Petit du Mans 4 hour enduro at Gingerman
MotoDelta/EuroEast racing.
I've been entering the annual Midwestern Council race at Gingerman Raceway for 7 years running. This race is a massive effort in preparation and dedication and despite the efforts of the teams I drove for, I never chalked up a win. In the past the race was 10 hours long and resulted in a significant amount of wear-and-tear on the racecar entered. In 2006 the race was shortened to 4 hours to reduce the costs and because of some changing noise restrictions at the track.
My main sponsor, Jerry @ EuroEast, and I really wanted to win this event after all the time and effort put into it in the past and decided that at 4 hours, it was worth the load on my racecar. This was not without risk though as our NASA Nationals race was two weeks after this long race. I called my friend Tristan Whitehead to assist driving the car. Gingerman has very little places for the driver to rest and a 4 hour stint in my racecar is beyond what I could physically accomplish.
For two weeks I spent a lot of time preparing the car for the event. First I had to select tires that I believed would last the entire 4 hours. I selected Kumho V710s for their performance as well as their stated longevity. I installed our 25 gallon endurance fuel cell to give us the fuel load we needed. Of course there was the usual cadre of pre-race checks such as brake pads, torqueing fasteners, etc? I spent several days loading up spares and 'quick fix' items into the trailer to get ready.
My wife and team manager planned out meals, equipment needed, got team jerseys together, made sure we had proper scheduling and assistance, and helped pack up the living arrangements for the 3 days we were there.
Noon Saturday we sent Tristan out for the first qualifying session to make sure he had some time in the car. With all the changes in the car this year, he immediately went out and beat the fastest time the car had ever ran by at least a second or so. As the other teams racked up numbers it was clear that we had a strong contender. We averaged 6-7 seconds faster than the next car. Tristan was the first person other than my wife to drive my racecar 'in anger'. I don't think I stopped pacing until the car was back in the paddock. He did great which is why I had called him in the first place.
I went out for the second session at 5:00 and managed about one second faster putting us even further ahead. The team was joking around about this being a done-deal but as you'll see, enduros have a way of leveling the playing field.
Sunday morning arrived and I did a little recon. to assess the potential field out there. Midwest Council requires that any fuel stop be 5 minutes. They do this to ensure that there is sufficient time for amateur teams to be safe. This also means that the total number of pit stops are crucial because you can lose 2.5 laps sitting there for a fuelup.
Tristan went out in the morning warmup and we started looking at grid times once again. Hmmm? The Speedway AutoMall team had a new driver, and was now only 1-2 seconds behind our team and with a small inline 4 motorcycle engine in their car they were going to be efficient with fuel. Looks like we were going to have a race on our hands! We did know that they had 3 drivers so it appeared they were going to be on a 2 stop strategy. However the Honda CRX endurance car of 'The Arrested Adolescents' was probably on a 1 stop as this car was built for enduros.
After lunch we started lugging all the equipment to the pit-wall. Canopy, rain tires, spare tires, tools, 60 gallons of fuel, timers, radios, water and cooler, etc.. We got this done just about an hour before start. We also decided to swap sides on the tires to ensure the outside tires had the most tread. We were sharing a space, gear, tools, and crew with an experienced team who clearly had their act together.
Flash forward one hour to the start. I was fairly confident that we could build up an early lead and our strategy was to push hard for the first 15 minutes to build up a gap and then settle into a rhythm to keep us gaining a little bit every lap. The green dropped very early, suprising the entire field, but we got under way cleanly.
The car was REALLY slipping and sliding around it it appears later that there was fuel dumping out of the vent and getting on the rear tire.. Not GOOD! Apparently my discriminator valve isn't working any more. It did go away after about 10 laps as the fuel level dropped, but it was a hairy 15 minutes. Note to self: Reduce fuel load next stop.
After 15 minutes I had gained about half a lap on the 2nd place car and Jerry started radioing adjustments to me to dial back our lap times. What a HUGE difference in pace 4 seconds a lap can make. After about 15 minutes of this my wife got on the radio and suggested that she thought we should pick up the pace to make room for any errors in pits, problems with the car, etc.. She said we could always dial it back towards the latter part of the race. This ended up being the best strategic call of the day. I was focused on driving but decided that this was the right call. Mr Murphy often lurks just around the corner in every enduro.
About 1 hour into my 1:15 driving stint I started having trouble getting the car into third gear. However I noticed if I wiggled the shifter a few times it would go in. I figured it must be a linkage issue until the car got absolutely stuck in 3rd gear. Damn. After some hauling and jerking on the stick it came out. At that point having experienced several trans failures that started this way, I stayed out of 3rd gear. In the past when this started, it ended up with the 3rd gear syncro dumping its contents into the gearbox and causing all manner of havoc as the metal parts got ground up in the gearbox.
Predictably lap times went up a bit like this and I radioed into the pits to let them know and to prepare Tristan for the fact that we wouldn't have 3rd gear to use.
Our pit stop came shortly thereafter (which was a good thing because all the fluids I drank were seriously coming back to haunt me) and we measured the actual fuel consumption and put 15 gallons in. Turns out this was a bit too much because Tristan also experienced some slipping for the first 10 laps.
We didn't clear the pit area well enough and the stop was a little bit chaotic, we ended up going 2 minutes over our planned stop. This put us down about 3-4 laps from the CRX enduro car and without third gear available I was getting really nervous. Tristan went out and immediately started dropping lap times. He settled in to a nice rhythm and started ticking off some pretty quick laps, only 2 seconds below our qualifying time without using third gear at all! With this I pulled up the laptop and did some calculations on when we would get back our lost laps and it was getting very close to the end of the race before we'd get them back. If the other team didn't pit until the last 30 minutes for their splash-n-go we could conceivably lose this race. (Remember Esther's strategic call earlier? Good thing she was thinking ahead!)
Tristan kept turning consistent laps and about 45 minutes into his stint the CRX finally pitted! The splash-and-go is only allowed in the last 30 minutes, earlier than that and it's a full 5 minute stop. This bought us some time. This team has pit stops down to a science and was easily done within the 5 minute window. Luckily the 2nd driver of this car was a few seconds slower than the last and we started picking up ground on them very quickly. Tristans pit time passed but as competitive as he is, he asked to stay out until he passed the CRX. How would we say no?
He passed the CRX and came in. I cleared the pit area of any non-essential personnel and decided to only put in 10 gallons this stop, eating into our fuel reserve but it also shortened the stop time. We had a bit of trouble hooking up the radio, I started to feel like an astronaut with all the driver connections that needed to be done. Cool shirt hose, headset, mic, belts, and drinking tube? We scrambled and I only got one headset earphone in, but I could hear the radio. My left ear rang for 4 hours after the race though. We DID get out in 5 minutes though and as I came out of the pit lane, there was the CRX! Damn! until Jerry radiod out to say we were still a lap up on them! He also mentioned that the 3rd place car had taken 2nd, was 3 laps down, but gaining about a second a lap. No problem though, as the remaining time would only put them up about - 1 lap total.
I settled into a rhythm that just seems so zen-like at Gingerman and started ticking off the laps. Soon I saw the 30 minutes to go sign and started to get a little more comfortable. Without switching gears you can really focus on your line and smoothness and I actually posted our fastest lap of the race on the older tires and with only 4th gear. Old tires? Oh yes, I could feel the left rear tire giving way and I was hoping that there was enough rubber left on it to finish.
Fifteen minutes? still going! tires still holding, 10, 6, 3 minutes left and I got the one-lap to go symbol. Goosebumps started forming under my nomex. I rounded the last turn and saw almost the entire track lined up along the wall, the checker came out as I sped up the main straight and it was over. I've been racing for 7 years and I have NEVER felt the rush winning a race such as this. Pure elation, I didn't expect it, almost an electric shock as I crossed the line. All the fatigue was gone and I was just left with the win.
I completed the cool-down lap waving a big thanks to the workers who spent a long day out on the corners and pulled into the pits, motioning Jerry to get into the car for our victory lap. The stewards handed Jerry a checkered flag and we went out on our victory lap. We were all grins around the track and pulled up next to the podium smiling at the trophies standing at the top. The announcer communicated a few highlights of the race, how close 2nd and third were (5 seconds) and instroduced us as the winners. I could see the other teams furtively unwrapping their champagne bottles. Just as I thought about popping ours and hosing down Tristan I got a full spray in the face from the 2nd place team, Nice! We emptied our bottles as the pit officials dragged the chief steward, Ray Jackson, over to us. No fizz anymore? No problem, we all dumped some on his head. We saved the last few sips for Jerry and Esther because they deserved it as much as Tristan and I did.
There were a TON of other people who helped.. Laurie St. G for her dedication to EuroEast and for being such a great Auntie to Wyatt; Tristan Whitehead (hohum74) my codriver and his wife, Mike VanWyk helping in the pits, Jerrys sons Michael and Josh, My brother in-law dan, throughout the day... Thanks to Kevin, Michelle, and Stefan for showing up for support. Here's the crew!
Victory Lap
...and the result!!!!
Celebration
Champagne!
FIRST OVERALL!!! FEELING GOOD.
