emfNet Racing

They call it a fast-track towards getting a competition license – Two solid days of action adding to a total of six hours of time on-track.  Open lapping sessions, followed by rolling starts, followed by actual wheel-to-wheel races – all in rapid succession, with mere minutes between sessions.  “Bring a crew member” they say, “because you won’t have time to work on your car.

This past weekend, I attended SCCA’s CalClub region Super School as the sure-fire way to get my novice license.  True to form, nothing went right the first time . . . . and yeah, I probably should have had someone to crew for me.  Read on, and feel my pain.

It began like every other event.  Yup, you guessed it – mass pandemonium and panic.  This would be the first trip out in the beastie since its fateful conversion to dedicated track car.  Best intentions aside, things just weren’t going to be ready for Wednesday’s event at WSIR – between cleaning up and loading the trailer, to finishing up last-minute tasks (like . . . oh, working through every inch of the car with Zip-ties) I decided to take Wednesday as a mental health break, and finish up the things that needed the most attention . . . . stuff like getting a physical.  Wednesday passed too quickly, really.  Thursday didn’t end up much better – in hindsight, I should have taken Thursday off as well.  Clearing and loading the trailer took most of Thursday night, but what really stuck out as a problem was the 1/8 inch wiggle in the right-rear wheel hub.  True to form, we found the weekend’s pre-flight-checkout boondoggle.  <sigh>

So, Friday turned out to be an earlier day than planned for the sheer point of getting up to the track to swap wheel hubs.  After a brief battle with gravity, geometry, and the extended length of the car’s nose with splitter, we were soon loaded up and on-the move.  A stop at Lowes for 2x12’s simplified loading and unloading at the track.  I must have less ground clearance compared to other cars, since cars like Ryan’s evidently make it on the trailer without resorting to excess lumber.  After a 3 ½ hour uneventful drive, we’re unloading at ButtonWillow Raceway Park.  We’re early for registration, which is a good thing considering the extra work that needs to be done.  After a bit of wrenching, registration opens up.
A word to the wise, make sure all your paperwork is finished before waltzing up to the registration line – I had everything finished up, but after standing and waiting for the 2 people in front of me in the School reg line, and watching another handful of folk come & fill forms out at the window, I realized how much quicker and easier it is when everything’s in order.  Okay, so my ‘advanced prep’ included taking a “passport sized photo” while in traffic and printing and filling out forms about 30 minutes before heading up to the registration line.  Regardless, it was 10 less minutes holding up the unprepared person behind me.

School starts with a 3 hour drivers meeting Friday night, covering everything from track basics to use of flags.  Oddly, there seemed to be a bigger focus on track and driving basics than much else – on the flip side, SCCA uses a slightly different set of flags than most of the groups I’ve run with in the past, so there was some “new” and important stuff covered.  Key with SCCA is recognizing that you’ll often times be on the track with several different groups of cars (caveat to that of course, are the “big” classes like Spec Miata and to a lesser degree Pro/Super 7 which run in individual groups) and that unless there’s something BIG wrong, a race won’t be called if someone has an off and needs a tow.  Yes, the wrecker was on the track regularly all weekend – if not to pick someone up, then to make sure that folk get familiar with the white flag.  So basically, this means that the key “new” flags for most ended up being the Blue – what most people are familiar with as the “pass” flag – as an indicator for “check your mirrors”, and the White to indicate that a vehicle “not at speed” was on the track.  A full hour of the meeting must have been regarding flags . . . . .

Saturday morning came quickly enough, after fixing a few additional minor things Friday after the drivers meeting.  Tech opened at 7am, while the first drivers meeting of the day starts at 8:45 – plenty of time to take care of all the odds and ends, like finishing up this wheel hub swap.  To be more precise, “plenty of time” translates into “get to the track at 5:30a, and start turning a wrench like a madman” . . . . but never mind that detail.
 530a – rummage through the trailer for the T55 bit needed to pull the hub
 545a – realize that the transformation to “it looks like a bomb went off” is complete, and that the bit needed was in the container that got pushed away and ignored 13 minutes prior.
 546a – T55 bit found.  “Freak’n dumbass” heard muttered frequently for the next 5 minutes.
 615a – Old hub removed from knuckle
 620a – Old studs removed from old hub, short studs removed from new hub.
 625a – New hub mounted in knuckle
 628a – Knuckle mounted in A-Arm
 630a – Realization sets in that new studs haven’t been pressed in yet.
 632a – Continuous stream of obscenities end, although “this isn’t a German car” and “freak’n dumbass” is heard for the next 7-10 minutes.
 633a – Knuckle and hub removed.  Studs dropped in, to be pulled in with impact wrench once people start waking up
 635a – Knuckle reinstalled
 700a – Rear suspension back together
 710a – All efforts to seat studs fail without air tools.  Focus shifted to all the extra stuff that needs to be done
 720a – List of odds and ends needed to be done increases to about 8 billion things.  Frustration sets in, as does the use of air tools.
 721a – Neighbor that’s camping at track wakes up.
 745a – Instructors called for meeting.  Steadily increasing string of obscenities reaches plateau.
 810a – Most work complete, car appears to pass initial visual inspection.
 815a – Car is on the ground, ready to roll.  Starts on first try, even though I haven’t sacrificed any small animals to Racaflias.
 818a – We’re pulling off to tech the car, hopeful that everyone else has forgotten, slept in, or otherwise has a yearly tech.
 819a – After reaching 3MPH, car dies.  Stunned silence.  Car re-fires.
 820a – Car dies at 3MPH . . . again.  Stunned silence broken.
 835a – Initial checks pass OK, DTC codes checked.  4lb sledge starting to look like an appropriate solution.

<sigh>

Driver’s meeting starts, and instructors are assigned – Station wagon session starts immediately after.  After having some lower expectations about possible instructors – since most of the drivers seemed to be in slower “momentum” cars or first-timers, I was expecting focus to be on the lowest common denominator – I find out that our instructor races in Speed World Challenge in one of Gigliotti’s Corvettes.  Huh . . . small world.  Things are looking up.  Marco [Franco] took a fairly aggressive line through most of the track . . . slightly different than I normally took, but put an interesting perspective on things.  After mentioning the car’s woes at the tail end of the session, I head back to the car and confirm that we’re dead in the water . . . . a trip to 7’s Only and a few of the Miata guys seals the deal, no available rentals.  The entirety of Saturday is spent tracking down, tearing out, and otherwise stepping through the ignition and security systems in the car.  Literally, the entire day – End result and culprit, an annoyed computer that couldn’t figure out what the (disabled) column lock status was.  Saturday was . . . without a doubt, a waste.

Sunday starts much better – more precisely, the car starts.  Fortunately, the car continues to run, all the way to tech.  Amazingly enough, tech completes without incident – not only does everyone love the cage, but they issue the car’s yearly log book as well.  Sunday’s turning out to be a MUCH better day.  After adding a half tank of gas and nearly missing the morning drivers meeting, we start up again with station wagon sessions (only, this time with a different line).  First session of the day, ends up with me gridded dead last.  Part of that has to be because I didn’t suit up until the last minute, didn’t fill the cooler for the suit until the very end, and fumbled with the harnesses for a few minutes.

Thirty minutes later . . . and the car is still running . . . . amazingly enough, its still moving under its own power.  Better yet, we’ve passed the entire field . . . in most cases, twice.  Marco comes over with a smile, a few recommendations (amongst which, “slow down, and save the car”), and a congratulations.  Other drivers walk by, partially stunned.  I notice the first casualty of the day, a missing driver’s side corner lamp (which explained the loud sound I heard earlier in the session after the bank shot off a BMW 2002 and over a section of curb).  This was probably the move that was commented by the instructors as “aggressive”, but in the end . . . no black flags, no strongly worded comments from anyone, and a clean pass.

Life is good.  Racaflias be damned.

The second session of the day ended much the same – this time, I make sure to grid farther towards the head of the pack, and get some clean air.  On such a small track however, “clean air” doesn’t last long, especially with 20+ other cars in the same group.  After another incident-free thirty minutes, the sinking feeling of the prior two days starts fading away.  Even though it’s still early in the day however, it’s starting to get warm – too bad the cool suit isn’t working very well.  By this point, people are starting to get used to the beastie on the track – now, only about 3 / 4 of the field freaks out when I come up behind them.  After lugging the car, Marco comes with bad news – the lead instructor doesn’t think I’m going fast enough.

So much for saving the car, and taking things slowly.  Aggressive to “too slow” in one session, who’d of thunk it.  So, I decided it was time to pull the gloves off.

Starting with the third session, the focus of the class was more on getting familiar with SCCA’s gridding procedures, starts, etc.  In some twisted result of fate, this was the session that the instructors decided to grid me last, forget the fact that I rolled up to grid first.  This was a spot I’d soon learn to be familiar with, since the majority of sessions later in the day ended with the same result – put the big, nasty, loud ‘vette in the back.  Marco comes walking up in grid, shaking his head and laughing at the irony.  Actually, we both laughed.
Then, I lapped the entire field twice, a portion three times, and the majority 4 times.  Aside from one BMW that didn’t seem to know what to do with itself, the remainder of drivers seem to have figured out the “get the heck out of his way” skill.   Aside from Marco, nobody else seems to find humor in things.  Part of the humor that Marco finds however, is the fact that the lead instructor wasn’t concerned with me going generally faster . . . just faster in a couple turns.
Oh, the irony.

I discover at this point that I didn’t connect the hose for the cool suit at the cooler.  This explains the whole “not so cool suit” problem.  The next few sessions of the day pretty much end the same – lots of passing practice, lots of minor changes in line, and lots of brake fade.  Not sure where the brake problems are coming from . . . but I’m expecting it to be a combination of heat soak, low pads, and boiled fluid.  Too bad there’s no time to fix.  To make matters worse, the heat snaps off a tweaked air tube on the driver’s side header . . . the car now sounds like a go-kart.  Maybe not so bad on its own . . . ‘cuz evidently my brake lights aren’t working either.

Sprint races end the day – two five-lap races, simulating what most folk will end up seeing in their own classes.  After being gridded last all day, they grid me 8th – with the format of the sprint races, you end up being gridded based on the instructor’s decision for the first race, the start the second race based on your finishing position.  I’m not sure what the expectation was of the instructors, but I worked through the field by the second lap, and was starting to put distance on the second-place car at a decent rate.  Go-kart sound, nearly non-existent brakes, and corded tires aside, the car’s behaving itself.  Three more laps, and the race is over – I think there was a half lap on the second place car by this point.

SCCA club racing starts with a rolling start after a pace lap.  Evidently when they decided a 40mph pace lap needed to be made, there wasn’t an expectation that the WHOLE lap would be made at 40.  Even though the first 3 or 4 rows didn’t seem to have a problem keeping up, the final flag station motions to SLOW DOWN.
So, we slow down . . .
 . . . To about 20.
Green flag and I’m in first gear . . . making about 200 feet on the second place Miata by the first corner.
It went down hill for most from there.
Even though a T2 Evo managed to close up based on a well timed and placed tow-truck, I won the second race as well.

There’s a decent fix list for the car now, but the weekend ended without significant incident.  Although I didn’t drive both days, the lead instructor agreed to pass me once I faxed in copies of my prior driving school’s completion.  By Tuesday, I’ve sent everything to the instructor and gotten confirmation that everything is set – I’ve already received my cert of completion for the class, and my novice log book is in the mail.

Oh boy . . . . . . this is gonna be fun.