     Petersburg.... one of the banes of my existence, especially having taken the place of Harrisburg as "worst events of my lifetime." Of course, with stalling the car at Topeka, maybe I've finally passed the "jinx" on to another event? Well.... maybe.
     I'd been considering switching classes to L1 for about two weeks prior to this event, but just wasn't sure about my motive for doing so, nor was I sure I could make it an "easy win," with the threat of rain (hand it to the GS drivers), and some tough competition on the entry list (Kim Bullis and Sally Johnson, especially after the Tarheel event). I had told Scott that I would make up my mind by Wednesday and call my change in, but by Friday evening, I hadn't made up my mind. I asked a few people what their opinion was, and I got mixed reviews; Tim said I should go for it, Sam said I should stay in FS (of course they would have differing opinions!). Pat thought I should run L1 if I needed tires, as did Aaron, George and Bryan.... but it still wasn't sitting "right" with me. I especially didn't like the fact that Sandi Brown said, "So, I hear you're switching to ladies class?"as soon as I walked up to registration Friday night. I still don't know who told her that I might be changing classes. Anyway, after some really good melon creeper and a good night's sleep, I decided I'd buck up and just run L1.
     Saturday morning started off damp, and I was somewhat glad I wasn't running open class. FS was group 3, versus my group 6, and while it wasn't raining, it was certainly borderline too wet for the Hoosiers. I got the car ready for Scott, and he took to it fairly quickly, getting it off the line well, and avoiding the cones until his second pair of runs. His raw times were in line with the rest of the class, which had him fairly happy with his early performance.
     I was up much later, and the course was basically dry by the time I ran. I didn't get to run my number, as Donna Marx had taken it before I switched, but I tried not to let something so minor bother me. My main concern was to avoid the Petersburg jinx and not embarass myself. Mike Johnson was already harassing me, letting me know that Diane had "beat Bistrais by XX seconds at a local event," with the implication being that if I couldn't beat Ron, I wasn't going to beat Diane. I tried not to let that bother me, and retorted with the Peru Tour data ("yeah, well, I beat her by 2.1 seconds in her own car"), which he didn't seem to appreciate. So, he soon trundled off to his work assignment, which I was soon to discover was announcing. <sigh> He definitely made a big deal over me running L1, which only added to my misery as I pulled up to the line.
     I started off on the left, next to Audie Chenery in her Civic Si, behind Donna Marx. I did a minor "burnout" just to clean the rear tires off, and staged. Dean was working the start line, and gave me a weird look (I don't think he realized I was running L1 until he saw me pull up), then the lights came down. I got a good launch, though the Petersburg surface was certainly not easy to get traction on. Around the four cone wall, into the "slalom," through the keyhole-like turnaround, then up through the optical illusion of a three cone slalom and into the finish.... and it was a 28.9. Hmmmm, that was better than FS..... Over to the other side, and do it again in mirror image style.... and I rip off a 28.2. Back to the grid, check pressures, clean off tires....
     Now, people are saying to me, "Great runs! You look so fast out there!" but I wasn't really taking it seriously. For one, I was up against a Civic. Not dissing Audie or anything, but it is an HS car. Secondly, open FS ran in the damp conditions, and I was already running better times than most of the class mainly because I was running in much better conditions.
     So, the next two runs, I try to concentrate a little more on looking ahead through the turnaround, and what do I do but botch the very first turn? I'm so busy looking at the tachometer, that I turn in late and push out. ugh... I push a little harder the rest of the run, and get some plow through the finish too.... and still manage a 27.7!? Damn. I go to the other side, and rip off a 28.1 there, for a time that would certainly be leading FS... except that I ran in the dry. It was very difficult for me to accept the praise for my runs, with the disparity in conditions making it difficult for a comparison with the open class. It wasn't until a few hours later that I saw my times were indeed pretty good. It took two runs for anyone to get by my times, which had me pretty happy. Strano didn't even beat my right side time, though his left side was 0.8 better. Even Lynne, who was leading FS after Saturday's runs, was less than a second (0.941) ahead of me! Wow. Scott, however, had minimal improvement as he redlighted both of his right side runs. The car would roll slightly if you let off the brake too soon, and I think that contributed to the heart-wrenching 0.496 red light he had on his 27 second run. :(

petersburg!
finishing off the competition; photo by kelley nelson
     For my afternoon runs, I was leading L1 and paired up with Diane. She was standing on one run on each side due to red lights, and those times had her almost 1.4 behind me. So much for Mike's ploy to get me worried. However, the last time I'd run against Diane was the bonus challenge in Oscoda, and I'd redlighted against her there. I was making doubly sure to stage where I wanted, and to launch on the third yellow.
     However, I was already starting to get bad vibes from some people in or associated with the class. The Franks, for one, were very obviously
upset with me for my choice; they hadn't spoken to me at all. I guess it didn't help that Donna had cone trouble in the first heat, and so was quite far back in the back. I'd already heard that I was "cherry picking" the class, and I really didn't care, because I was running to try to win tires, and I did think it would be easier to win in L1 than in FS. I couldn't deny either of those accusations.
     Well the questionable weather got flaky just as I was about to take my afternoon runs, and while I got my first two runs in, with a cone on the left (damn! would have been a 0.1 improvement!) and minimal improvement on the right (0.044 better), that would be it for me and Diane. As we waited for the go ahead for our second two runs, it started sprinkling.... enough that traction off the line was compromised, and while the times were close, they were no faster. It stopped raining right after we ran and went to impound, of course, and Michelle Seelig was one of those cone-happy people from the morning who improved drastically by getting a clean run in the afternoon. She slipped between Diane and me for heat 3.
     Impound is where the real problems started, I guess. After getting ribbed publicly by Mike (since he was announcing our group all three heats), and overhearing other comments, I finally lashed out in impound when the continued, "Why are you running L1?" came at me again (I swear, this question was repeated more than the "Oh, you came to one of our events" I always hear at the VMSC events!). "I'm cherry-picking for the tires, and unlike some people in the class, I'm not afraid to admit it," was my flippant response. In retrospect, this probably wasn't the best thing for me to say, but I was getting really tired of the question, and even more tired of the fact that people were already saying that was what I doing. I guess I figured I may as well verbalize what people were thinking all along, but instead of taking it for the sarcasm it was, it seems that some took my comments to heart. 
     After partaking of the TUPPSCO, then some of the AI margaritas, Patt, George, Ian and I went back to the hotel. Can you believe Ian has never been in a Z28 before? Anyway, I go to the room, and we watch the bad news on the Weather Channel (almost 100% chance of rain in the morning), then I manage to totally fall asleep on bed. When I wake up two or so hours later, Pat and George are gone... evidently to the Melon Creeper room for some shotgunning of Beast and other college-type games. :) They wander back in around midnight, and I'm already back asleep.
     The next morning, Pat looks out the window
scott johnson meets RWD
scott meets RWD and torque; photo by kelley nelson
and proclaims, "It's raining." I think he's just messing with me, knowing that I drove to the hotel on the Hoosiers, but when I go outside, sure enough, it's raining. <sigh>It's actually not too dicey on the way to the site, except when I try to push things on the I85 ramp from I95, but I recover and take it easy the rest of the way.
     It's still very wet by the time FS rolls around, and Scott says he's going to pass on driving in the rain again. I guess he figures he got enough of that the previous week. I understand his reluctance, and don't badger him about it, though I wish I could have afforded full-tread Kumhos or dirt-stocker Hoosiers, as Lynne is still turning times in the 28s, with Paul on her heels in the low 29s. The best anyone else was doing was in the 30s, and that includes Tommy and Strano codriving Strano's car with Tommy's Kumhos on it. :|
     The rain actually stopped before group 6 rolled around, but it was still very wet out. I knew from Kevin Youngers (yeah, he was out there from Colorado) that Michelle needed just under 0.5 real time to catch me, and while it was wet, I wasn't sure how wet it had to be to slow the street tires down significantly. I was pretty worried she might be able to catch me, especially with the drying conditions. My fears only intensified during the first run, where I watched the Honda, out of the corner of my eye, launch much better than me. In my fear, I gave my car more gas, which only made my traction issues worse. I came in with a 31.8, which wasn't even good for FS open. Michelle, however, DNFed going into the slalom, so I was still safe. We swapped sides, and I rip off a 30.3, while noticing that it doesn't sound like a Honda next to me anymore. Very astute observation; I hadn't paid attention to the fact that when Kim Bullis left, Chris Peterson no longer had a "partner," and so she should have had a "bye" run.
     We go back to the grid, and I check tire pressures, clean off the tires, etc., and fret some more about the drying conditions. We pull up to the line for the final runs before the Challenge, and I don't improve on my other wet times, only doing a 30.6 and a 30.8 with a cone. Michelle DNFs in the same spot on the right, and cones on her left. It's still too wet for any of the race-tire shod people to go faster, so my win is basically a lock.
petersburg
photo by David Newman
     Now the guilt sets in. I don't know why I feel guilty, but I do. I need the tires as much as anyone in the class; what with my stupid debt and my teacher salary, if I want to run Hoosiers, it's an expensive proposition. So when Mike starts giving me a hard time again about "taking" tires from Diane (who only finished third), I finally break down. He says he'll stop giving me a hard time about it if it upsets me so much, but it wasn't even so much what he said to me as it was my own feelings of having caved in to the temptation, as well as what he and others were saying behind my back.
     So, I'm top qualifier for the Ladies Challenge. This is good for an automatic $125, if I run. And at this point, I'm feeling so horrible about running L1 that I'm literally sick to my stomach, and I all but forget about my work assignment (impound). Grady reminds me, but tells me that it's okay if I'm not feeling well, since I did more than my fair share on Saturday. Pat is in impound (he ran ESP, after seeing the forecast and deciding he'd do better to get STX points at another event), and I really break down talking to him about how bad I feel; I'm not one for losing it in public, but I was so upset at this point, I couldn't help it. Then, the icing on the cake came in the form of Hoosier Tom coming by to ask why I didn't buy my tires from him, and then trying to lay the mother of all guilt trips on me.
wheel!
is that wheel off the ground?!; photo by David Newman
      Needless to say, I was absolutely worthless for the Challenge rounds. Top qualifier? What a joke. Just before I ran, I was in the restroom trying not to puke my guts out, I was so upset over the bullshit. When Patti Frye and I pulled up to the line, I was on the right, and got back about a tenth ahead of her. Then I proceed to brake and coast in places I hadn't been braking or coasting all weekend, and she takes the round by 0.5. She says she always drives better in the Challenge than in competition anyway, but I know I made it easier for her. She ended up finishing second in the Challenge, to Paula Whitney.
     The aftermath came Monday night, when Jean Kinser asked on the evolution-discussions list why I decided to run ladies, and then alluded to my thoughtless comment over and over and over again. Such a furor! I received many private emails supporting my decision to run L1 to try to win tires, even if it went against my principles. I tried to explain my comment to Jean, but she'd already heard the "other" side of the story, and it seems that I'm already pegged as the "bad guy" for spoiling the L1 party. I guess this means I'll just have to run L1 again and go for year-end points. <shrug>
     
     The DC event was actually dry!!! I wouldn't go so far as to call it "sunny," but there was no rain for once. I brought the Kumhos that Pat had used (and complained about) at Petersburg, so that I'd have race tires, but I wasn't planning on taking fastest index of the day or anything.
     The course was impossible... or at least the beginning was. I don't know who did the design, and no one I asked knew either. It started off with a series of "switchbacks" leading about halfway up the hill, then into a slalom, followed by the required ninety-degree left turn. A straight led into a difficult left hand turn going back down the hill (many, many people went OC here, as if you looked ahead through the turn, you'd actually turn in before the gate -- I know, because I almost did it, and caught myself at the last second). Another right, and then a "chicane" type wiggle took you through the finish.
     The switchback section was so tight, it was too slow for second, but then it was too quick between the turns for first. It was just ugly.
     The Kumhos had no grip. The car pushed something fierce. I don't know how much of it was the 245/265 distribution (though that worked in the past), but they weren't Hoosiers, that's for sure. :) I really didn't care how I finished. I don't even know how I ended up going to this event, as I really don't care to attend DC region events. It was nice to see Ron Bistrais make it to the event, though getting crushed by 2.1 seconds wasn't exactly fun... of course, he was on Hoosiers (old and crusty, from Nationals last year, but still Hoosiers), so I wasn't too upset.
     Eh. I'm pretty ambivalent about that event. I finished second to Ron, and Wayne Rubain (in the M5) was in third. Pat did okay, finishing less than a tenth back from Tony Powell in STX. Vince Bly won, on a fourth run rerun (fifth run), so considering it took him that long to pull it out, I don't think it was that big of a deal.

pic from the gazette article
"Watkins Mill teacher hits the road"; photo by Brian Lewis for the Gazette
     
     Driving to Atlanta directly after school is not something I want to do again any time soon. Granted, I left a little early (dropped the students off with Safford), but to avoid the disaster that is I-95 on a Friday afternoon, I went west to I-81 and down I-77.... not much better, when there's an accident in Roanoke, and general idiocy in the Carolinas. I got to the hotel around 2AM. Fortunately, roomies Matt Cragin and Jim Reyenga were still awake.
     Next morning, I stress to them and Ian Stewart (in the next room, with Team Underdog) that I need to get to the site early, so I can walk and register and change tires... all the stuff I usually have to do on Saturday morning. Well, we don't get there quite as early as I want, and registration is a little on the slow side, so I walk once, then go to start changing tires. This is where the nightmare starts. :\ Jim is helping me, and he is working on the driver's side rear, while I'm taking off the passenger side rear tire. When I pull off the tire, I can't help but notice the inside of the the rim is coated with oil... gear oil... where the hell is it coming from? I look at the brake caliper, and there is something screwed up there too; a small piece of metal is sticking out at a weird angle. I don't know what the hell is wrong, but I do know that I probably shouldn't be autocrossing it. Jim goes off to see if he can't find someone that knows something about Camaro calipers, and I start to pull the caliper apart to figure out what is going on. About five minutes later, I have the caliper off, and the piece of metal out, but I still don't know what it is or what it is supposed to be doing. Jim has found Jerry Grigg, who runs a '96 Z28 1LE in FS (his is red), and Jerry says it's part of the caliper assembly, and that he can't remember exactly how it fits. I take the other caliper apart, and there isn't a metal piece there, so I just put this one away and figure I'll deal with it later.
     Seeing my axle seal dilemma, Jerry offers a codrive in his car. I balk a little, then ask him if he wants to use my tires. He says no, he has brand new Hoosiers (and I guess he didn't feel like changing tires again, since evidently, he'd just finished). He also says that when I register, I should just sign up as the second driver (127), so that timing has less work to do. What? It's not supposed to work that way! I'm supposed to use my tires, and I'm supposed to be the tire warmer, right? Well, I'm just shocked at Jerry's hospitality.

me driving jerry's car
me driving jerry's '96 Z28 1LE; photo by ian stewart

     FS wasn't running until fourth heat (again), so I had plenty of time to talk to Jerry about how his car was set up, and what I should expect. Turns out that he's on the 245/45R16 Hoosiers (unlike my 275s), and he still has the stock front swaybar, and the stock double adjustable Konis. I've thought about using the smaller Hoosiers, but the general consensus says that the 245s don't work as well on the 1LE cars, so I shied away from them.
     First runs out, Tommy Pulliam is leading, and after a somewhat tentative drive, I'm in third (conage!) and Jerry's second. The car feels good, rotates well under braking. Second runs, Jerry drops 0.3, Tommy doesn't improve. I run clean, almost a second faster to put me in second place. Knowing Tommy's running a Kumhoosier mix, I feel I should be able to beat him, but it's proving more difficult in practice. Last runs, Jerry doesn't improve, and while Tommy gets a couple of tenths, he hits a cone. I get a couple of tenths also, but somehow manage to hit two cones. I feel good about second place... then I hear that the first driver of other two driver car, Tony Schulz, is just barely ahead of me. Yikes! So much for taking it to Tommy at his home "track"! 
     Dinner was at a Mexican place near the hotel, with about a dozen of us raucous autocrossers, mostly STS guys like Heyward and Flanagan. We went back to the event site after that, to see how the course had turned out after Falkner and McMillan got their hands on it (they were "tweaking" it, after mucho complaints about the narrow gates). I probably didn't get as much sleep as I should have, considering the ride home wasn't going to get started until late, but oh well.
 me in jerry's car
thrashing the other '96 1LE on course; photo by scott schleh

     Jerry and I decided to try my tires on Sunday, so the first order of business was to change tires. He had to change to the street tires to drive home anyway, so it wasn't a big deal to change to the 275s. Then, it was sit around and wait, as my worker assignment was to write about the event for NAP and Grassroots Motorsports. Fourth heat finally rolled around, and Jerry's first run was only a tenth off of Tommy's, and he had a big grin on his face. "I need to get a set of these!" was what he told me about the tires. Sure enough, my first run out, I could see what he meant. The car didn't feel bad on the 245s, but on the 275s, it definitely felt good. Much more stable, more controllable. I get a 51.9, but, yes, tag a friggin' cone along the way. It was the fastest raw time of FS by 0.3... except for the stupid cone. Second runs, I get almost the exact same time, including another cone, while Tommy gets a 51.8 (clean, of course), and Jerry improves to a 52.0 (plus one). Tony, the guy I have to catch, rips off a 51.6? Damn. The last runs, Jerry backs up a little to a clean 52.1 (he was pretty happy with that), while Tony backs way up to a 52.1 (was the 51.6 a fluke?). I pull to the line and intentionally delay my start so I can hear Tommy's time... a 51.9... no faster. I know what I need to run, and I'm thinking I can't do it, not and run clean. I make my attempt anyway, and manage to be shaking a little as I come across the finish line. 51.8... and finally a clean run. I don't know what my problem was that weekend, but I only managed two clean runs the whole time. It was only good enough for third place, two tenths back from Tony, but my Sunday time was actually quicker than Tommy's, so that was slightly redeeming.
     The ride home sucked. I missed the exit for I-77, so I took I-85 all the way to Richmond, and there were accidents out the ass all through Georgia and the Carolinas. I got about 90 minutes of sleep before I needed to get up and go to work Monday morning. At least the next event would be closer to home.
sunday, pushing hard
pushing hard from the sunday start; photo by Terry Zorich

     The DC Tour weekend started with me puttering around work, making sure my room was suitable for summer check-out, then moseying over to FedEx field. Of course, the Beltway was packed with idiots, so it took me twice as long to get over there as it should have, but I arrived, and talked with some people, and registered, then abruptly realized that in my haste to say hi to Chris Travis when I arrived, I managed to lock my keys in the car. <rolling eyes> I figured it was no big deal; I'd call Pat and let him know to bring the extra set, which I knew were at his house. Except... yep, my cell phone was sitting on the passenger seat. Damn it! So Kriemelmeyer lets me use his phone, and I just bum around, walked the course, grabbed a bite to eat (yummy BBQ), and when I see a red Lightning, first check to see if it's Pat (he didn't have the only Lightning, by far), then see if he has my keys. No such luck; he drove straight from work, so now I have to go up to Harmans, then back to FedEx, then home to get my tires. Who said a "local Tour" would be easy? So, Ian and Jim were staying at Chez Griffith and they were really tired, so I lead them to Pat's, get my keys, drive back to FedEx (obviously, I was in the Lightning doing this), get in my car, drive home, get my tires, then drive back to Pat's. Joy!
     FS wasn't running until fifth heat, and we worked second heat, so there was some leeway in when we arrived Saturday morning. However, Ian and Jim wanted to get there early, so we left probably around 6:30 or so, and got there in plenty of time to walk the beautiful, loooooong Lee Piccione designed courses again. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to scamper out of impound (my work assignment, as usual) before the course was closed between heats 2 and 3, so I wanted to look at it one more time before my runs at the end of the day. It was going to be a tough class, I knew that much, with the Kozlaks, Strano, Junior and Bistrais all running, plus Diane had decided to be Junior's tire warmer instead of running FSL. There were some unknowns in the equation, with newcomer Jason Burns in an '03 Mustang, and Bruce Bellom and Bistrais were swapping cars from Saturday to Sunday, starting with the LS1 on Saturday. Only one person was a no-show.
     First runs, the times were in the 56-58 second range, so I was pretty happy with a 58.1... except I snagged not one, but two cones. Great... already, I was continuing my cone troubles from Atlanta. The first thing I noticed about the course was that it definitely felt like bonus time; by the time I got to the far end, it seemed like it should be over, but then I got to continue the drive back, much like hitting a checkpoint in a driving game and getting extended time! :) Next runs, most people cleaned up, including myself. I even improved a couple of tenths, but with Pat over with the STX guys complaining about how crappy his car was handling, and Diane ecstatic over a 56.8, I was suddenly overcome with depression.



more hard driving
coming out of the off-camber turn; photo by Terry Zorich
I had won over Diane by a second at Petersburg, and now I was a second back from her? Where the hell had she found two seconds??? Not only that, but the fastest times were now in the 55s, so I was two seconds off the pace anyway. So, I tried to step it up a bit on my last run, which was easiest said than done with so many offcamber turns. I eeked out a less-than-a-tenth improvement to sit on a 57.7. And, when the results were posted, I was somewhat relieved to see that Diane's 56.8 was marred by a cone, but she was a mere 0.002 back from me, and Jason Burns was 0.001 ahead. Wow. Leading at the time was Lynne with a 55.6, so there was definitely room for improvement on my part, though I wasn't sure if any of it was the car, as opposed to me. It poured right after we left impound, delaying my tire changing, but at least the competition was dry.

off the line
i would have preferred to be at a prosolo than the DC tour; photo by pat griffith
      I had a little chat with Pat about him throwing fits in my presence, as I know my mind wasn't on my driving when he was have a temper tantrum about his STX showing. I reminded him how I ended up in Topeka because I knew he was in a bad mood there, and that if he needed to rant, I didn't want to be privy to it. I have enough problems concentrating on what I need to do without things like that hovering on the edges of my subconscious. I also had to have a discussion with Ian about getting protested. Seems he has irritated enough of his BS competition that they decided not to wait until Topeka to protest his lack of radiator shrouding. He was quite upset as we headed back to Pat's, but a couple of beers and pizza later, he was doing much better.
     Next morning, course walks later, I am determined to drive better. Pat says he'll try to keep on a happy face until we're both done. Ian and Jim have both found rides in other cars in order to get times for Sunday, Ian with Pat Salerno in a 350Z and Jim with Mike Solomon in an S2K. The course for Sunday was the same as Saturday, just backwards, and started with a wicked offcamber right hander. My first run, a 53.6, was already disgustingly slow, as the Kozlaks were in the 51s. Sammy was now complaining about his car, and how he was frustrated that he wasn't sure if his problems were car or driver; he started with a 52.3. I managed to drop four tenths on my second run, but Diane cleaned up a coned run to be in the high 52s. Ugh. After a tenth improvement on his second run, Sammy asks to take his last run in my car. I jump at the opportunity, wanting to know the same thing about my problems -- car or driver. At this point, I've managed to get by Jason Burns in the Mustang, who is struggling in the 53s, as well as Bruce Bellom (in the LT1 car for Sunday), who is wallowing with 53.7s, but I needed to know why I was so far behind Diane. So, my last run, I dip, barely, into the 52s (52.906), but I already know it's not enough to catch her. She slows up on her final run, so overall, she nips me by 0.035. :( Burns has his best run, but it's still in the 53s. Sammy then takes my car out, and literally matches my time (52.904). It confirms that my problem is mostly car, and his problem is probably driver. I finish the event in 7th. :(
     Pat, meanwhile, does much better on the Sunday course, and lays down some relatively quick times. He finishes merely one out of the trophies in STX.
     Afterwards, Sammy helps me change the front shock settings, and points out that my driver side front swaybar mounting bracket may need replacing. He tells me what to change the rear shocks to, and to maybe dial a little more toe-out into the car. I promise I'll improve the car for Oscoda, pack up and leave, feeling somewhat relieved the event is finally over.


the only time there was sun....
the sun did shine, for a couple of seconds; photo by on-the-spot photography
      In Oscoda, there were six people signed up for FS when I got there Friday afternoon, but the first thing Ian says to me is, "Do you guys have a class if I run CS?" grrrrrrr I'd been hemming and hawing about driving up there, and finally just went because I didn't want to ditch Ian, and then Telehowski steals him to get a CS class. I check with Lindberg to make sure that he is, indeed, running the Mustang, then tell Ian he can do what he wants. He doesn't hesitate too much in switching; I guess he's like Tim in that he prefers the smaller, nimbler, torqueless cars. :p Anyway, that means FS is me, and four people I've never beat before -- Lynne, Paul, Strano and Lindberg. O the joy. Plus, it's threatening rain all weekend (what happened to the 30% chance of scattered showers that was predicted when I left the house???), and I'm the only one without dirt stockers. Oh, yes, it's going to be a great weekend. :\
     Saturday morning, I don't have far to drive to get to the event site, as Ian and I are staying at his brother's in-laws' cottage across from the site. I had stayed out a bit late, talking with Heyward and the rest of Team Underdog, and partaking of the two-stroke margaritas made by Tracey Ramsey. I stumble around the Marcus Merideth designed courses, and get ready to run; we're group 2. I change the rear shocks in pregrid, as I couldn't find my Koni tool during the week, so I borrow Lindberg's. The skies are cloudy, and it's not looking good for the afternoon, so everyone knows they have to make the most of these runs. I'm on the left side, first position, against Strano, and I'm kidding around that I plan to stay there. :) Fat chance, but I can talk trash, right? First launches, Sammy and I are both cutting 0.5s, and the LT1 isn't giving up much to the LS1 down the straight. The slalom though... uh... it looked more open when I walked it. :( I hit the second cone to stay on course. The car was handling pretty oddly at this point, and I find out after the finish that the cone was wedged up in the front fender. The cone came out with a bang!! as I was crossing over to the right-side course, and scared the crap out of me. I line up, cut another decent light, and manage to stay off the cones this time. :) Lindberg had a DNF and a cone run, and Lynne was 0.7 faster. I figured I hit the brakes in a couple of places that I didn't need to, so I knew what I would do differently the second set of runs.
     Well, I ran faster on the right side and got into the 28s, but I coned it near the finish. :\ It would have been a 0.6 improvement. The left side, I replicated what I did on the right, and ran a clean 29.1. Lindberg coned his second set of runs too, and Strano was in the mid 28s, as was Lynne. Paul went out a little while later and got into the low 28s (28.1 on both sides).
     Then the heavens opened up.
     It stopped a little bit just before our afternoon runs, but it was still pretty wet. Lindberg switched to the dirt stockers, as he had nothing to lose, being DFL at that point. The rest of us stayed on the regular Hoosiers, and the first set of runs, we were about 1.5-2.0 seconds off the pace. But before our second runs, it just let loose, and it was a handful just staying on course, much less getting a competitive time. It was pretty ugly, but entertaining at the same time, watching Sam and Paul go off course and hit mad cones. :) Lynne didn't even run, and so, ignoring Lindberg's dirt-stocker runs, I "won" the battle of the wet course by virtue of staying on course both sides. :)
     The next morning, it was still wet, but instead of running very early, they had postponed the group 6 cars until Sunday due to the crazy weather and the small turnout. So, we had a little more of a respite, though the course didn't really get dry. Lynne had the driest of the Sunday runs, but she couldn't capitalize on them, and so the finish position was the same as it had been Saturday morning. I had managed not to be last! Yah! However, I don't think Lindberg was very happy about his showing, and I won't be surprised if he never brings the Mustang out again. :(
     The event ended with an awesome drive by Tom Hoppe in the challenge rounds. KC and I were helping him out with tire pressures and cooling, and I'd like to take credit for the "magic rub" before every round. :) He got by some pretty stiff competition, and the closest battle was probably between him and Telehowski, which came down to thousandths. Tom took home about $1300 for that challenge win, so he was pretty excited. :)
me driving kevin's car
not really a dsp car, and definitely not an oldsmobile! photo by bob ucker
      Pat wanted to leave Thursday night for the Peru Tour, so that we would have plenty of time to get there on Friday and run practice runs. I wasn't too concerned, as I seem to do okay just jumping into a car; though, granted, I haven't run FWD in a long time, and I definitely hadn't run FWD with a limited slip for a while. I was supposed to be in Grainger's Olds Calais 442 W41 car, which he was bringing up to run in DSP. Pat originally signed up to run STX in the Firebird, but a header install while I was in Oscoda had gone horribly wrong, and he not only didn't have the new headers on, but an exhaust flange stud on the old ones had broken so it was definitely out of commission.
     We drove about halfway there, in the Lightning on Thursday night, with the idea that he'd be codriving with Tyler Stewart in "Barney" (the purple '82 ESP Camaro). Well, when we get there on Friday and find Neary and AJ, Mike's first comment is, "Did Tyler let you know he isn't going to make it?" Oh, of course he did.... NOT!!! So, now Pat's got to try to find something else to drive. I'd already cleared it with Grainger that Pat could run STX in the Calais, and he had some other interesting offers, including Dan Cyr's shifter kart and Pat Washburn's CM FF. Well, we see Randy Keeton pulling in with the '90 1LE, and Pat goes to talk to him about that, and comes back successful. We secure a paddock space (squishing the Lightning, Randy's truck and car, the Calais, and Steve Couture's Spec Neon and tow vehicle in a tight space!), and start getting cars ready for practice starts. I help Matt change tires and get the car set up, and he tells me that the throttle cable is sticking a little bit, so it wasn't very smooth trying to drive it. Okay... I take the car to tech, then over for practice starts. Matt goes first, and I ride with him. Now, I've seen his videos, but being in the car is much more violent!! He really tosses the car around. My first run, I get into the practice course's slalom, have problems upshifting to second, get on the gas, and... whoa! I forgot about the phenomenom of "throttle on oversteer" in FWD cars with limited slips. I recover, and finish the course. We each take two more runs, then things are closed down.
     Clouds are starting to build, so instead of standing around waiting for registration to open, we walk the course, then get in line. The wind is starting to pick up, and I'm getting a prickly feeling on my neck; this is going to be a bad storm, I can feel it. We start walking, faster and faster, over to the paddock, where GH and Mark Chiles are asking if Pat can move Randy's car, not realizing it's not Pat's. GH's side door on his trailer won't quite clear the car, and the storm is moving in fast. Pat pulls off the car cover to look to see if the keys happen to be in it, but no such luck. We're trying to figure out how to move it, when an 80mph gust (no exaggeration!!) tears into the paddock, scattering canopies, cones, anything not tied down, including the trailer door, which leaves a 10inch gash in the side of the car. :( Pat is appalled, but we've got bigger problems now. The rain has started, big, fat drops that feel like hail when they hit. The wind hasn't died down much, and he's desperately trying to get the car cover back on. It's only been raining for about a minute, and I'm already soaked to the bone. I help him get the car cover attached, throw some stuff in Matt's trailer and the Lightning's cab, then crawl into the cab. We can see that the registration tent has collapsed!! Damn.... the storm lets up a little bit about 15 minutes later, but it's still raining, just not as windy. We decide not to stick around, and go to Kokomo to check in to the hotel. Not two miles south of the site, it's perfectly dry.
     Power was out in areas in Kokomo, and in fact, while we were checking into our hotel, the power flickered on and off, but otherwise, we were lucky. Some people had no power all night! In fact, Dan Cyr arrived late the next morning, and was lucky to get two runs in, because his hotel was powerless. :\ Not only that, but Kokomo had a record rainfall, and it almost looked like we might not be able to make it to Peru due to flooding! I had to work first heat (from my FS entry), but it was not very strenuous, once I got there. The rain stopped, and the sun came out. I was going to get dry runs (happy dance!).
     I was up first in the decently sized DSP class. Running 98 (as far from Hoelscher as we could get), I was following Mitch Beranek, in the BimmerHaus 330ci. He decided to take a turn just before the finish a little too quickly, and managed to spin in such a way that I came up on him before he was finished getting back on course. So, I get a rerun, which was a good thing, since I was still getting acclimated to the car. I go back out about five minutes later, and get into the first slalom, which you entered via a little jog to the left. I did a slight lift to rotate the car, then got back on the gas.... and the car felt like it had popped out of gear. I'd continued to have trouble getting it into second, so I put in the clutch, and put it firmly into second gear, but there was still nothing. Uh oh.... I tried first gear, and there was nothing. Shit.... I've got a baaaaaad feeling about this as I pull off the course in an attempt to prevent more reruns (timing wasn't paying attention, so my efforts were for naught). Tad Kaminsky and Chris Shenefield were working the area where I pulled off, and they thought it sounded like a transmission problem. Great.... Grainger comes out on course, and is not upset in the least. He says, "Well, it's been making a noise lately." I'm incredulous at his lack of concern.

     So, I walk back to grid, where Brian Flanagan (announcing) is giving me a hard time. My main concern at that point is finding a competitive ride for Grainger, since I felt so bad about his car breaking on my run. So, I talk to Matt Watkins, who has an Integra GSR set up similar to Neary's, and he says, "yeah" after I let him know that Grainger usually runs a Type R. I have a couple of offers, but nothing in DSP as virtually all of the DSP cars are two driver. So, I take Kevin Youngers up on his DS 330Ci offer, and we're set.		 not really going to throw it....
i am not really going to throw the helmet; i'm just threatening flanagan with it! :) photo by bob ucker
     Grainger goes out in Watkins' car and sets a fast time, beating Hoelscher off the bat. Hoelscher's all pissy about this situation, but none of the rest of us care; in fact, we all think it's funny he's so bent about being anywhere besides in the lead. My first run in Kevin's car is respectable, and less than a second off him. In fact, it's good for second in DS, so I wasn't too upset about being in an uncompetitive DSP car, though Flanagan was making comments like, "I can't believe that car is faster in stock trim!" :) I end up with a 53.6 to Kevin's 52.7, while Grainger is sitting in second place, 0.6 ahead of Hoelscher.
     We go to BW3 for dinner and then to the Hugger for entertainment that evening. I got to see some things that I almost wish I hadn't, but it was amusing to be sure, especially the number of random guys hitting on me at the Hugger. Before we left, Grainger discovers that the problem on the Calais is a CV joint, and fixes it, but we try to convince him to stay in the Integra anyway. He says he'll think about it.
dead in the water
matt's car made quite a few photo appearances on saturday! photo by bob ucker

      Next morning, it's still dry (yah!), and fourth heat rolls around to see Grainger deciding to run the Calais, saying he brought the car out there to see what it could do, and he really wasn't concerned with winning. Damn, I wish I could have that outlook. I stayed in Kevin's car, not wanting to play the switch game if I didn't have to. Well, Grainger's times are way off the pace, and my times were consistent with what I ran on Saturday, about 0.7 back from Kevin... until my final run. I found out then that left foot braking is a good thing... because if I had done it, I wouldn't have spun and almost put the BMW in the grass, or worse. :\ Tad said I had it up on two wheels, about 4 inches or so. Yikes. But no harm came of it, and I had a lot of fun, despite it being a DS car, and having no limited slip. :)
     Pat ended up one out of the trophies in FS, and beat Randy, much to Randy's chagrin. However, Pat did well enough in the FS car that he's decided to ditch the STX Firebird as "uncompetitive." :\ Personally, I think he's giving up too easily, but he's too stubborn to listen. He wants to win, and he wants to win now.
     
saturday FS results
just a teaser.... saturday afternoon results from wendover....

     Wendover 2003 started, again, on a Wednesday, but this time I wasn't driving someone else's car out.  No, this year, I decided to take the green terror to the desert, in hopes of taking on the West Coast FS class. I left around noon, drove most of the way through Illinois, then started off early again on Thursday morning. Early Thursday evening, near Cheyenne, I wound up the windows to make a call to see where Jason Saini and Juliann were in relation to me, and I notice an awful lot of noise. I'm hoping it's just road noise, but it quickly becomes clear that it's more of a bearing-going-bad thing. Shit.... this was the last thing I needed, two-thirds of the way to the event site. I keep going until I get to Rawlins, but can't find a hotel room. I'm in a bad mood at this point (which is good for keeping me awake, if for nothing else), so I proceed on I-80, pledging to stop at the next rest area or Rock Springs, whichever comes first. I get to a rest area first, and set my cell phone alarm for a couple of hours of rest.
     Next morning, around 5AM mountain time, I'm leaving the rest area, and the noise is still very prevalent. I pull off less than a mile down the road into a "parking area" (basically a pull-off area for truckers to nap), and look at the tires in the vain hope that there's a nail or something that's causing the noise. I wish, right? One of the rears looks a little funny, so I put it up front to see if that changes the noise (or at least where the noise is originating). I start off again, and the noise is still there with no changes. I take the exit that's just past the parking area, sit at the bottom of it for a few moments, trying to figure out what I'm going to do. I decide I may as well look at the gear oil, to make sure there aren't pieces of gear starting to come off, because the noise is uncomfortably similar to what I heard just before the BANG of the pinion gear breaking. So, I get on I-80 east, pull into the mirror-image parking area, and find a gallon jug to mutilate into an oil catch pan. At 6AM now, I proceed to drain the gear oil and examine the gears on the side of I-80, something I never hope to have to do again. Fortunately, while there was what I felt to be an abnormal amount of metal shavings attached to the magnet, there were not chunks, and the ring and pinion looked okay. I'd already driven at least 250 miles with the noise, and I had about 350 left to get to Wendover. I put everything back together, and crossed my fingers, hoping it was the axle bearings (which I could feasibly replace on site).
     I stopped in Salt Lake City to find an Autozone, and got the stuff I needed for the axle bearing change. I get to the event site around 1:30, and start working. Before I know it, I've got plenty of people helping me out. Now, the first thing I did was to check the ring and pinion again, as it was somewhat dark when I looked at it that morning. The pinion has some weird marks on it that look uncomfortably like cracks to me, but Charlie Shelton looked at it and said they weren't irregular enough. So, I changed the axle bearings with some help from Larry Petrucci and Scott Brown, and when everything was back together, took it for a quick spin.
     The noise was still there. :(
     So, now I had to find a ride. With me, FS had 5 people. Without me, FS was against Andy McKee and Jason Saini in BS. I hoped that was incentive enough for either Ted Drcar or Brian Simpson to let me codrive. I asked Scott if he thought either of them would go for it, and he seemed to think both of them would be okay with a codriver. I figured I'd ask Ted first, since I had my tires, and I could also use that as a "bargaining chip," as it were, but we couldn't find him at first. So, I talked with some other people (getting my backup codrives in order, if needed), then I saw Ted over by his car. I introduced myself to him, explained the problem, and he immediately said, "Yeah, you can drive my car." Wow, that was almost too easy. Like Jerry Grigg in Atlanta, he had already changed his tires, so he didn't seem too keen on changing them again right away, but he had 245s on lightweight Bogart Racing Wheels, and his 2001 is not a 1LE, so I wasn't sure how my tires would work comparatively anyway.
     Next morning, I get our numbers changed (we ran my numbers) and get updated tech stickers, then stagger around the left side course one more time. I'd been up late Friday night, playing blackjack and getting totally wasted, but I'd had a bad day, so I felt like I deserved it. The only problem was, it probably contributed to my feeling miserable the next morning. I wasn't hungover, but I think it was dehydration (still, likely brought on by the alcohol). Anyway, it was all I could do to get to the event site before registration closed.
against lewis
coming out of the turnaround; photo by Alex Groves

     FS was group 1, and I was the first driver, paired up with Lewis Rounds, who was codriving with Scott. I redlit. Great start, eh? Go over to the left, and turn a 45.3 to Lewis's 47.0. Eh. Brian Simpson, in a '89 Trans Am 1LE, had run a 45.5 on the left and a 44.9 on the right. I'm not feeling optimistic right now. Ted's car is a little crunchy going into second gear, so I have to short shift, and it definitely has more body roll than mine, otherwise it feels like... well, like a fourth gen. I'm not having too much of a problem with axle hop under braking, as much as I'm having a problem looking ahead through a very difficult turnaround at the end. I go back out, and drop to a 44.5 on the left, and a 44.7 on the right. Lewis complains he's spending too much time looking at where I am on course to do well; he manages a 0.5 drop on the left, but cones his right. Brian spins on the right, and gets 0.3 on the left.
     So, Scott and Ted are up next, and Ted also starts off with a red light on the right, and Scott only gets a 45.0 on the left. They switch, and Ted comes into the slalom too fast and DNFs; Scott hits a cone. Wow, this is kind of weird from my stand point. I get a spray bottle and cool down Ted's tires, and on the next set of runs, he backs off a bit for mid-45s on both sides, while Scott gets a 44.7 and a 44.8. Hmmmm.... That's awfully close to me... in fact, when the results come out, it's 0.002 back from me. I am in the lead? Damn.
     Ted and I switch to the 275s for the afternoon, figuring at this point, there's nothing much to lose from trying. We can always switch back in the morning. We also secure a water bottle early from Gary Thomason, so that we aren't caught offguard by overheated Hoosiers. I start off with a mediocre 44.1 on the left, though it was a 0.6 improvement, then cross over for a 0.04 improvement on the right. Ick. Fortunately, Scott has redlit and hit cones on his first two runs. I go back out, and drop yet a little bit more on the right, down to a 44.4, and then lay out a blistering 43.3 on the right. But it was artificially fast; I'd hit the second to last cone in the slalom, so pushed the finish to see how fast I could take it, hitting a second cone there. But I knew we should be at least in the 43s. Brian had improved about the same amount I had, and Scott hadn't improved at all due to yet more cones and a DNF. I was still in the lead?!
     But Ted and Lewis were up next, and I knew Ted was probably my biggest competition at this point. He didn't seem too upset about my being ahead of him at this point, but I know how some people can be about losing in their own car. I was torn between hoping he'd do better, and me staying ahead of him. :) He started off with two cones on the left, both of them heading out, and then dropped 1.2 on the right. Not a bad start, if he wasn't sitting on an abysmal 45.4 on the left. We cool the tires down, and he's saying he really likes how the car feels on the 275s; much like the difference between 245s and 275s on Jerry Grigg's 1LE, the 275s seem to make the car more predictable. Last two runs are up, and Ted rips off a 43.9 on the right -- fastest right side at the point -- then all but spins coming into the finish on the left. He has moved up to 3rd with the right side run, but the left side is killing him.
     Coming out of impound, I ask Ted if he really thought I'd be doing so well in his car when he agreed to the codrive. I just felt he initially didn't think of me as a threat, and he said he had asked some of the San Diego people about me Friday night. Gary Thomason evidently told him that I would make him work for the win, and my thought was, "Gary Thomason knows who I am?"
     We went to dinner later that evening (things didn't wrap up at the event site until about 7:30), and Jason Uyeda was treating due to a $6K+ win at the blackjack tables on Friday night. I was going to buy for Ted, but I got included in the San Diego party, which was nice. Unfortunately, while the casino has changed hands since last year, the restaurant service hasn't improved, and Ted got fed up with waiting for dinner. I don't think we got out of there until past 11PM, and then several of us went to play blackjack until about 1:30AM. I ran Steve O'Blenes back to his hotel, then went to sleep... a restless one at that.
     Sunday would not be good to me. Walking the course that morning, I couldn't stop thinking about how I was going to get my car home. "It's just a bearing, it'll be okay, just noisy," I kept telling myself, but I couldn't buy into it. I'd put it out of my mind, then it would creep right back in a few minutes later. sigh Needless to say, I didn't drive my best that morning, and by the end of the first drivers' runs, I had fallen to third spot, with Scott in the lead and Brian second. I knew I was in trouble then, and could only hope that Ted redeemed himself to salvage something of the weekend. Then, as I pulled into the two driver lane, Barbara Leroy-Boehme points out that my tires are corded on the outside edge.



shooting up the offsets
and they're off! photo by Alex Groves
     Ted isn't sure he wants to run on them, so we take a mechanical and try to figure out what to do. We run and get the Bogarts with the 245s on them, but he really wants to run on the 275s as he feels the car is working great on them. So, he goes out after a few minutes delay on the corded tires. After his first two runs, I was starting to wonder if I wouldn't stay in third spot, as he coned his first left side run, and redlights on the right.
     He comes back in, and I ask again, "Do you want to change tires?" He says no, that the car didn't feel like the tires were going away that much. The cording is only on the very edge of the tire, and so it may not be as bad as cording on the main contact patch, but we know we'll have to do something if either of us makes it into the Challenge. The time comes for him to take his final two runs, and I stress to him that he certainly can pull a win out, but he has to drive not necessarily conservatively, but can't hit cones and can't get squirrely either. So, he comes up on the right, and gets a great launch, and the car looks like it's working extremely well... and the time?! a 42.3! That was what we all should have been doing, considering the times Paul Brown in ES was turning. At this point, Ted's in second place, still standing on a crappy 45.4 on the left, and I tell him as he goes over to the left, "Just run clean!! You'll win!!" So, that's what he does, taking a pretty conservative run, staying well off the cones. He still gets a 44.3 (second slowest time on the left), which is a 1.1 improvement and enough to win by 0.7. Wow.
     For the Challenge, we had Grady mark the tires, and then Mike Taylor (in the Kumho truck) flipped them on the rims for us. Well, actually, he flipped them, but onto the Bogarts, so all I had to take home were the rims. The was a lot of OPR on what had been the inside edges though, and Ted didn't make it through the first round. Matthew Braun managed to win the Challenge.
     I left right after the awards ceremony so I could stop in SLC and return the tools to Autozone. Kevin Youngers was going to be "checking" on me periodically to make sure nothing happened, and the other BMW guys going east (CR Racing's Vic Michael and Mitch Beranek and the BimmerHaus crew of Bob and Patty Tunnell) were aware to be on the lookout. I made it home uneventfully, and the car got some of the best gas mileage ever (31.7 mpg in Nebraska!).
     When I got the Camaro fixed at Chesapeake Transmission in Baltimore, MD, it turned out that the noise was the right carrier (differential) bearing. I had the differential reshimmed, and the rear and pinion gear depth checked, as well as the carrier and pinion bearings replaced. The right side carrier bearing was digging into its race (the race was scored all to hell), which was the source of the hideous noise. Chesapeake will be installing a new differential for me just before Nationals too.
     Because of the bearing problem, I had to skip the third Southeast Divisional event. I was pretty disappointed, as I'd heard some good things about Jerry Onks's course at the Nashville site.

     The Peru ProSolo was the next event on the schedule. In the week before the event, I'd had new front lower control arms and outer tie rod ends installed, and I'd replaced the exhaust (with another Flowmaster, nothing special). The alignment had been checked, and while I wasn't keen on the lack of caster, I had more negative camber than ever before (-0.88 on the left and -1.08 on the right). I will probably have the alignment redone just before Nationals in order to get the caster back in the 4.0 range (it's at 3.64 and 3.40 right now). I had to wait for Pat to get out of work before we left (he was going to be driving Tyler Stewart's ESP car), and so we couldn't leave until about 7:15PM Friday night. This was bad, as construction in Wheeling and getting pulled over in Carmel meant we didn't get to the hotel in Kokomo until almost 4:00AM Saturday morning. Needless to say, we were half dead when we arrived at the event site around 6:45AM.
     The course was designed by the Over6racing crew of Brad Lamont, Jason Saini and Juliann Pokorny, and it was a doozy. It was fairly long (though not as long as Wendover), and had some difficult turns that required looking ahead and serious patience... not something I needed to be confronted with on two hours of sleep.
     It didn't help that the previous week, I'd decided to run L1 here for a second event. I was very reluctant to run a second L1 event after the Petersburg debacle, but I figured if I considered running for the championship, maybe the whining would die down. However, I felt very uncomfortable from the get-go, and coupled with the complexity of the course and the lack of sleep, this would prove to be my downfall.
 peru pro 03
peru prosolo, one of many turns; photo by jeff cashmore
     As it started out, I was in the number one grid spot (doesn't anyone like low numbers any more?). I started off against Kim Bullis, and I don't know why (probably has to do with the lack of sleep), but I refused to back off when I needed to, feeling deep down that I needed to prove my "tired" LT1 could keep up with her ZR1 on the initial straight. Well, I guess I proved my point, as she really didn't walk away from me, but I also proved what an ass I am for doing that, as I then couldn't make the tight "kink" turn, and lost gobs of time understeering through that section. I backed off on the right side, but still carried too much speed into the kink, and lost time again.
     I guess I anticipated being able to get some course tips from the FS guys, and I was steadfastly ignored by them heading up to my runs. After the first two pathetic attempts on course, I asked Mike Snyder, who was working grid at the time, and codriving with Strano in FS for this event, what I needed to do. He said, "Park it, get your ticket, and proceed to slowly get around the triple cones then haul ass into the turnaround." So, that's what I tried to do on my second two runs. I managed to drop a lot of time and get into the 41s, but Diane was already in the mid 41s on her first two, and dropped to low 41s on the second set.
     I went back to the paddock, and then went to watch Pat run (he really couldn't watch me run and give any pointers, as he was the following group). That's when the usual weird Peru weather hit -- a freak rainstorm out of nowhere. It was torrential, and of course, my windows were down, and a bunch of stuff strewn around my paddock space. Grainger fortunately tossed most of it into the car, so the damage wasn't too bad. It was just annoying being soaked to the bone. Despite them breaking until the worst of it was over, Pat (as it figures) didn't get dry runs, so he, Alex Long and Kirk Boston were relegated to the back of the ESP pack.
     I was a miserable fifth place after the morning runs. I knew I could do better, and the car didn't feel bad, it was just that I was driving like ass. I dropped three tenths right off on my first left side run, and 0.4 on the right, then backtracked on the right. I pulled myself together for another 0.2 on the left, but Diane's whooping and hollering about a 40.3 she just got on the left. "Fuck this," I thought as I went to impound, and was basically ignored by the rest of the class. I was having zero fun... about as much as I had at Petersburg. Sitting in the car in grid, I felt that the only thing I could safely say to anybody was, "Good luck." Trash talking was out of the question, because anything I said would be construed as arrogance, not good natured ribbing like it would be in FS or STX, or any other class, for that matter. When we were released from impound, it was a relief to get away from the rest of the class.
     It was at this point I decided that I just could not run L1 at the Finale. I couldn't. I was so miserable at Petersburg, and I was miserable here at Peru, I couldn't bring myself to even consider running L1 at the Finale. I decided right then and there that I would "pad" points at Topeka, and run FS (to ensure I would have enough points for the Finale), and I would have more fun finishing DFL in FS than winning L1. I felt as if a tremendous weight had just been lifted off my shoulders with this decision, as I could safely no longer care about my finishing position.
     We went over to BW3 for dinner, hung out with Grainger, Rich Wise and Jeff Templeton, and then went over to the Hugger with Buckley and Hertweck for some after dinner entertainment. It wasn't as amusing as the Tour weekend, but Pat and I were both dead tired, and it was all we could do to get back to the hotel, and get enough sleep to make it to the event site in the morning.
     I felt like complete shit in the morning, much like I did Saturday morning at Wendover. Again, I hadn't had so much to drink that I could be hungover, so I must have been suffering from acute dehydration. I drank a couple of cups of water, and felt marginally better; at least this time, I had Pat to drive me to the event site.
     By the time L1 rolled around, I actually wasn't feeling much better. A nasty sinus headache had set in, and two Advil hadn't dented the agony. My saving grace was the complete apathy I felt about the event at this point. Having made my decision to run FS at the Finale, I could do my runs without care. In fact, I managed a 40.8 on my last left side run (though for some odd reason, it was recorded at my first Sunday left side run), but didn't improve on the right. In impound though, something occurred that made me very glad for my Finale decision.
     Now, maybe I am just being paranoid here, or maybe my initial impression was true, but as too often usual any more, the class results were announced before results were brought to impound. As the names were read off, I knew I was going to be down in the standings, and when Ron Bauer announced, "Seventh spot, Karen Kraus," a group of my fellow competitors started cheering. I was standing at my car, just waiting for our class to be released, but to hear the jubilation seemingly correspond with my pathetic finish, it was equivalent to a slap in the face. Was it coincidence? I don't know. Considering a short while later, I said to Mike Johnson, "Before anyone else tells you, yes, I was blasting my radio so I didn't have to hear your announcing," and he responded with, "Well, I'm glad to see the ladies listened to my 'there will be no cherry-picking' pep talk," I can't help but think they were cheering about my crappy finish.
     But that just gives me another reason to want to run with the guys. They aren't so catty.
     In any case, the fact that Kathy Fitzpatrick won is no surprise to me. She's a hell of a driver, and considering she had 41.2 on the left, compared to Brian's 41.3, she deserved to win more than anyone else.
     Pat managed to trophy in ESP partly due to a cone-reporting error in his favor (and he had the time audited and everything!), but didn't make the challenge, so we were both free to go home early. We got home by 12:30, which was great.

     The second Topeka ProSolo would be the following weekend, and things wouldn't go quite so well from a mechanical standpoint. Since Ted Drcar had agreed to codrive my car at the ProSolo Finale and the National Championships, I'd started to have a lot of work done to it. In fact, after I came home from Peru, the car went back to the shop for a new rear main seal, and torque arm bushings. Since the rear main was being done, I figured I'd have the clutch done. The oil pan was replaced too, after seeing there was a leak coming from the back of it as well, where it meets up with the transmission. Unfortunately, the oil pan replacement meant that the car had to stay overnight, and things started to go horribly wrong from the moment I picked the car up.
     I won't go into the gory details, except to say that Amy Courmier is a life-saver for insisting that Courtney caravan with me... only she was concerned about him driving out there alone! When my torque arm came loose in St. Louis, if Courtney hadn't been there, I would have been SOL. Despite the mechanic's subsequent claim that the torque arm "pulled itself away" from the transmission, Courtney (a GM mechanic for a dealership), Mike Snyder (a long time GM/F-body owner) and Chesapeake Transmission all came to the conclusion that the bolt holding the torque arm to the transmission was cross-threaded. In any case, the lack of a firmly attached torque arm meant that there would be no FS for me at this ProSolo.
     It also meant that there would be no "easy" FS points for me, and that I would not qualify to run FS at the ProSolo Finale. I was angry beyond words.
     Mike Snyder, who was supposed to codrive with me, took two candy runs in Tasha Goodale's street car (a convertible Mustang), but I just couldn't do that, not after the ride I'd had. Instead, Brian Fitzpatrick offered me a codrive in his BMW, so that STS would have a class. I could have run STX too (Brian Matteucci offered his car), but I didn't want to possibly screw up Courtney's points, not after all the help he'd given me.
     The Youngers-designed course was set at a different angle than usual, which meant we started on an incline, necessitating the emergency brake at the start. Fortunately, I'd mastered this at Dallas, so I wasn't thrown off. The course consisted of what amounted to a straight off the start (with a minor "wiggle" in it), then a 180 into another "wiggly" straight, then another 180 into a decreasing radius sweeper to the finish. It was different, but it was also difficult without a limited slip (the primary difference between Fitzpatrick's and Matteucci's BMWs was the lack of a limited slip in the STS car).
     I didn't drive particularly well, though the STS guys were fun to play with. Kevin McCormick spanked us from the beginning, and Brian finished second. With only 80-some people entered and running, the 0.8 difference between first and second still allowed Brian to get into the challenge, and he made it to the final four before bowing out. Kathy didn't do so well in L1, despite her dominance at Peru.
     Probably the most fun I had was hanging out Saturday night. Dinner was pure insanity, then several of us went to BDs for more entertainment. It took my mind off the car issues, at least for a little bit. See, Tim, we do do it for the FSA! ;)
     I babied the car home Sunday evening and Monday morning (caravaning, again, with Courtney), and took it to Chesapeake for the fix. A helicoil later (along with a new differential, upper control arms that I installed, and some other minor fixes to repair the other things the "mechanic" had screwed up), and the car was ready for it's trip back to Topeka, in the hands of AJ Nealey.

south course, turn 1
south course, photo by Digital Race Photography