WARNING: LONGISH AND WRITEN IN HASTE
DELETE NOW IF SHORT IN TIME OR PATIENCE
Our car is a Triumph GT6. It is running in the SCCA GT3 class. GT3 usually
runs on track at the same time as GT2, GT1, AS, and SuperProduction. These
include the biggest fastest and most modified of the production based cars.
Our Triumph has been a race car for most of it's life. Though it would be
elegable to run in many vintage races, we run it with the new cars.
GrandOpening ThunderHill RaceWay
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Well we worked down to the wire to get the car ready for the first
race at the new SCCA owned track. Chuck Fry and I spent many nights
getting the car together. Then I took it up to McGee Motor sport for
the wheel alignment. Scott Ruben at Mc Gee is a very bright guy with
a lot of good experiance setting up Spitfires (and other cars). He
set the alignment, took the car out on Sears Point for several hot laps,
made some final ajustments, and took it out for a few more hot laps.
Back in the hotpits he offered several valuable suggestions for future
improvements.
Back home Chuck and I labored to implement those improvements we could
in the few days remaining before the race. We replaced some bushings
with Heim joints and lowered the ride height in back.
Wednesday night Rochelle and I finished loading the camping gear and
took off on the 3 1/2 hour drive to the new track. The big 460 inch
engine in my bus made for an easy tow. We arrived at the track at 11:00
on a warm clear evening with a slight breeze and a bright full moon.
Fortunately some one was going in the gate with a key so we were able
to park inside and bed down for the night.
Next morning they assigned us a paddock space on the pavement right across
from Eric CHristiansen. It was good to see Eric and Scott.. We unloaded the
race car and I suited up in my driving suit. Rochelle signed me up for a day
of open track testing. We had arrived a day early to check out the changes
we had made in the car, and to get familiar with the new track at speed.
Out on track I was trying to get comfortable with the many off camber and
blind turns. Though it is only 1.9 miles ThunderHill is a challanging track.
Laguna Seca and Sears Point, the tracks I normally drive, both have corners
where you turn before seeing the apex of the turn, but ThunderHill has a
turn (the Cyclone)where you turn toward the apex blind, then pass the apex,
accelerating off what seems to be a cliff. You are hard on the gas before
you can see a road in front of you. And when you do see it, you find a steep
off camber turn downhill and to the right. At this point in everyones
learning curve it is usually full of debris left by the cars in front of you.
Sometimes the debris includes a few of those cars. The bare treeless hills in
the distance offer few points of reference at race speeds.
My car did not seem to be handling well but I attributed that in part to
my lack of familiarity with the course. On the third or fourth lap I noticed
a distinct wobble had developed. I slowed and tried to pull in the pit.
As the new track is now layed out, the pit enterance is right beyond a small
hill just at the exit of turn 9. At this point the cars are accelerating
through turn 9, a 45 degree sweeper on to the main straightaway. A driver
can't see the pit entrance until they exit 9. As I slowed and tried to get
over to the pit lane two cars coming through turn 9 passed on either side of
me preventing me from making the exit. As it was only a practice day the
track was not crowded. The normal tow truck had not arrived at the track yet
so I decided I would slowly nurse the car the rest of the way around the
track and back into the pits.
The car limped slowly along the edge of the track, and I waved the other cars
by. Aproaching the hill up to turn 5 it became clear that I could go no
further. As a couple of cars went by I pulled off into the dirt at the top of
the hill. At about 3mph I felt a clunk and saw my offside rear wheel start to
pass me by. It was heading down hill and would have reentered the track, but
with the last bit of headway left in the car I turned right across it's path
knocking it away from the track. I was now stopped in a broad smooth area of
dirt where most of the cars that spin in the "Cyclone" end up. A few car
lengths further down hillfrom me a Mazda that had spun was trying to restart.
I got out and picked up my wheel to look at it. The threaded portion at the
outboard end of the axel had snapped of and the nut was gone. This is not
where I would expect an axel to brake. Maybe the nut was over torqued some
time in the past.
When the session ended one of the service trucks came out to lift the back of
my car and tow it back to the pits. The regular tow truck has nice nylon
straps to lift the car with minimum body damage. It also has drivers who
regularly tow race cars. The service truck had a tow truck boom but it only
had a cable and hook.
They had to tow my car in before the next session could start. By the time we
had the car back to the pits the cable had damaged the rear bodywork and the
tail lights were both broken. Well thats one more reason to repaint the car
this winter.
By now it was about 1:00 in the afternoon, warm and sunny with a pleasant light
breeze and bright blue sky. One of the few spares we didn't have whith us was
an axel assembly. I started removing the right rear carrier assembly and
Rochelle headed into town to start phoning parts places in the Sacramento area.
If she could find an axel there she could pick it up and be back at the track
in 3 hours. If she had to go home to get one it would take 8 hours round trip.
At 10:30 that night Rochelle got back with the parts. The wind was picking up
but we fired up a generator and halogen lamp borrowed from Eric. The assembly
seemed to be in good shape except for the brakes. I swaped the brakes and wheel
studs from the old assembly. Before I installed the shocks I drew a line on the
shock body showing there length at full compression and measured there length
at full extension. I made a mental note to check shock travel at the new ride
hight in the daylight. By 1:15 am the car was back on 4 wheels. The wind was
picking up. I made sure our small sun canopy had a spare tire and wheel tied
to each corner. We cleaned up and went to bed. About two hours later we were
awakened by crashing and voices above the wind. I dressed and went outside.
Our small canopy was still in place but was now a parallelagram at 45 degrees
to the ground. Big, expensive, 10x20 foot canopys were tumbling like tumble
weeds across the paddock. I pounced in the middle of one that was up side
down and was headed toward my car. Eric and Scott captured others. Stripping
them was like reefing sails in a gale. In another half hour I was back in bed.
Friday
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The next morning the sun was just coming up as we got out of bed at 7:00. We
had to get registered, get the car teched and get out on track. First coffee
though. It was still windy and dusty but bright blue skys. Our only practice
session that day was 10:00. The sessions were 25 min long. I hoped to get in at
least one good practice session to make up for the full day lost with the axel.
Though the car didn't handle well I was starting to get the feel of the track
at
speed. At the end of the session I brought the car back to the pits and checked
the rear suspension shock travel. It was very short. We set the shocks as stiff
as possible and hope the car didn't bottom durring the qualifying session.
Saturday
-----------
There was a very short practice at 8:30. The qualifying session for our group
was 10:50. I ran with the shocks screwed down as tight as possible. Every time
I got near the edge of adhesion the car bucked and hoped. It handled like it
had
two wheels in front and a pogo stick in back. Standing in the pit lane Rochelle
could see it bucking from all the way across the infield as it came through
turn 4. My times weren't great but I was only one second slower then the second
place qualifying car in my class. That afrernoon we took the rear spring out
and
raised the ride hight an inch. Jeff, Sam, Scott Ruben and other stopped by to
offer suggestions and moral support.
The wind and dust had stopped. That night Everyone in the pits was in Halloween
costumes. It was a beautiful night with a full harvest moon.
Sunday
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Our race was around 9:30 that morning, but we gained an hour because that was
the day we went off daylight savings time. We watched the first race and
cheered
Eric on as he took the checker in the first race of the day. (it was also the
first race of the new track) As I lined up on pregrid for the GT race. I saw
that I was grided third in my class, two cars back from a yellow gt3 car,
driven
by Fred Michael. The highest qualifying GT3 car was an incredably fast Alfa
tube
frame car. beautifully driven by Jon Norman. It was grided in front of all the
GT2 cars, all the GT1 cars, all the AS cars, in pole position. Frank Emit
driving the only Super Production car had not made the time trial and so was
starting at the back of the pack.
Out on track we came into the straightaway on the warm up lap grided two by
two,
the green flag fell and everyone hit the gas. I got a jump on the cars to my
left and by the time we sorted our way through turn 1, I was on the tail of the
yellow car. Chuck and I had raised the rear ride hight to give more room for
suspension travel. As I went through turn 2 the car leaned a lot but it wasn't
bucking and pounding like it had in the qualifying session. It didn't take long
before I was past the yellow car, but he stayed on my tail and made me work for
a second place in GT3. For the next 5 or 6 laps he chased me, at one point
getting ahead of me for a couple turns. The straight from turn 9 to turn 1 is
probably nearly half a mile long and you enter it at a fair speed. Many of cars
were winding there engines tight in top gear. Several engines did not survive
the weekend. I was taching 7500 rpm in 4th gear halfway down the straight.
About lap 5 somebody blew an engine badly in turn 7, leaving oil all over the
turn. I saw the debris flag and slowed a bit. I made it through with the yellow
car right behind. The next lap at the same turn I looked in my mirror and saw
the yellow car spin off track. I didn't see him again until I lapped him near
the end of the race.
I started thinking about easing off a bit. I was in second place in my class
and if I didn't blow it I would get a trophy for the Grand Opener of the new
track. The first place GT3 car had been going so fast that it had lapped me
fairly early in the race. About this point I found a couple of AS 5 liter
Mustangs who were going close to my speed. I thought what's the point of being
on a race track if I don't race? I started dicing with them. At first I
wondered if I was holding them back so I waved one past me. It was interesting
to find out he couldn't pass unless I slowed down. When he did go by, I found
he was slowing me, so I repassed him and stayed in front of both for the rest
of the race. As the checker flag fell I realized that I hadn't seen the Alfa
in the last 10 laps. He had been fast enough that I had expected him to lap
me at least once more. Later I found out that he had been so fast that even
though he had sustained some serious body damage half way through and then had
his gear box jam in 3rd for the last 1/4 of the race, he still finished second
overall. (first in class) He was beaten only by the Super-Production car of
Frank Emit (who had started from the back of the grid). I don't know how it
looked from the pit lane, but from my point of view on track it was a good
race.
We spent the rest of the day leasurly watching races, loading up the bus and
having fun. About dusk we were getting in the bus to leave. Almost everyone had
left the track already. A pleasant looking couple in western clothes strolled
by
and stopped to chat. They were Thor Oden and his wife Milissa who own the
ThunderHill ranch that still surrounds the race track. It was the Odens who
sold
the SCCA the track site. They told us they and everyone else in town had had a
great weekend and were damn glad we were there.
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ThunderHill is a brand new track built and owned by the SportsCar Club of
America, San Francisco region. It is 1.9 miles long at this time, with plans to
add a second section later as finances permit. That will bring it up to 2.85
miles. Though it is challanging the new track is very well laid out. The
problem
area entering the pits is one of the few places on the track that clearly need
improvement. I have heard plans to correct this are already under discussion.
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