Ugly Rain (10/24/2014) - 5 hours - Portland International Raceway:
With a typical Northwest weather day facing us, we put our wet weather good luck charm on our antenna:
We also got a sneak peak at the trophies for the weekend, and there is an AT-AT, I want it!
Dave starts in the car on a mostly dry track in 44th place. He still has a bad habit of holding the steering wheel at the top, but is getting much better overall. He runs a 1:35.9 and is in 14th place, but if it wasn't for the penalty laps (for winning a previous race) we would be in 2nd!
Nathan Feigion takes the second stint and it has started to rain. His drifting experience really shines here as the car sliding a bit here and there does not spook him and get him to slow way down like some of the other racers. Portland gets extremely slick in the rain, but from geese laying their unpredictable marks on the track and rubber worn into the groove. Coupled with no elevation change on the track, it just gets really slippery. As Nathan's stint goes on the traction gets worse and worse, but he gets up into 8th place.
I get in the car next, and while the amount of hydroplaning is definitely very disconcerting, I also have experience drifting on this track with my V8 car. There is a fine line between brave and stupid, and I try to keep from toeing too far over the stupid line and let the front-wheel drive cars go when I am hydroplaning too much and try to keep it on the track. At one point I am coming up to the chicane, a very slow right-hander. I am on the brakes and slowing to turn in a little late when suddenly out of the corner of my eye I catch a yellow CRX that is flying into the braking zone. I turn the wheel to the left, and the CRX goes flying past my nose, missing by inches! Whew, this is nearly the same as what took out our Hawaii 2-4-Oh car!
Towards the end of the race I am in 4th, right behind 3rd (Celica Supra) and 2nd (Jetta?). 1st place is our full two laps of penalty ahead of us. With thoughts of an AT-AT on my mind.. I push forward trying to get by the two cars to try snag 2nd place. After the VW blows the braking zone into the chicane, I'm now just behind the Celica Supra which I manage to be patient enough to get by when he also outbrakes himself into the chicane on a later lap. Both cars are just behind me, but as they battle it out behind me they collide allowing me to take home 2nd place. I got my AT-AT! Still one of my favorite trophies ever, as it is the only 'mechanical' one. With the MOV penalty laps, it would have been *really* close with 1st place.
Rain, With A Healthy Dose of Wind (10/25/2014) - 13 hours - Portland International Raceway:
The next day we have our longest race yet ahead of us, 13 hours long. Nathan Feigion starts this one off on a wet track in 43rd place. It is slippery, but starting to dry some. Nathan is putting his drifting skills on display as he slip-slides his way to the front of the pack, although with a longer race we now had 3 "Margin of Victory" penalty laps.
Dave gets in the car on a mostly dry track, which still has the treacherous damp areas at the edges and wet soggy grass all around it. While he is nervous over the radio, he keeps it together and brings the car back in one piece.
Nathan Feigion gets in the car next, and the rain is back. While he is out there, some severe wind picks up, and starts destroying pop-up tents! We manage to get multiple ratchet straps across ours to keep it from folding and falling apart, but some tents decide to jump the wall and make a run through the hot pits while others just decide to fold in half and give up life where they are. Again Nathan slithers through traffic and keeps us in great position.
I get in the car next, and it has started to dry out. Nathan Feigion gets his chance to drive the Paul Newman's Revenge 240SX. He has very similar feedback to them as I gave, much too stiff without enough damping and way too much pedal force for the brakes. The wind is still really kicking around, which in most cases is not affecting the race much. However at one point I get to the back straight where I see some leaves swirling around in a little dust devil. As the car hits it, I get tossed around a bit and have to correct. Definitely not what I expected to see out on track!
Dave goes out next for a dusk drive, which is one of the most difficult times. He forgot to put masking tape on his visor, so he didn't have the option of using that to block the mirror. Having lights shining in your mirror and constantly changing lighting conditions is always difficult.
I go out next and it is now fully dark. I have my masking tape on my visor, so I am able to help block out the really aggravating bright lights in the mirror. Compared to the last time we drove at night though, we have now switched to a convex mirror instead of the multi-panel 'wink' mirror. This makes it much better! Now two white dots means there is a car, rather than making many different reflections in the wink mirror.
Dave goes out for our last stint, and while we complete 395 laps compared to the winner's 393, we finish the race in 3rd place due to the 3 MOV laps. We were behind the #10 Martini Racers VW Golf and Dog and Pony Show Mahre Brothers, both fantastic competitors and great people to hang out with. Luckily it rained most of the day, so that is the only reason our brakes made it that far! We swapped the brakes in the evening again and get ready for a third race of the weekend.
Still Burning Oil (10/26/2014) - 6 hours - Portland International Raceway:
I get the honor of starting our last race of the weekend in 9th place. This race our MOV penalty has finally dropped off, so no penalty laps! It is wet and quite slippery out (even more so when some fuel is spilled on the track), and I am struggling to keep up with the front-wheel drive cars on the slick track. The back straight is nearly a game of chicken as there is a partially dry line on the right, and a wide sweeping off camber turn (back straight is really a misnomer). I turn over the car at the end of my stint at 8th place. I haven't lost anything, but didn't make up a lot of ground.
Dave goes out next, fairly quickly having to dive off track to avoid a spinning Miata. It's still slick out there, but just barely raining. PIR is like driving on an ice rink in places with our car able to easily spin the tires in 3rd and 4th gear. During Dave's stint he is braking for the chicane, and locks up the brakes. He manages to avoid a car and use the runoff into the chicane, but it's a close one! The sun is out and Dave pits the car in 5th place, having made up three places!
The rain starts to fall again as Nathan Feigion hits the track. Later Nathan tells me that he "had a moment" in the car on the back stretch. I say, "Oh yeah, me too" but don't think too much of it. His moment was quite a bit different than mine.. While going into turn 8 he shifts into 4th gear and the back end starts moving to the right. No big deal, Nathan countersteers with it to the right and gets it under control. The next turn, turn 9, is known as the back straight, but as I said earlier, it's not a straight. It's a long sweeping right hander with a cement wall on the right, and then grass and cement wall on the left. If you touch the wall on the right, you are bouncing off of there and then through the grass and hitting the outside wall. I've seen it multiple times, often times it totals the car. This is where Nathan has his "moment". At close to 100mph he is steering right, on the drying line next to the wall, and the back end starts moving out on him. He keeps his foot in it, just calmly countersteering, now starting to look at the wall towards his right. As the back tires get into the more wet pavement the car continues to rotate and he has to give it another big helping of countersteer, now looking right at the wall. Easing out of the gas he manages to get it back in line without it tank-slapping into the wall, which is now just inches off the right side of the car as he continues down the back straight. He shifts into 5th, shakes his head a bit, and continues on.
Nathan takes the car home into 3rd place, with the Mahre Brother's Dog and Pony show in 1st place. On this engine even though the head was nicely rebuilt, we are still burning oil and having to add oil at every pit stop. Our next race is at Laguna Seca, so we decide to build an entirely new engine and bring our current one as a spare. It's three days of racing in California, and we don't want a possibility of not being able to race all three days.
At the end of the day our lucky duck helped us to bring home three different trophies.
The now all-too-familiar for us impound. Look at those tiny brakes! Also look how filthy the car was.. those are silver wheels. During impound we have to jack the car up and let people look at the car for 30 minutes. Most people were pretty uninterested or baffled when they looked at our little 4-cylinder engine and super tiny stock brakes. After impound we would then put the wheels back on, bring it back to the pits, jack it up and then swap the brake pads out, bleed the brakes, and then typically leave when it's dark and we longing for a nice warm bed.
Now off to go build a new engine and a way to store it..