banta@sco.com (Beast) (02/07/90)
For those of you that don't read rec.autos.sport, here's my recent
posting from that newsgroup. This article sort of takes the racing
slant more than the british car slant. My car, discussed below, is
an MGB GT prepped for E Production racing. Sam's car is an MGB
prepped for Improved Touring B. This is the account of our
adventures At SCCA Driver's School at Sears Point on Feb 3 and 4.
-----------------
Well, here's my account of driver's school this past weekend. Sam
did a great job of covering most of the high points, so I'll try not
to repeat too much of it.
Last week, before driver's school, was rather hectic. I had taken
Mon-Wed as vacation days. During the day, I could be found in my
garage trying to get my car prepped for the weekend. Evenings were
spent in Sam's garage, getting his car ready. On Wednesday evening,
I trailered my car off to pre-tech. After waiting around and giving
other people a hand, a tech inspector final strolled over. Much to
my surprise and delight, the car passed! I had figured there would
be one or two small details that they didn't think were right and I
would end up having to work on.
Thursday night and Friday morning were an excercise in car swapping.
The arrangement that caused all this was that I would swap my 924
for a pickup truck for the weekend. Larry Colen, Team Fizzball's
only SCCA driver to date, has a sister who has a truck I could use
to haul my car. So Thursday night I swapped the 924 for Larry's
Honda wagon. The Honda is a very handy pit car. It has room to haul
stuff, room to sleep in, and isn't a truck. Our other pit crew
person, Craig, works swing shift and only owns a motorcycle for
transportation. Since Craig couldn't get out of Santa Cruz until
about 1 am Satyrday, I was to drop off the Honda at his place Friday
so he could drive it up to Sears. Meanwhile, Larry had swapped the
924 for his sister's truck. He picked me up after I had dropped off
the Honda, and I think finally everyone had the appropriate
vehicles.
We spent all day Friday loading up the truck. First a generator,
oxy-acetylene set-up, and truck box from Jeffie's, then off to Sam's
to pick up an air compressor, various spare parts, jacks, air tanks,
and I don't recall what else, then Larry's place for tools, spares,
the BLTC (Better Living Through Chemistry) kit, marked with "No
smoking or pregnant women within 100 feet" and a bicycle. Loaded to
that point, we trucked over the hill to my place. We loaded up
tools, parts, patio furniture, and other gobbledy gook. Put the car
on the trailer. Loaded carpet fragments, fuel jugs and coolers into
the car. It was 6 pm. We had started out swapping cars at 10 am.
Sam met us at my place. We decided to choke down some food ("Eating!
I knew I forgot to do something today!") before heading out.
The trip up and setting up in the paddock was pretty uneventful.
The generator we took couldn't put out enough power for Sam's air
compressor, and appeared to have a problem vapor locking itself
after running for about 10 minutes. After a reasonable amount of
fucking around with that, we gave up on it. Tents were pitched and
we settled for the night.
We got up around 6:30 the next morning, registered for the day,
picked up our suits and got to work on Sam's car. The torch came in
handy when we realized nobody had brought a decent hacksaw.
8am: Mandatory driver's meeting. I got there and was told "Group 4,
get out of here and get on pre-grid" Ok, I'm in group 4 (Big bore
production, GT1-4, S 2000's (MGB == big bore production (head
scratch))). I head over, suit up, strap in, and head out on track.
Having attended the Capri Club School, I figured that all I learned
there could be applied. I did find out how quickly you forget
things about the track and how different things feel months later.
About 3 laps out there, I begin to feel something in the seat. Like
I had a sharp rock on it or it was getting real hot in one place. A
few more laps and I can really feel it. It then occurs to me: When
I had bolted my seat in, one of the bolts that went through the
floor also came to rest on top of the muffler. It wasn't extremely
painful, so I finished up the session and told my crew to do
something about it when I got back in. They racers taped a piece of
carpet over it and it was fine for the rest of the weekend. I still
have a nice blister on my right cheek, though.
Much discussion about the correct line and a student/instructor
drive around followed, bringing back alot of the information I had
forgotten.
Second session of the day. I feel a little more confident and ready
to go. No rain yet. I accelerate out of the pits, shift into
third, and the bonnet comes flopping up ofer the windscreen. I pull
the car of into the grass right before turn one. After the session,
the my Larry comes down and bends the hood back down enough I can
see to drive the car. I get it back to the paddock and Larry and
Craig go to work with vise-grips on it.
During our post-session discussion, my instructor tells me to get in
with group 3 next time out. This is Sam's group, and the group
immediately before my normal session. It is also raining. I run
the tire pressures up to about 40 psi in my A008R's. Driving in the
rain is a slow, follow the leader type session. I end up getting
sideways in the straight between 6 and 7, but nothing too exciting.
Those driving the IT cars are definitely more cautious than those
driving the large bore cars. When group 4's session heads out, I
get stuck behind a camaro doing 25 mph all the way around. He slows
to about 15 in the final straight. Then 10. This is the first lap,
we're still under yellow. Finally, he's just barely moving (no
wipers?) I decide "screw it, if they chew me out later, ok. I'm not
miss this session because of this boob." I pull out and pass him.
Never heard anything about it. The rest of those backed up behind
me do the same. Another fun filled session in the rain. Only 3 or
4 cars hit the puddles and go careening off.
Not much is said in the discussion following the session. The rest
of the day's sessions are cancelled. We try to protect stuff in the
paddock, and head out to drier and warmer pastures. We have dinner,
I fall asleep at 6:30 leaning against a 6 foot stuffed moose at some
freinds' of Larry.
Sunday is beautifully bright, chilly day. Not a cloud in the sky.
We get to the paddock, try to assess water damage, and prepare for
another day. Sam's car seems in find tune, as is mine. His first
session is before mine. My session rolls around, and I head out on
track. I had lowered tire pressures from the 40 for the rainy
sessions down to 33. That session, I'm doing ok on the lines. Not
terribly consistant, not terribly fast, but ok. The car, on the
other hand, feels like some blew their nose on the tires. It won't
stick for anything. The car is very sqirrely in the carousel. I
bring the back end around at ridiculously low speeds in both the
hairpins. I finally just sort of putter around the course,
practicing the line. I'm satisfied with how I'm doing, but would
like more speed. I pull in, tell Craig to check out some clunking
in the back end while cornering (turns out to be the exhaust pipe
banging against the body work), and head off to the discussion. We
are told that "the worst cars out there, the british ones and the
front wheel drive ones, and doing the best lines." I felt good
about that, especially since he totally hashed the sport racers.
They tell each car where it's doing good, where it can improve, and
other helpful info.
Second session on Sunday: I'm keeping in mind what they've told us.
The standard procedure is a instructor on each of the difficult
corners. The instructors are trying to point out the apex and get
people to hit it. They start putting a cone right on the apex
point, and replacing it each time a car hits it. For this session,
I dropped tire pressures down to 28 psi. The car sticks much
better, and I'm happier. On two of the corners they put up cones, I
can hit it every time (4 and 10). I'm still having problems on 7,
and just don't feel comfortable with what I'm doing on that corner.
The car loses significant power during the session (spark plug lead
came loose), but it pretty much just affects straight line speed.
Corners are my primary concern. At the discussion after that
session, I'm credited with destroying the cone on 4, and am told
pretty much what I already know. Corners 2 and 7 are my weak
points. I'm doing pretty well on the others.
Final session of the day: The car has it's power back, the tires
are sticking, I'm having a blast. I try to get the lines right and
feel pretty good about that. I have the carousel down, I think,
with a technique that puts me into a nice drift through the second
half and out to the edge on the exit. I gradually am increasing my
speed through the esses. One lap, I feel I'm doing really well,
lots of speed through the esses, and I turn in late for turn 10. 10
is a very high speed right hander right after the esses leading into
a short straight before the hairpin, 11. I end up heading at the
apex, instead of being in the right position to clip it. I try to
turn to the left to correct, but it's too late. I end up in the
grass on the inside of 10 at something near 100 mph. The back end
comes around. All I see is grass flying every where, the back of
the grandstands a little ways off and feel the back end flying to the
left. The first thing in my mind: Shit! Am I going to be able to
repair this in two weeks. I straighten out the wheel and look up.
And what starts spinning into view but the track! Wow! The track!
I jam the car into second, probably much harder than necessary, and
step on the gas. Son of a bitch, what they told us in class works.
I'm motoring back toward the track. The car settles down and I pull
back on. And head across the track to the pit entrance. I pull
into the pits and ask an official if the car looks ok from the
outside. He wanders around it and says it looks ok. Alright! I
head down the pit lane and finish another two uneventful laps to
close out the last session. For some odd reason, there was grass
all over the track around turn 10, though.
The discussion following that session was short and not too
interesting. The next two hours were spent packing the car and
supplies up. We pulled off the paddock at 8:30 for the two hour
trip home.
Sam and I both discuss some of the events. How we did things, how
to change things. I'm looking forward to a week and a half from
now. I bet Sam is, too.
andy
uunet!sco!banta