SoundGuyDave
This Space For Rent
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2007
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For the Midwest Region season finale, the NASA crew cooked up a doozie! The weekend started on Friday at noon, when Joe Sullivan (JSBumed here on the forums) and I rolled into the paddock with my #50 car, and a trailer full of consumables, for the penultimate round of the Endurance Series. This particular event would be the longest yet, scheduled for four and a half hours, starting at 5:00PM, and running into the night. Joe and I were joined by a motley collection of friends; Nathan Pitcher came in as a third driver, Randy Johnson and Ken Frey came out to help with refueling and support, and John Santiago (Philostang) signed up in the role of crew chief, hoping to drive some sense of direction and logic into this pickup group of people. Nathan, Randy and I all ran against each other in the same class in NASA Time Trials, frequently swapping track records and wins back and forth. Ken was one of my former instructors, and also was a great help in building my car into a competition-ready hooptie, and Joe is like a brother to me, so I felt I was in great company. On to the down-and-dirty. We did the usual race prep stuff (flush the brake fluid, top off all other fluids, load the cool-suit cooler, drink bottle, etc.), got the car through tech, then set up our pit stall, and at 4:20PM, sent Nathan out for the practice session on sticker Continental 275/35-18 rubber to get used to the car. The day was cooler, with bright sunshine, so essentially perfect weather for a Mustang, with great grip in the track, and making good power. The event didn’t start well for us, at all. First, the car wouldn’t start due to a battery failure (little tiny Braile battery to save weight), so we had to push-start. Then, the batteries in the radios came up lame. I had charged them for 24 hours, but for whatever reason, neither radio would power up, so we had no comms from driver to crew chief. We quickly improvised a set of signals and a pit board to cover while getting the radios back on charge, but that got me worried about what else would go wrong.
STRATEGY:
This would be a fuel-mileage race, without question. We had six cars start the E0 class, us, three American Iron-prepped S197 Mustangs, and two E46 BMW M3s. We were the entry with the lowest horsepower, so our strategy was to run full fuel-load stints, hoping for around 75 minutes each, plus a quick splash-and-go towards the end. We assumed that the night-time stints would be at a slower pace, with no lights at all (save pit lane) on the 3.56-mile 21-turn course, and based strictly on the horsepower and weight of the AI cars, we believed that we could run one less fuel stop than they did, worth around eight minutes, or two and a half to three laps. The question was whether their pace could put us more than three laps down. The BMWs were the wildcards, with unknown fuel consumption characteristics, unknown fuel-tank (or cell) capacity, and had the potential to simply bury us with those hyper-efficient I-6 engines. All we could do was run the best race we could, and let the chips fall.
THE RACE:
John, our crew chief, had an excellent strategy lined up for us. I would take the first stint, to establish pace, and (hopefully) get us in a solid position on track for the first fuel stop and driver change. Then Nathan would take over, running us through dusk and into the dark. Joe, who has a good amount of time in my car, would handle the anchor leg, and take it to the checker, if the car survived. As they say, plans NEVER survive contact with the enemy, and this was no different! After Nathan came in from practice, I hopped in the car and got all belted in, while John handled the data and video setup for the stint. After a quick check of tire pressures and lug torque, the field was off for the formation lap and the race start.
Based on a random pit-stall layout, I wound up starting roughly P9 (out of 22 starters), right behind a Daytona Prototype, and right ahead of one of the AI Mustangs, an E0 BMW M3, then another AI Mustang. It was a single-file start, and I was already strategizing, looking ahead and behind. Ahead I had the Daytona Prototype, then a Miata, then a Sports Racer, and I figured that the Miata would wind up getting pounced on pretty quickly by the field coming up, so I planned on sticking as close as possible to the DP, and defending the inside of the first turn, a 180* carousel. What I wanted was to get up to pace as quickly as possible, find some spacing, and then just dial into a solid, consistent lap time that didn’t overly punish the tires and brakes, and make maximum use of the fuel onboard. That went out the window as well!
The green flag flew, and I dropped the hammer, hoping to get a bit of an aero tow from the DP, who simply rocketed ahead. The M3 was having some issues, and the two AI Mustangs took no time at all getting side-by-side right behind me. Since racing door-to-door like that kills pace, I concentrated on running clean lines, and trying to get some space between us so that I could get pace established and drop into rhythm. By the end of the first lap, the DP was simply GONE, and the two Mustangs behind me got their duel sorted, and were coming up on me FAST. The first Mustang, driven by Paul Wood, managed to power alongside me at the exit of a corner, but with me still trying to find spacing, I wouldn’t let him have the position without a fight. Side-by-side we went, through three corners, and I was able to pull a little bit ahead at corner exit due to having the inside position, but the AI car’s superior power pulled him into a half-car lead in the next set of two sweepers, again with me on the inside. We swapped half-car leads like this for nearly a mile through ten corners! The racing was absolutely clean, nobody touched, and by the time we hit a big enough straight where his power became decisive, we had traffic stacked up behind us. OOPS!! Strategic mistake on my part, worrying about tactics… Not the last error of the day, either!
Paul Wood pulled away, and I got freight-trained by the second AI Mustang and the other M3 (the one with the bad start was nowhere to be seen). Crap! That puts me in P4 in class. Okay, nothing to it but to settle down and establish a pace. I had my spacing, but not where I wanted it… For another forty-five minutes I just kept knocking off the laps, in the high 2:47, low 2:48 range, flying by the Miatas, and getting run over by the DP and the Sports Racer, then 20 laps after the green flew, the car started to hiccough on left-hand corner-exits, and I knew my fuel load was about gone, so I signaled the crew that I was coming in by dropping the clutch and blipping the throttle three times (remember, radios were dead!), then going around one more time. This was NOWHERE NEAR the 75-minute hoped-for fuel window; hell, to me it felt like less than an hour! We were uncertain exactly how much fuel the car would take after a fuel run, so we were planning on a 14 gallon stop, and praying not to over-fill and spill, and take a 5-minute penalty plus a second trip through the pits.
I rolled into pit lane at a sedate 25mph (GOD THAT WAS SLOW!!!), found the pit stall, and bailed out of the car, with Nathan helping on the driver’s side, and John jumping inside the car on the passenger side. Nathan jumped in, and I assisted with getting the belts set up, hooking up the cool suit, and giving him a briefing on track conditions, then hopped the wall while Randy started to dump the second 5-gallon can of fuel. I asked John how we were doing and got an answer that absolutely rocked me. I was shocked. “P1,” he said, “two laps up.” I made him repeat that, not quite processing that info. After my stint sucked fuel like crazy, we were not only in first place, but up by two laps???? HOW???? I didn’t pass any in-class cars at all! It turns out we were killing them on fuel consumption. Immediately, I suggested not gambling on the extra fuel and going to a 10-gallon fill strategy to positively avoid penalty. Not being sure how Nathan would do for lap times, and knowing Joe would most likely be at least two seconds off my pace (at night, in the dark, with nothing but headlights to see the track by), I figured we had to protect the lead we had. John and Joe agreed, and after the second can of fuel, Nathan took off, minding the 25 MPH pit-road speed limit.
After a couple of laps, Nathan settled into a solid high 2:50 lap time, and we were ALL smiles in the pits. John had wandered up and down pit lane talking to the competition, and in one case, they admitted to planning on SIX fuel stops! We might actually have a chance to be on the podium for this thing!!! Nathan did a perfect job running a consistent pace and protecting the gear. 50 minutes later, he was coming in, and it was Joe’s turn. We refueled the car, and upon a quick walk-around, it was noticed that the left-front tire was, as expected, showing signs of serious shoulder wear.
After another flawless pit stop thanks to Randy and Ken, Joe headed out into the fading sun, catching a last few laps in daylight, then we were into the night. I did all sorts of productive things, like keeping an eye on the competition in the pit lane, and chatting with the crew about doing a tire change on the left-front after Joe’s stint, and then acted as ballast to prevent one of our folding chairs in pit lane from levitating. Hey, somebody’s got to do it. Oh, also making and eating a sandwich, a VERY critical task, which I’m proud to say I executed with perfection.
Slowly, one-by-one, the competition was dropping out of the event, with the sprint-race build mentality showing its weaknesses on the long hauls. It was neat to watch all the cars whizzing by with nothing to light the track but headlights. Joe was running a solid 2:51 pace, which considering it was solid dark by that time, was more than respectable! About 30 seconds after I sat down (I had visited the Little Racer’s Room) and popped the top on a Mountain Dew, Joe came trundling into the pits!! CRAP!!! Panic time, as I start pulling on my suit, radio earbuds, Nomex balaclava, gloves, helmet and HANS… Yeah, it takes more than a couple of seconds to suit up. Meanwhile, Nathan hopped the wall to help Joe get out of the car while I was fussing about getting dressed, so no time was lost there. I took a deep breath and hopped in while Randy and Ken finished fuelling the car, then it was time for the tire-change, while I finished getting belted in. Again, Nathan saved the day jumping in to start the process, while Joe gave me the briefing. According to Joe, “That was the most stupid and dangerous thing I’ve ever done in my life, and I loved every minute of it!” Hmmm…. Okay…. And my night vision sucks. Great… Roughly eleven minutes after entering pit lane (dropping to a four lap lead over the P2 AI Mustang), it was my turn to go out into the night, but this time with functioning radios and roughly 90 minutes to go!!! Immediately, I entered a COMPLETELY new world. We were running HID headlights in the stock buckets, with no auxiliary lighting whatsoever. Picking out my brake points and turn-in marks were no problem, but apex? Nope. Track-out? Not a prayer. I felt like I should have equipped the car with a white cane… After a dry-mouthed lap or two, though, I started to get back into my groove, and realized that no, the track had not actually changed configuration since the daylight stint. The apex was in the same place, and if you hit your turn-in and apex, you WILL, by definition, hit your track out point. I have a LOT of laps at that track, so I started to simply rely on muscle memory and instinct, and things smoothed out considerably.
I settled into a (not great but not horrible) 2:54 pace, seven seconds off my daylight time, but at least not driving backwards into the tire barriers. I was satisfied, if a bit nervous. Then the completely unexpected happened. I was on one of the long straights around 90-95MPH, when a grey blur flashed into the headlight beam roughly 150’ in front of the car. Uh-oh. THUD!!! Bump-bump… I pushed the radio button (thank GOD that was working!) and called in to John… “Hey, I’m coming in, I just hit a coyote…. I need somebody to check over the car.” “Uhhhh……Copy that,” was the response, and I ran the remaining 1.5 miles to pit-in hoping and praying that the furry woodland creature’s head hadn’t taken out the radiator, or done other damage. At 95mph, something 150’ in front of the car has already happened, there’s nothing you can really do about it… I pulled in, the crew took a quick look, and I went back out to finish my stint. A few laps later, though, it was obvious that I wasn’t in the groove any more, and started making mistakes, missing apex points, blowing brake zones, and I called in to get Nathan ready, I would be coming in. After a VERY quick pit stop (4:55 to dump 10 gallons of fuel and change drivers!), Nathan was off for the final stint, with 45 or so minutes to run. John was finishing up the fuel calculations and declared us good, based on Nathan’s previous pace of high 2:50s. Imagine our shock when the lap times STARTED at 2:51 and gradually trended DOWNWARD!!
Five minutes after Nathan left, the last remaining competing AI Mustang came into the pits with what appeared to be a mechanical issue. The car came to a stop, the driver climbed out, and not much else was happening… Joe wandered over and offered whatever help or parts we could offer, but it was for naught: terminal brake failure, with Baer 6-pot calipers, for which we had neither pads nor parts. They were done, at that time 4 laps down. It wasn’t until they congratulated us on our win that we realized that with their retirement, we were going to win our class! Nathan, meantime, kept dropping lap times lower and lower, eventually running faster IN THE DARK than he did on his daylight stint!!! I thought that was great! Finally, the white flag flew, and Nathan motored by, but the car didn’t sound exactly right… Hrm… Oh, well, whatever, we’ll figure it out. The checkers came out, and Nathan came around for the final time, coughing and sputtering into the braking zone past the checkers! HE’S OUT OF GAS!!! “Don’t worry,” said John, “the Mustang can make another lap, no problem!” Forever and a day later, he pulled onto pit lane, coughed, sputtered, and finally went silent, six pit stalls short of getting home. Five hours after we push-started the car, and four and a half hours of non-stop hard racing later, the event was over. 56 gallons of 93-octane fuel, nearly a full set of Hawk DTC-60 pads up front, and five Continental slicks later, we took the win, and P5 overall, behind a Sports Racer, a Daytona Prototype, and two Miatae. John Santiago: Perfect fuelling and driver stint strategy. Randy Johnson and Ken Frey: Flawless execution of the fuelling and tire change. Nathan and Joe: You guys just killed it out on track. Me? I figure my on-track game-hunting was divine intervention. It was God’s way of saying “Dave, put a Coyote in that Mustang!” 81 laps, and 288 miles in, though, the weekend was just getting started!
