The DA Race report: Hotter than a $2.00 Pistol

[92 white 0650]

Thunderhill Raceway Park July 25-26, 2009
SCCA San Fran Region Regional Race #9

Part 1 Practice & Qualifying

The west coast record heat was building for the weekend as the Awesome DA racing team headed up I-5 for Friday’s practice with some new tricks up their sleeve. And the heat took its toll early, crippling the Kipster’s faithful old work pick-up truck. It let him down on I-5 while hauling the trailer. :redface: So, practice sessions were lost and the new aero bits not given the proper testing and break-in.

As they pull into the paddock late Friday, it’s apparent that the heavy artillery is out for this race weekend. There’s the recluse Frank Emmett, the grand old man of the super fast SP class in his old and powerful #45 Corvette. And if that wasn’t enough, Elmer Shannon’s heavily modified and boosted Corvette was being buffed up by his large but motley crew in garage #5. Oooooh baby, could be interesting.

Looking this pundit in the eye Shad deflects any concern for such intimidation. In a carefully scripted position statement, he says the strategy is to concentrate on ITE. “Ah yes” the unspoken look suggests, SP is indeed looking daunting with the big dogs patrolling the sidewalk. After all, they routinely dip well below a buck 50 which is KO’s goal at the moment. Fair enough, concentrate on ITE and take a 3rd place in SP. Got it. :wink: OK, moving right along…………….

Saturday’s SP Practice. KO is first out and takes a rather leisurely outlap. Elmer comes out 3rd, and ever the showman, lights up the tires to get up to speed NOW !!!. KO, anticipating some big fun, points him by, hoping he can’t see the big grin under his helmet. Why let him by, you ask? Elmer, you see, is not at his best with his mirrors full. Knowing that, KO loves riding his ass like he’s pulling a cowgirl’s hair. :tongue: But somehow, things backfire and Elmer scratches up a 1:48. 5 and KO can only best a buck-50.9. After only 5 laps or so, Elmer pulls off with a power steering failure and coasts half way around the track. This cub reporter went up to Elmer later and felt his bicep. Not puny, but not KO’s either. After wincing at a well deserved sneer, Elmer’s defense was he pulled off because he thought something else might be “going limp.” Maybe he needs to switch to Cialis.

And there’s Frank, splitting the difference at 1:50.0. Those in the know know that DA loves to spring a little shock and awe on the unsuspecting, at the right time. But this ain’t it. So Brenda the bombshell down at the Black Bear Diner feels good as she puts her money (and reputation) on Elmer even though her eyes glaze over and she twirls her hair anytime Shad and the very sexy NSX are mentioned. “Maybe they’ll make up a sexy calendar next year? We’ll all get one,” she squeals.

Saturday’s ITE Practice. 1015 AM and not too hot yet. Practice was uneventful under the watchful eye of the Grid grampa Paul, who, incidentally, has a new tatt that confirms that you can’t have too much horsepower. :biggrin: Kip led the way with a so-so 1:52.32, followed by his nemesis, Darrell Anderson in the #45 white Mustang 3/10ths back. They play a little lead/follow til KO pulls the #49 in after only 5 laps. Darrell (the other DA) stays out, cooling his tires and stuff for a lap or 2, then turns the wick back up but can’t better his time. Chasing KO is obviously his prime motivation. The next car back is an ex-World Speed Porsche driven by the very likeable family man Mark Kibort who works his butt off to get under 2 minutes. No competition to say the least, as even this clumsy pit reporter has raced him and handled him up quite easily. But Mark tirelessly lurks and must be respected; more on that later…………..

SP Qualifying. Starting to heat up at 1:10 in the afternoon, Kip’s surprisingly finding a little extra juice, or grip and dips below that fabled buck-50 mark to a 1:49.19. Shad has to lift the headphone off his ear as the Kid lets a hardy “Yeeeeee-Haw” rip. You’d think he just got a new D-9 dozer for chrissake. :redface: But Elmer’s 07 is still the rabbit and stays tantalizing just ahead with a 49.06. Then KO, ever the sportsman lets Frank by to give him a good shot at pole as the peanut gallery gasps; “Wow, that kid Olson is sure a nice guy, eh?, hope Frank doesn’t kick sand in his face too bad.” But it’s not going as planned in the #45 camp. As the laps wind up and the clock ticks down, Bob the starter and spotters in the tower are asking, “What’s up with Frank? He can’t find anything better than a 1:51 something. Huh???“ But Shad’s having none of it, knowing that Frank loves to start back in the field and blow some doors off through the race. Been that way for a few years now since he’s been winning since the late 90’s.

ITE Qualifying; Darrell Anderson, as you NSX faithful know by now, is the only challenge, real or imagined, in ITE. But this session, he had some issues and was chugging around at 1:55’s or slower. He pulls it back behind the wall early. KO, on the other hand, had easily ripped off a 1:51.3 on his first flyer. Staying out but not improving on his “getting-greasy” DOT skins, he pulled into the hot pit lane to take stock. Giggling on the radio with Shad, he waited to see if Darrell has gotten his ailment fixed. After a long stop, Darrell comes back out. As the 45 accelerates past the DA team pit box (under the shade of an oleander), Shad winks at this cub reporter and says “that thing sounds like $hit.” The 45 comes by again, still sounding like $hit, but miraculously just a minute-51 point 6 later. Oh crap, looks like he’s got it fixed and might get one or 2 more hot laps before the session is checkered. KO pulls out to lay down some insurance but it’s not necessary, thanks to traffic. KO’s on pole for the DA team. :smile:

Saturday Wrap up. So there you have it, Kipster’s on pole for ITE and on the front row in Super Production SP. As the temps stayed up but the sun went down, the DA bad boys put the #49 to bed, patted its rear bumper and headed to Casa Ramos for some relaxation, gut bustin’ burritos, sunburn numbing alcohol and diabolical scheming :wink: for Sunday’s fracases. This reporter sucked up some monster insight to the small but proud DA team. Unfortunately, he also sucked up some monster beer, got the napkin all wet and couldn’t read any of his the notes the next day. :redface: And then he had his own race to run. What……… you were expecting James Allen? Guess you’ll have to settle for just the racing facts. Bummer for you.

Stay tuned for Part 2 and the Sunday races.

 

[92 white 0650]

Re: Part 2 Hammer Down

Back to the very tight and take-no-prisoners Driving Ambition race team, here’s the rest of the story: how it all came out good.

The ITE Race. With the sun warming the macadam for the 9:20 AM race, the girls from the Black Bear Diner were intending to come out and warm up their hero Shad. But as it turned out, they were too hung-over, couldn’t do anything with their hair and didn’t make it. Shad, needing none of that, pumped up the tires and, like a boxing coach, pumped up the kid with a good pep talk. Speaking very slowly and deliberately, Shad carefully recalled the simpler parts of the previous nite’s scheming; that the mission was simply to pull out several seconds early on Darrell Anderson (yeah, the other DA; aka ODA) since ODA, like the foxes down at the Diner, is a slow starter and can’t seem to get up to speed and get things working well until he’s logged a couple of hot-laps. “Oh, you mean like strike while the iron’s hot?” KO scratched his head. Shad “Sheesh, nobody talks like that anymore”, while loading up the pit wagon. But that’s the way it started out: from pole, the red #49 threw down another track record of 1:51.488 on lap 2, and disappeared over the horizon, racking up a full 3 second lead by the 3rd lap. He and ODA flat left the rest of the 19 car pack lost in the dust. :smile: Circulating consistently in the 1:52’s KO and ODA held station and pounded around with methodical tedium until they caught the wankers up. Hung up in traffic and having unusual difficulty passing, KO got reeled in by ODA who was now all over his ass like …………..<fill in your own lame David Letterman joke>. Nose to tail for 3 more laps they went until KO pulls over unexpectedly on the back straight with a loud thumping sound. Slowing to a very fast Miata speed, the noise went away, but anything under 2 minutes and it came back. The Kipster cleverly figured out that pushing it was not an option since this smelled eerily like the axle failure of not too long ago.

Talking on the radio, they confirmed that if the ailing part was not “complaining” too loudly at the pedestrian pace of 2:06 or so, they could keep going and gather points. ODA was gone :frown: and the obvious winner now unless he did something stupid. But ODA was smart and good, so those odds were long. A Viper with typical lap times of 1:56 – 58 was coming on and quickly gobbling up the 30 second lead that KO had. At his snail’s pace, keeping 2nd place overall was not gonna happen, so Shad started looking back in the field for the 4th place car. Using his trusty slide-rule he’s calculating and talkin’ to the Kid, saying that Mark Kibort in that red Porsche 928 was coming, but just at his journeyman’s pace of 2 minutes. KO’s lead of over a minute might hold up for 3rd overall, 2nd in class. The announcer, the NSX community and other kibitzers around the track were holding their breath, thinking the turbo had given up. Only Shad and KO knew it was the axle, as KO continued to limp around at 2:06 -08. With laser like precision, the plan worked and KO takes the checkers in 3rd place overall, 2nd place in ITE just 14 seconds ahead of the very likeable Mark Kibort. Smart……….very smart.

The postscript to this race is that Shad had pulled the axles after qualification, looked them over, sniffed the grease and thought they were just fine. Damn, you’d think he’d be able to tell !!! And in the “no credit for trying” category, Shad had ordered some re-engineered Porsche parts axles after the breakage in the Memorial day race. Unfortunately, the parts arrived with some minor problems and had to be sent back. You can bet you’ve heard the last of this problem. :wink:

Sunday’s SP Race As they roll off pre-grid, at 1:50 PM, air temp was climbing rapidly for its 105F target. Polesitter Elmer in typical “in-your-face” fashion chose the rightside (outside) line since he knew he’d outdrag KO to the first corner. He got that done which is about the last thing that went right in his race. KO stayed right on his tail thru the first few laps. Frank on the other hand was struggling, falling back on every lap. Here’s how it looked at the end of lap 1.

Elmer could not shake the Kid who was stuck like glue, with the gap varying less than a second. This went on for 4 laps, all the while, Big dick Frank falling steadily behind by 3-4 seconds a lap……….a lap, like each and every lap?????? Are you kidding me?........ Frank going backwards like the stockmarket in October???????? It was true and pretty soon everyone watching had forgotten there were more than 2 cars in this race.

And then there was one. Elmer pulled over with another mechanical, and Frank continued to fade finishing his 16 laps a whopping 36 seconds behind an 18 year old NSX; a car he used to eat for lunch back in the 90’s. Guess he better change his handle on the Corvette forum. :redface:

Post Mortem. After 7 exciting rounds, the ITE points standings show ODA in the lead with 162, Mark Kibort in his ancient but quick World Challenge 928 with 152 and KO in 3rd just 2 points behind Mark. Plenty of time to get the job done; just got to get those re-designed axles.

KO is kicking ass :biggrin: in the SP class with 218 points. David Ray, Mr. Hooked on Driving and SCCA Board member, is 2nd, just on stick-to-it-iveness, with 142. Frank, a distant 3rd has 120. And Elmer, you ask,? the guy who skips Laguna to race guys like me in ARC has…………. well, let’s just say, he’s no factor. There’s still 5 races to go, so Frank is mathematically still alive, if he can get his speed back and if DA inexplicably doesn’t score any more points.

Better plan on getting on out to Infineon to support the DA dynamic duo as they do battle in the Labor Day double dose of chaos. See you in the paddock.

PS: My apologies :redface: for the very delayed conclusion to the very exciting race weekend, but I have been working (some vicious overtime) almost as much as that Shad guy and then to top it off, I had my own race report to pound out. BTW, if you want a happy ending to what you read, don’t go here.