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End of the Season - Sand, Pines and Lots of Close Racing

14 Turns and 2.2 miles of fun

Carolina Motorsport Park (CMP) is a wonderful 2.2 mile road course in the middle of South Carolina pinelands. It was a 9 hour tow from Delaware but worth the trip to visit this 14 turn, very technical track.

CMP is very cool, but tough on brakes! A very long straight had me hitting about 130 before ending with a 30 mph, 2nd gear corner (T11). With 14 turns, there were numerous places where you're hard on the brakes.

On the 3rd day at the track, I went out in the qualifying session for the sprint race and at the first turn the brake pedal went to the floor. No brakes left at all! I limped back into the pit, bled and fiddled, found a new set of brake pads, but ended up missing the qualifying session. So much for race strategy. For the sprint race, I started DFL, 47th out of 47! It couldn't get any worse than that.

Passing John Chehaske's 69 911 under braking into turn 8

My race group was Class C (cup cars), Class D (RS America), Class E (911's like mine and 944 turbo S) combined with GT4 & 5 cars. I had a great, very tight race. I got a great start, picking up 5 spots before the 1st turn. In the race, I went from 47th to 23rd position, and ended up 5th in class, my best finish this year.

It was a blast starting from the back and working my way up. It was so tight, the battle so intense, that I ended up with a big rubber donut on my front fender and didn't even notice when it happened. I'll have to take a look at the video at some of those close calls. One of them was a little closer than it should have been. But in PCA club racing, if you can buff it out in the paddock, there wasn't any contact...

Tire Donut - who says PCA Club Racing isn't intense?

Now the enduro was a different story. I'm not the faster driver out there, neither am I the slowest. Both the car and the driver can use some improvement. I'm at my best in traffic, on starts and restarts. I can hold off better (faster) cars and drivers by using smart racing tactics and my skills. Often this results in overdriving my tires and having the grip go away.

In an enduro, Time will be my enemy. I'll need to be smart; the car/tires/brakes has to last 90 minutes. That means don't really contest the faster cars in my class. Now that doesn't mean I'll rollover whenever they come by. I'll make them work to get by me. I'll just won't push the car to the limit to keep them there. Sooner or later, somebody will screw up and we'll have a full course yellow. And that means restarts, and my opportunity.

Gregg Wilson heading out for the sprint race

Gregg Wilson (Class F) heads out for the sprint race

The enduro didn't start well. The officials were supposed to use the best time of the sprint race for grid position, which would have put me around 23-25 or so, right in the middle of the grid. But when I pulled up, they stuck me in 47th again! They didn't have the paperwork ready, so they used the qualifying results from the day before. You remember, the qualifying session I missed. The only car behind me was Patti Mascone in her I class 944 NA. I was not a happy camper.

At race start, I again picked up several positions. I was doing well in the first 1/2 hour. I worked up to about the lower 30's from my 47th position. I was following my race strategy, not overdriving my car or tires. I was lapping about 1 to 2 seconds off my best time, waiting for the inevitable full course yellow (FCY).

And it came at about the 30 minute mark. Coming through the technical section (turns 11-14), a 911 several cars in front of me, started fogging the track just like a mosquito sprayer. Huge clouds of smoke pouring out the engine compartment. He must have broken a oil line. Did the driver pull off the track and turn off the car? Of course not, he proceeded to drive the line, oiling the track all the way into the pits with tons of oil pouring out of his car. Once in the pit lane did he take the first turn into the sandy paddock? Of course not, he made sure that he oiled all of the enduro hot pits, driving the entire hot pit lane before heading for the paddock.

The oiling of the track brought out the pace car and a FCY. Since I had watched the incident happen, I knew where the oil was and stayed off line. Coming around again out of the back section, I spied a hapless 944 spinning off like a top into the dirt at turn 13. Guess he didn't know where the oil was.

The pace car rounded the corner onto the pit straight, came to the start/finish line and stopped. And so did all of us. We all sat there for a half hour, while the track workers tried to clean up the mess. For the racers, the clock was ticking. The track had a mandatory quiet hour starting at 11am on Sunday for the local churches. This meant that our race started at 9:30am and all cars had to be off the track by 11. No racing, no exceptions.

So here it is 10:30. We had only gotten 30 minutes of racing so far. The track workers informed control it would be at least another 30 minutes of cleanup. This would put us into the quiet period. The stewards decided that everybody should abandon their cars on the track and come back at noon to finish racing. We would get a full hour to play. But first, time out for lunch. This would be the first 3 1/2 hour PCA enduro.

My later stint wasn't the best. In the course of the next hour, I had two spins. The first time was when I was being pressured by a guy in a 944 Turbo S that I had been swapping positions for the last several laps. I came in a little too hot into the slow, right handed carousel. Normally you dive into it straight, braking up over the inside curb, and trail braking to rotate the car into the carousel. I went a little too high over the curb and my gentle rotation became a quite rapid rotation. I ended up on the inside of the track, watching 2 class E cars sweep on by.

The next OTE (Off Track Excursion) was on the high speed portion of the circuit. There is a long straight coming out of the carousel, a 3rd gear corner (T8) that's a little tight at the exit, followed by a long, long 5th gear straight with a flat-out (suck it up) kink in the middle. I would go flat out maybe 30% of the time, otherwise a lift. Not too bad, a lot of folks were still braking for it.

Anyway, did I mention that CMP is nothing but pine trees and sand off the track? Coming out of Turn 8 once, I was just a little early and ran off the rumble strip at the end. At the end of the strip was a huge pile of sand. I just pretended I was Tommi Makinen, famous rally driver and never lifted. I just kept my foot in it and zoomed on down the track leaving a giant duststorm in my wake.

Eric Rupert heading past the splitter for the start of the sprint race.
note the track environment: sand, dry (flammable) short grass and pine trees

15 minutes later, the same thing happened and this time I also didn't lift. Unfortunately, the back end started to rotate and wiggle a little in the sand. The result was a snap spin onto the track backwards at 80mph. I ended up well down the track. I was off to the side watching in frustration, while about 20 cars zoomed past. Probably 10 or more of them were in my class.

Compounding my mistake, the trip into the sand ripped off one of my brake cooling ducts. I then proceeded to drag it around 10 feet behind the car. This resulted in the car getting very loose (exciting!) in the corners. Since I would run over it, not knowing it was there. Finally I got black flagged by the officials and came into the pits where Gregg Wilson removed it. The slow trip down the pit lane also cost me some positions. Final result was 34th in the group and only 10th in class. Such is enduro racing.

The racing season ended on a high note for me. My 5th place in the sprint race was a personal best. Next up is probably Road Atlanta in April. But that’s almost 5 months way. Meanwhile I can scheme and plan. Lets see, if I rework my suspension, maybe I can pick up a second or two ...

- Cris Brady
1973 911 RS - Class E
Delaware PCA Region Webmeister

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