Wow, what an awesome weekend at Infineon!
At first I got a little nervous when I saw that Mike Courtney was on the entry list in ITR. He hasn’t been out for a couple of years, but he was very quick in his ITS BMW 325i, which is now in ITR with more power and less weight. But I wasn’t going to dwell on that — someone faster than me is exactly what I need to get me to really push harder. I was also really looking forward to being in group 5. Even though they are in theoretically slower cars, it seemed likely that I would have a great race with the two fastest ITS guys (Steve Borlik in a 2nd-gen RX7, and Doug Makishima in an E30 BMW), and also with the fastest ITA driver, Donna Gilio in an Integra. Someday when I really finish building my car, I’ll be faster than all of these people, but for now … it’s a great race!
Due to the fairly small paddock at Infineon and the large entry list (over 300), my father and I drove up early Friday morning to get set up in the paddock with Rod and Sterling. Friday was a test day and we weren’t testing, but unless you want to be banished to the upper paddock, it’s best to get there Friday. In fact, Thursday was a test day too and the paddock was already quite full at 8am Friday! We were back home by 10:30am, before the day had really started for the rest of the family.
Because I’d entered in both group 5 (ITR) and group 1 (ITE), I was to get a lot of track time this weekend, so I skipped the early Saturday morning group 1 practice session. Instead, I got registered, got my annual tech inspection, and got ready for the group 5 practice session which wasn’t until 1:10pm. Lots of time to prepare, although tech took FOREVER. It was actually pretty frustrating.
After the group 5 practice, I had to pretty much immediately turn the car around and get ready for the group 1 qualifying session. But while we were doing that, Doug Makishima came over to congratulate me for the fast times … turns out that I was the fastest overall in the group 5 session … faster than him, Borlik, Gilio, and even Courtney. Quite shocking. My fastest lap was a 1:53.018, which was about 1.7 seconds faster than I’d run there before. The only thing I’d changed on the car since I was there with NASA in February was that I realigned and corner-weighted the car after the suspension failure I’d had that weekend. Thanks, Edge Motorworks, it obviously makes a big difference. Of course, practice times are meaningless.
Then came group 1 qualifying. I didn’t do quite as well in that session, with a 1:53.497. Still not too bad. But Courtney, also entered in ITE, managed a (get this) 1:50.530. Holy cow. I don’t know if he changed his car for ITE or not, but that’s staggering.
That was the end of the Saturday sessions. Sunday came and I went out for the group 5 qualifying session. It was an exercise in frustration with lots of traffic and I just couldn’t seem to get any clean laps. I was only able to find a 1:54.368, which was 5th behind all of the drivers I mentioned before. Courtney was a little bit more accessible than his group 1 time, with a 1:51.286, which is still staggering, and a new ITR qualifying record that will probably stand for quite a while, unless he comes back and resets it. I knew that my slow qualifying time was just mostly due to traffic, but the question was … would I be able to pass any of those people in front of me? Being able to drive fast and being able to pass are somewhat different things. But it was sure to be fun.
The first of the two group 1 races started almost immediately after that qualifying session. I did a quick tire rotation, putting new tires on the front and moving the front tires to the back. I was kind of wishing that I had 4 fresh tires, but those tires that had been on the front were my freshest other pair.
The race was a lot of fun. At first it was a battle with Gilio (running ITX in group 1) and Borlik (driving the ITA car he had last year in ITX), but I managed to get away from those two. I was able to go slightly faster than I had in that first practice session, with a 1:53.011, and I spent the entire remainder of the race chasing down a Porsche 911 and a Porsche 928. Never could quite make a pass but it was exhilarating nonetheless. At some point Borlik lost control in T10 and ended up way behind. Still, it was thrilling to beat those two — I ended up in front of Gilio by about 6 seconds at the finish — and boded well for the upcoming group 5 race.
During the lunch break Betsy came up with our 14-month-old son Alex and my mother. My mother has never been to a race and she was really pretty nervous about the whole thing. They stayed and watched the final two races.
So then the real race began. The first three rows of the grid were Courtney/Makashima, Gilio/Borlik, and Sirota/Heth, the 3rd ITR car who usually starts quite strong. At the green, Borlik got his usual fantastic start and managed to get around Gilio. Courtney started to drive away, Heth fell back, and thus started the four-car train that continued for almost the entire race. It was Makishima, Borlik, Gilio, and Sirota, almost nose-to-tail for a long time. In the first 6 laps there was some good dicing between the three in front of me, but I couldn’t seem to make any headway, I was just stuck in the caboose position. I had quite a bit more power than Donna and could get a good run off of T11 into T1, and off of T6 into T7. But I don’t have the guts to try to pass someone going up the hill into T2. Twice I tried an inside pass on Donna in T7, but she stuck with me side-by-side all the way around, and with the preferred line into the esses, I had to back off. I was never able to make the pass.
In lap 10, Makishima got very loose coming out of T6 and nearly spun. Both Gilio and I checked up quite a bit to avoid hitting each other, but we passed Makishima. The rest of the race was very tight between the three of us, but that event pretty much let Borlik get away. By the end, Courtney finished up front, with Borlik in 2nd over 24 (!) seconds behind. Another 3.5 seconds back was the nose-to-tail train of Gilio, me, and Makishima. Courtney set a new ITR race record of 1:52.705, which at least is something that seems attainable.
I am seriously hoping that my failing video camera managed to capture this race. Because it’ll be a sight to see. I haven’t had a chance to check yet.
Not only was that one of the most fun races I’ve ever had, but it was another victory: my mother actually enjoyed it and discovered that it wasn’t as nerve-wracking as she expected. Betsy asked her to honestly say what it was that was the most terrifying, and she had to admit that there really wasn’t anything. They even looked over a couple of Spec Miatas in the paddock that had body damage from earlier serious crashes, and seeing that the roll cages and other safety gear had done their jobs made her feel a lot more secure.
Finally, just a few minutes after the finish of the group 5 race, was the start of the 2nd of the two group 1 races. It wasn’t the exciting four-car battle of the previous race. I managed to get around Donna Gilio at the start and for some reason, she just didn’t seem to be able to keep up this time. Borlik spun early and was never really close. I ended up the entire race on the rear bumper of the same Porsche 928 I followed for the entire first group 1 race. I was able to keep up but never able to make a credible pass attempt. Lots of fun staying close though.
I’m really looking forward to renewing this group 5 battle with the same players at the next SCCA weekend, which is the first weekend of May at Laguna Seca.
I need to give special thanks, as always, to Rod and Sterling McLane who always help out a lot even when they have their own race car to deal with, and especially to my father who tirelessly trekked to the track with me at all hours, crewed on the car, and stayed on the radio with me. Thanks!
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