And then, out of nowhere, I hear the booming and unfamiliar voice of God on the radio. God tells me to head down the pit road and wait through a five-minute stop-and-go penalty for passing under yellow in, of all the damned places, Turn Nine.
I'd rather have the starter smash my balls with a wooden mallet than sit on pit road for five minutes. But I do it anyway and figure Quan will probably be obliged to squash them when I finish the session. Instead, he exercises remarkable self-control and tells me not to worry about it over the radio. Photo man Thawley is documenting the stupidity. Never a guy to hide his feelings, he's running around outside the car like a guy who actually got some sleep last night and is all too happy to laugh at my expense. Screw you, Thawley.
With that, I happily wrap up my share of this disaster, crank out a few more laps and sheepishly pass the Civic on to Tom Lepper. A few hours later the shit really hits the fan. With Derek Ramsey behind the wheel, the Civic's water temperature skyrockets. After nursing it around for several laps, it's obvious the head gasket is blown.
After 23 hours of rain, mud, penalties and driving partners like me, any ordinary group of racers would throw in the towel. But Quan doesn't budge. There'll be an engine swap. And it goes down as among the quickest in Honda history at one hour even. A testament to organization, teamwork and the kind of resolve that comes only from endurance racing, the Civic is back on the track in 65 minutes.
Somewhere in the midst of the mayhem, I notice the Integra blasting around the track with a shower of sparks coming from under the car. Then there's a flurry of activity in the pits. I run for cover hoping they won't want me to drive again. When the Integra heads for the paddock I can see the damage is lethal. The thing dragging on the ground making all the sparks is the fuel tank. And despite a gallant effort to patch and re-attach the tank, the race is over for Team Honda Research.
At hour 25, everyone is glad to see it end. The Civic, despite my best efforts to keep it from finishing, and a record-setting engine swap, winds up a remarkable 26th overall and ninth in E2. The Integra is worse off at 47th overall and 16th in E2.
A few days after I get home someone asks me if it was fun while laughing under his breath. Two impressions come to mind. The first is of watching two teams work undyingly to keep their cars on the track. Without any reason to prolong the suffering, no one was willing to give up. Watching members of the RNR crew laying in a puddle of coolant under the Civic during the engine swap was amazing. No less impressive was seeing Brian Shanfeld of Team Honda Research working in a waterfall of Exxon's best to stop the fuel leak with a tube of epoxy.
But the other image, the one that's eternally etched into my memory banks, is of the sun coming up over Turn Two on that magically clear morning. I finally found my groove and the track was clean and empty. I was wailing along without a care in the world in a slow car that somehow seemed fast. The sun was warmer than ever and there was a perfectly smooth, perfectly dry ribbon of flowing asphalt through the track's rolling green hills. It was gorgeous. Right then, all the night's mishaps, the mud, the spins, the unnecessary pits stops and mostly the ego-crushing embarrassment all became trivial. And the only thing that mattered was the momentum of the moment. Blazing down the track as fast and as long as I could. I wasn't racing. And I wasn't worried about winning. I was living and loving cars. And it was good.
Driving Concepts
Full-immersion racing schoolYou've all been in the car with an instructor and listened to the ruse about straight braking, late turn-in, unwinding the wheel, conservative lines and all the other clichd crap that tends to come from the frightened guy in the passenger seat. Too often, all he really wants is to get out of the car, go home to his family and have meatloaf for dinner while watching reruns of "Family Ties" on Oxygen. Not very exciting stuff.
If this sounds familiar, you need to get your ass to Driving Concepts. Here's a group of people that understand racing, competitiveness, fun and safety-not necessarily in that order. And if you're in California and plan on racing in any NASA event, you'll need to put them on your calendar.
We attended Driving Concept's club racing school in order to qualify for our provisional NASA racing license and to compete in the 25-hour enduro. And we were amazed. The two-day school puts students immediately in a competitive environment where they are taught green flag starts, driving in traffic, drafting, driving off line, pace car restarts, qualifying and space management. Four track sessions each day are interspersed with classroom sessions led by drivers who actually want to win races. And it's fun. Students are encouraged to be competitive and to push each other safely on the track. Occasionally, the instructors even pop in for a session or two.
Instructors cover racing preparation, driving techniques, race craft and the mental and physical aspects of competition between real-world application on the track. The course culminates in a 10-minute green flag session where students actually race wheel-to-wheel at the end of day two. We came away from the experience with a much higher appreciation for those who can (and can't) race successfully. And we're much safer on the track having done it.