SCCA: New Hampshire double regional personal report 


>From: Chong_Soo/Iris.IRIS@iris.com




I had really looked forward to the Labor Day double regional at New Hampshire 
International Speedway, put on by the New England region of SCCA.  Going into 
this weekend, I (RX7) had a 9 and 10 point lead over the second (Tom in a VW 
Golf) and third (Gerry in another RX7) place drivers respectively in NERCC ITS 
points.  I just had to do reasonably well in this double and the final race in 
October to possibly win the championship.


But I wasn't going to give up great racing for some lousy championship points 
(of course I would say that now).


It was to be a long, three day, action packed weekend with a warm-up session 
for each day, a qualifying session for the qualifying race and the qualifying 
race itself on Saturday.  The qualifying race would determine the grid position 
in the 25-lap regional scheduled for Sunday.  The best lap in that race will 
then determine the grid in the 20-lap regional scheduled for Monday.  There was 
also a Libra race scheduled for the end of each of the three days.  What is a 
restless racer to do but to signed up for all of them--six races in all.


Since I switched to the Hoosier tires, the car would go from near neutral to 
heavy understeer after about ten laps of hard driving.  So I had increased the 
rear roll stiffness for this weekend to try to give me a car that will remain 
fast after ten laps.  The trade-off is some tail-happiness at the beginning.


After the warm-up on Saturday, I decided that the balance wasn't that far off 
and the compromise was acceptable, I tried to improve it further with some 
camber and toe adjustment.


Two laps into qualifying, an American Sedan spilled its guts in T9.  I was 
first on the scene and promptly spun to the outside of the turn facing 
backward, just so that I could see the rest of the field spinning before my 
eyes.  I threw it in reverse to get as far away from the track as possible.  I 
don't know how they did it but the workers did an amazing job of cleaning it up 
while we continue to qualify--it was fairly well cleaned up about five laps 
later!  The qualifying landed me first among the ITS cars, sixth overall behind 
a bunch of hairy American Sedans.  Right behind me were a 240Z (James), Tom, 
and Gerry, all within a half second.


At the start of the qualifying race (12 laps), Tom and James went by me while I 
screamed bloody murder.  I managed to get by James in the oval while he was 
stuck behind some AS.  All of us squeezed by T3 with no incident, with Tom 
right in front of me.  Going up the hill towards T5, James blew by me ("How did 
he do that?") and almost Tom too.  I managed to get next to James coming out of 
T10, but backed off before T11 because T11 is the last tight corner before the 
front straight--I didn't want to battle James this early in the race and let 
Tom run away.


So three of us went bumper to bumper for two more laps, and then suddenly, at 
the exit of T10, James missed the apex and slowed way down (turned out he lost 
air in one tire).  I managed to avoid hitting him, and proceeded to concentrate 
on getting Tom.


Somehow an ITE Mustang managed to get by me around that time.  I had hope that 
the Mustang was able to get by Tom too but he just sat there. Took me five laps 
to get by that Mustang.  By this time I was three seconds behind Tom, with four 
laps to go.  My chassis tuning technique paid off.  I was able to catch Tom at 
a rate of almost a second a lap, and I was finally on his bumper on the last 
lap.  Going into T3 (heavy braking from over 100 mph to 40 mph), I moved over 
to the inside but I knew that I wasn't able to get next to him (Tom knew that 
too because he didn't even bother defending the line), so I moved back to the 
outside behind Tom.  Doing all these while braking ended up with a locked wheel 
which sent me in a frenzy trying to get the car balanced and avoid running into 
Tom.  Tom didn't cooperate by going into a spin (turned out he was watching my 
move and missed his braking point), thereby taking away the extra room I needed 
to slow the car down and had to try to turn to avoid Tom.  That sent me spin
ning too.  I restarted the car and took off.  Unfortunately, Tom took off right 
at the same time and was able to out-dragged me up the hill and held the 
position to the finish line with me on his bumper.


That's OK, that was just the qualifying race.  So I was gridded second with Tom 
in first behind four AS.  Gerry gridded close to the back of the pack because 
his engine overheated in the qualifying race and finished only 8 laps.  James 
was gridded behind Gerry.


Some more minor tweaking of the toe and warm-up Sunday morning.  My group was 
to race in the afternoon.  Over lunch, a meeting was held to announced the 
shortened program on Monday in anticipation of hurricane Edouvd.


At the start, I was able to get ahead of Tom because he was stuck behind some 
AS. Some other AS prevented me from running away from Tom also.  I forgot to 
defend my line going into T3 on the third lap and Tom got by me under braking. 
The big race then began.  I had to drive really hard just to keep up with Tom 
initially, but after ten laps, it started to become obvious that Tom's tires 
are starting to go away and his car started to understeer off the track at the 
exit of many turns.  My car, on the other hand, remained fairly neutral, and I 
concentrated on doing T11 as well as I could to get all the speed I could down 
the straight.  Over the next ten laps, Tom's car got worse and worse, and I was 
able to get even with him several times down the straight, but had to back off 
entering the oval.  Same story with the uphill following T3.  I was able to 
dive under him and go side by side through the oval a couple of times but that 
put me on the outside going into T3 where he would take my line away again.


At the end of lap 22, I was able to stay close enough to Tom, and do T11 well 
enough that I had a little more speed going down the straight that I was able 
to be even with Tom by the start line and completely by him by the time we 
entered the oval.  Fearing that he might outbrake me again going into T3, I 
tried not to slow down too much entering the oval.  In the oval, my rear end 
started to slide a little which was normal and correctable.  Well not this 
time. The rear end continued to very slooooowly slide away until a decision was 
made to LOCK-THEM-ALL-UP!  ARGH!!!!


EEEIIIIEEEE!  WHAM!  BANG!  BOING!  TOING!  I hit the wall, Tom hit me, I hit 
Tom, Tom hit the wall, the wall hit us, who knows!


We both stalled.  Tom restarted and took off ("HEY!").  I tried to restart but 
the car would not start.  I happened to be facing down the banking of the oval 
and could see that there was no one coming into the oval.  I let the car roll 
down to the apron and got out of the car.  All four corners of the car had 
damage.  The corner workers made sure I was all right and asked if I needed a 
tow.  I tried restarting the car and it started right up!  I thought of 
continuing but the checkered flag had came out.


I slowly drove the car back to the garage with the rear end wobbling from side 
to side.  I noticed Tom taking his victory lap.  I went over to congratulate 
Tom, after giving him a little bit of a hard time.


So the rear end is obviously damaged, what with about three inches worth of 
toe-out.  A close inspection shows a couple of bent pieces and not much else. 
The front wheels were not even touched.  Looks like I could fixed the car for 
Monday's race.  The parts I needed were only a little more than an hour away, 
sitting in my garage, on my street car.  :-)


So I grabbed some tools and headed home.  During my absence, we were nominated 
for the best show of the weekend, and Tom was awarded the best spin and 
recovery.


It took me only 30 minutes to remove the parts I needed.  Took a hot shower and 
went to bed--it would take me only about 10 minutes to install the parts. I 
remembered to grabbed my big sledge hammer with a broken handle for the 
recovery of lost fender clearance.


Alas, it was not to be.  With the parts installed and maximum toe-in dialed in, 
it still has over an inch of toe out.  So I ended up spending the day on the 
wrong side of the fence, cheering for Gerry, in the midst of Tom's cheering 
squad consisting of his wife and children.  Gerry won that race, with Tom a 
second behind.


I have one month to fix the car for the NARCC runoffs.  And then there is the 
Racing Against Leukemia weekend in October, which counts for NERCC points. I 
think I am out of the running for NERCC but I am not sure.  I may still be in 
the running for NARCC but I don't know.  Who cares about those lousy 
championship points anyway.


PS.  Guess whose bodyshop do I bring my car to.  Tom's!


-=Chong-Liang Soo=-
NER ITS "Limping Bobsled" RX7
csoo@iris.com
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