SCCA: Loudon Regional personal report 96-07-28

• Jack Durbin
• MNI - Motorsport News International
• Thu Aug 22 15:55:13 EDT 1996

>From: Jeff Benagh 

SCCA Regional, New Hampshire Internation Speedway, 7/27-28

This weekend was the NARRC double at New Hampshire.  I had repaired
the bent lower control arm on my ITB '84 GTI after my incident the
week before with Chris Foley and his Porsche.  Many thanks are due
Jon Leeper (FV) for the use of his garage space during the week.  
Wouldn't you know it, the first person we run into at registration 
is Chris.  After some good-natured joking about trading paint, we 
settled into the paddock for the great thunderstorms.

Saturday morning was really nice weather, cool, dry and sunny.  The 
practice went off well -- the car was properly back together and my 
times were good.  We went out for qualifying a few hours later and 
I was in with a good bunch of folks -- Ed Dennison for one.  He 
passed me down the front straight and I followed him throught turn 
three and up the hill into six, hoping to pick up some pointers and 
surprised I was mostly able to keep up with him.

Through six, I hit the entrance and apex really well, but had a bit 
too much speed and went slightly off.  I've run off at this turn 
before, but always from early apexing.  Running off from carrying 
too much speed meant I was much further down track and the old 
trick of going straight and re-entering in a straight line would 
have put me straight into the tire wall.  So I eased the wheel to 
the left to get back onthe track.  Once one wheel caught the track, 
I spun off drivers left and went over the curbing sideways.

I got restarted, but the steering was off about 45 degrees, so I 
drove around to the pits, off-line, hand out window.  When I got 
out of the car on pit row, I saw the right front wheel had about 
5 degrees of positive camber.  "Bent upright" said Dick Shine, so 
we went off to try to find an upright, since I had no spare.  We 
located a used one from a Scirocco (thanks to Ed Dunbar from 
Sportwagen).  Our spectators arrived and Betsey and I impressed 
them with a display of how quickly we could disassemble and 
reassemble a VW front end.  Unfortunately the new wheel bearing 
was bad, so I sat out the afternoon race.

Betsey, our spectators, and I chowed down on the pig roast (now
in it's seventh or so year at a summer NHIS event), then drove 
down to Ed's shop that night, found an upright with a new wheel 
bearing and drove back to NHIS and put it in.  The next morning 
in practice it all seemed good and I got ready for qualifying.

I was in the middle of a clump of cars, and finally let a number 
by and was about to get a few clean laps when the BMW in front of
me started dumping gas out of the trunk in the oval.  I never 
realized how slippery gas was, but I backed off to avoid contacting 
the concrete at hight speed, and the session ended on the next lap, 
with me never getting a clean lap.  I was gridded near the end, but 
not quite last.

I got a really good start (for me) and went by two other cars on 
the inside of the oval.  One from behind got past me at the very 
beginning, but this was a big improvement.  We came around to turn 
3 (the first turn after the oval) and I saw a sea of brake lights, 
a waving yellow and three cars become one in teh middle of the 
turn.  Once past the incident I passed three other cars before the 
full course yellow came out at turn 7 and the pace car was out.  It 
took five laps to get the totalled Golf and the severely bent BMW 
(the gas leaker) out of the way so we could restart.

I got a pretty good jump on the restart.  I didn't get anyone, but 
no one got me either and there was a 20 car length distance between 
me and them by Turn 2.  Through the uphill, I waved by two of the 
really fast cars who were caught up in the incident and had 
restarted from the back.  I was ahead of two other cars that I 
could see and drove three really good laps and maintained about a 
10 car length lead.

Then I started to notice a wobble down the front straight and 
noticed that the steering wheel was no longer exactly straight.  The 
wobble seemed to be coming from the right front that we had replaced 
the night before.  I eased off a little through the oval, fearing 
the concrete walls, and the guy right behind me closed in.  The car 
felt slightly uneven under braking at turn 3, similar to how it felt 
last year just before the hub broke.  Going over the top of the hill, 
I let off and let the guy right behind by.  There was one other car 
waay back inthe distance, so I kept driving hard except in the oval.
Eventually, I couldn't see the car behind me, but kept within sight 
of the cars in front and finished without getting lapped (for the 
first time!!!!).

It turned out the second new wheel bearing was also poor and one of 
the rear wheel bearings was a bit beat up.  Wobbles fixed and the 
new header on order we'll be off to Lime Rock on the 16-17th.