“Track Side,” A day in the life of a Track Junkie…, This is humorous series of articles written by my good friend Matt Y, who is a devout SCCA track junkie, running his ’87 VW Golf GTI (more affectionately referred to as, “the General Li”). These articles give you a look into what racing is really like. It’s not always fun and games… Sit back, relax and see what it’s like to be “Track Side.” — Eric M, GTA Webmaster – 7/16/2002
The weekend went well, almost too well but some unexpected excitement in the last lap resulted in the loss of a few positions – nothing earth shattering, just disappointing.
Thursday, 4 Jul
Arriving at “normal” time, the waiting line was a bit shorter than normal owing to the Independence Day holiday. After only about 1/2 hour, the flood gates opened and the sweating masses streamed into the paddock. I secured a nice spot in the woods that was promised to be shady throughout the day. Opening the door of my pickup, I was almost pushed back inside by the oppressive heat and humidity – temps in the high 90s and humidity about the same. After setting up the canopy, unloading the car and changing a tire – I was soaked with perspiration and I climbed back into the pickup which I left idling with the a/c running at full tilt.
Friday, 5 Jul
Fortunately the heat wave broke and the temps were only in the mid-80s when I arrived at registration. After getting my gear thru tech, I installed my tech sticker and went home to recover from the previous day’s heat.
Saturday, 6 Jul
Although I was running in the 5th group, Rob and Michelle were running in the first group and Glenn was running in the 2nd group so I decided to arrive early in case I needed to help out or just to spectate. I found myself too busy to do much spectating as I was engrossed in socializing and preparing for my first qualifying session. Then the first disaster of the weekend struck – Glenn came in with a broken LF hub. A common malady but Glenn didn’t have a spare so we had to start scrambling for a replacement hub and axle since the pieces fail together. Fortunately we were able to locate a replacement spindle and Glenn took off to get a new wheel bearing while Bill started to disassemble his car.
First Qualifying Session – The first lap felt good – no surprises. As I started to turn up the power, I found I didn’t have any – hmm, oil pressure looked good, water temp looked good but the car was gutless. Then it hit me, I wasn’t getting much more than 1/2 throttle – rutroh, something’s not adjusted quite right. Rather than come in and waste 5 minutes of a 15 minute qualifying session, I decided to stick it out and work on conserving my momentum. Much to Lee’s delight, he found himself catching me towards the end of the session and he commented with a grin that he was hot on my tail on the last lap. As soon as the car cooled down, I reset the throttle clip and checked several times to ensure that I was indeed getting full throttle.
Then we went back to working on Glenn’s car – actually I didn’t work, I supervised as Glenn pulled off the front axle and removed the offending hub assembly. We located a replacement front axle (used) and waited for the new wheel bearing to be pressed into place.
Second Qualifying Session – After the mornings debacle, I found myself far back on the grid stuck behind a rolling menace in a CRX and Lee right behind me. As we started the session, the CRX was, as was expected, very fast in a straight line but excruciatingly slow in several of the turns. To make matters worse, the driver blocked feverishly even driving down the middle of the track to keep me from passing. After a seeming eternity, I late-braked the CRX into turn 1, tucked inside and got past him – leaving him for Lee to enjoy. This gave me some open track and I set out a coupe of decent laps before the session ended.
At the end of the second session, I found myself 10th on the grid with about 1.5 seconds separating 5th thru 11th on the grid!! I was sandwiched between John in an RX7 and an SSB Miata – not too bad, all things considered.
Then the real work began…the hub returned resplendent with a new bearing but the replacement axle wasn’t very good so we ordered a new one. Figuring that it would arrive around 7 pm, we hung out and enjoyed the sponsored participants dinner. By 8 pm with no axle in sight, we started to worry a bit and decided to try the replacement axle. We packed the CV joint and Glenn commenced to reassembling the LF suspension. Naturally nothing is easy as the pinch bolt for the ball joint stripped as we tightened it – to add insult to injury, the nut was stuck fast so an emergency flag was raised and Rick came to the rescue with his trusty tap & die. Once the front suspension was back together, Glenn brought the car to Rick and Bill who gave it a quickie alignment and all was whole again.
Since it was so late, Cindi graciously lent me a spare tent and an air mattress so I could spend the night at the track instead of making the 70 mile drive home. While it saved me 3+ hours of driving, I found myself too “wired” to sleep until 2 or 3 am. Sleeping in a tent, I woke to first light and the world’s loudest chirping birds around 530 am!!
Sunday, 7 Jul
Since Glenn missed his second qualifying session, he made a point to do hardship practice. While the car felt good, disaster #2 struck – the replacement CV joint wasn’t up to par and it quietly deposited it’s contents inside the wheel and just about anywhere else under the LF of the car. The good news was that the rebuilt axle had mysteriously appeared in MY CAR overnight so Bill set out to replace it before the 2nd race group. With about 5 minutes to spare, Bill and I buttoned up Glenn’s car and he made it to the grid without any further drama.
Then came disaster #3 – Michelle, in her 2nd race, had an “incident” in turn 6 that involved both her Mercedes and an AS Camaro. Several versions of the story still circulate but the official word is that she got hit from behind, went off, corrected and shot across the track, collecting the Camaro in the process. Michelle was unharmed but the MB is fairly hurt – the LF frame rail looks like a pretzel but the true extent of the damages hasn’t been assessed yet.
Then along came disaster #4 – I was too busy trying to find out about Michelle so I didn’t pay attention to the ITB race. When I started to watch, Glenn wasn’t there. Like Bill, when I heard that my cold heart sunk since all I could think of was “what did I do wrong to cause Glenn’s car to crash”. When I finally caught up to Glenn, the tow truck was bring his car back in with an RF wheel that was stuffed into the fender well and little other external damage. He’d gone off at the start and played stuntman – jumping the car about 4′ in the air. The damage was significant but all hidden – the oil pan took most of the impact and the RF frame rail was twisted and the body had a new wrinkle behind the sunroof.
With all that “excitement”, I was a basket case in preparation for my race…
Race time
I pulled onto the grid under 5 minutes before the start of the race which was good since it gave me enough time to get belted in but not enough time to “relax”. The start of the race went well and I pushed my way past John in turn 1 as well as the green Miata that was next to me. By the 3rd lap, John and a yellow Miata were 10 car lengths back and I was chasing down an yellow RX7. True to form, the yellow RX7 started to get away and I started to slow slightly which gave John a chance to start catching up. I maintained a good distance but found myself driving alone with the yellow RX7 too far ahead and John too far behind to keep me going fast. After 9 or 10 laps, I keep hoping for the “1 lap remaining” sign as I didn’t want John to get too close but as fate would have it, the 1 lap sign appeared as John collected a great run out of 10. Entering turn 1, I stayed on the outside and we raced side-by-side into turn 3. I stayed inside and drifted out while John did the opposite. This gave him a bit more momentum and he pulled ahead slightly as we approached turn 4. Not wanting to have a spectacular incident, I let John pass and I tucked in behind with the yellow Miata in hot pursuit. Entering 5, I braked hard and turned in to follow John. The Miata, obviously over-excited by this action entered the turn too fast, locked his brakes and tapped the LR of my car at the apex of 5. Let’s just say that this is the “perfect” spin technique and I went around in a hurry – fortunately John had just gotten back on the throttle so I simply spun on the track with the front wheels ending in the dirt on drivers’ left. I was a bit “excited” myself by the Miata’s actions and I was back in first gear and at full throttle before the car ever stopped although it was all in vain since I had no hope of catching either car in the 1/2 lap before the checkered flag.
In the end, I finished 8th OA – not too bad although I sure would have liked a good 6th or 7th. The car is no worse for the wear – no new dents but the tires are about shot. They’re 2 years old which is something like 75 yrs old in dog years. That having been said, I called Paul @ Radial Tire and his only comments were “well, the bad news is that the only way you’ll go faster is with Hoosiers”. Hhmm – I guess it’s time to take the plunge and get the tires that the fast cars use – we’ll see how the work out…
The next event is at Watkins Glen on the 27-28 of July…
~Matthew
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