It's not the bitter cold, the soaking wet or the unmuffled rage of 73 racecars passing by at full throttle that wakes me up. Instead, I'm roused from slumber by the cold, hard, diamond-checked aluminum that's forever embossed into my face.
Sleeping nose-down in a car transporter in 40-degree weather inevitably results in this kind of thing. The cold aluminum and corresponding dents in my brow serve as a not-so-subtle reminder of how unforgiving endurance road racing can be. And the permanent marks are my punishment for accepting this task. Besides, it's my turn to drive, so it's a good thing I'm awake.
I find myself in this situation thanks to old friend Roger Foo, who has insisted for years that I do some road racing. And, in typical rally driver style, I've resisted.
"I'm not cut out for that stuff," I'd say, insisting that the hairsplitting precision necessary to make a car go quickly around a road course wasn't in my bag of tricks. But when Foo called and invited me to compete in NASA's 25-hour enduro, the longest race of its kind in North America, I felt differently for several reasons.
Despite never having seen the 15-turn, 3.0-mile long Thunderhill Park in Willows, Calif., I knew endurance racing requires more strategy than sprint racing. And a big part of that strategy is finding a pace that the drivers and the car can handle for the duration of the event and sticking to it. Second, I knew I would be sharing the car with at least four other drivers, which would help take the spotlight off me.
So I accept to drive with Foo, Mike Divarro, Derek Ramsey, Tom Lepper and Mike Quan in Quan's 1993 Honda Civic sedan. This D16-powered car usually races in NASA's H4 category-the slowest of four NASA classes that are specific to the Honda/Acura brands. However, for the enduro, classes are lumped together for safety and to simplify the scoring. So we're racing in E2 against first-generation RX-7s, Miatas and other Hondas. Other Hondas, including the Acura Integra LS campaigned by Team Honda Research, a group of engineers at Honda's Marysville, Ohio-based R&D facility.
Foo arranged to share pit space and resources with them in exchange for a little seat time. So, despite my best efforts to avoid it, I'm driving two cars.
Oh, yes, I almost forgot. On the eve of the race, the clouds begin brewing into an ugly mess that eventually leads to a race day fraught with rain, wind and the occasional spike of sunshine. But, for the most part, it's ugly, wet and cold. Perfect racing weather if you're a novice. Suuuure.
That same evening, Lepper qualifies our Civic eighth in class, which puts it 31st on the 73-strong grid. Impressive, considering this car makes only 130 wheel hp. Foo puts the Team Honda Research Acura six spots in front of the Civic. This means both cars are capable of finishing well, if not winning the class. But 25 hours is a long time, isn't it?
In a prelude of the mayhem to come, two Air Force F-15s fly over in a deafening, jet-washed roar and completely drown out the national anthem, and then, as anticlim actically as any race start has ever been, things get underway. Incredibly, 73 cars make it through the first turn without incident, and complete a whole lap in the rain without so much as a rub.
Our weather wager doesn't pay off, however. The few minutes of dry before the race fooled us into thinking there might be some advantage to starting on shaved tires. The gamble backfires and the car is in the pits at the end of Lap One. Full tread-depth tires go on all around and Foo is back out quickly making up time.
But things get worse. The rain comes in sheets and there's standing water on the front straight. Foo masterfully moves the Civic up from last in class at the start to middle of the class by the end of his three-hour stint. Driving time varied from one hour to three hours depending on conditions and fuel economy. Foo's first session, the longest of the entire race, lasts about three hours as it's run mostly in standing water on a crowded track.
Lepper is up next and with years of road racing experience under his belt, his contribution to the Civic's march back to contention is equally amazing. By the time the third stint, my stint, rolls around, I'm nervous as hell. The rain has been coming and going for hours, darkness is falling and I'm about to be on a very busy race track with some 70 other crazies. In the rain.
Remarkably, I jump in the car just as a flood of sunshine finds its way through the clouds and it looks for a few minutes like conditions might improve. The first few laps actually go fairly well. Problem is, I'm a rally guy. And regardless of the car, or the surface, or the conditions, or the common sense telling me not to, I always think I can control a sliding car. Going in just a little harder is OK because I can always catch it, right?
On my seventh or eighth lap in the wet, I find out just how wrong I am. And it happens in the worst place. Turn Nine at Thunderhill is an uphill, blind crest that culminates in a 90-degree left. Nobody spins here. It's virtually impossible. You've got to be an idiot.
Exactly. Somehow, I manage not only to spin, but also to get the car off the road inside the corner on an incline covered with wet grass. Wet grass, as you probably know, has a friction coefficient somewhere between KY Jelly and greased dog snot. Combine that with nearly slick tires and there's little chance of getting the Civic back on the track under its own power.
But I manage.
Years of digging rally cars out of snow and mud has made me intimate with the operation, and the one rule governing it is simple: If it can move, it can get out. I struggle back and forth and eventually the stubborn little Honda finds grip and then momentum and worms its way back to the tarmac.
I find out later that what seemed like an eternity sitting on Turn Nine was actually about four minutes-or slightly less than two laps. In other words, I gave up the margin Foo and Lepper gained before I started driving. I hang my head in shame, finish the session at a snail's pace and turn the car over to Quan. For the next few hours, I restrict myself to a strict diet of cherry Twizzlers and self-loathing while the reality that, in the rain, I drive like a chop sinks in.
The prospect of jumping in the Team Honda Research Acura is met with resignation. "Do I have to?" Yes, there aren't enough drivers to skip a stint. I feel slightly better about the Integra knowing how much more comfortable I was there than in the Civic during the warm-up sessions yesterday. The Acura has a slightly more forgiving chassis and better power delivery than the Civic. And the controls fit me better, which is invaluable given the length of each session.
So at around 1 a.m. I find myself strapped into a wet MOMO driver's seat for round two of the 25 Hours of Deluge. The rain isn't pouring anymore, but it refuses to quit. Periodic showers have been worsening conditions since my last stint and the track is an absolute disaster. So many cars have been off at Turns Three and Four that there isn't even one clean line. In fact, entering the blind crest into Turn Three is a choice between two evils. Go slow enough over the crest to precisely place your tires in the two clean tracks worn into sludge on the muddy tarmac or go slightly faster and land wherever physics take you, which just might be the slurry at track's edge.
I choose neither and go immediately into the slurry. The rallyist in me keeps my throttle foot pinned to the floor as the car slides through the grime. This technique means lots of speed when I finally hit tarmac again in the transition between Three and Four. Now, naturally, all four tires are covered with inches of sloppy goo and any input from the cockpit is merely a suggestion. The Integra splits the difference when it finally heads back to the track and in one smooth arc, it rotates 180 degrees and slides straight off the outside of Turn Four. With my foot still on the floor, the front tires eventually begin to affect the Acura's trajectory. It finds real grip back on the track going into Turn Five. And when it does, the chassis explodes in a crescendo of gravel spray that sounds like I'm filling a dump truck with ball bearings.
And it shakes. A lot. There's no way, I think, that wheels full of mud could possibly make a car behave this poorly. I wrestle with the steering wheel for the rest of the lap while I apologize on the radio for braking the car. Two pit stops later I'm back out with new left-side wheels and tires. About halfway through the stint, the Integra's 135-wheel hp starts to feel more like 120. And it won't rev above 6200 rpm. Great. Now I've done it all. Driven off the road (thrice), given up good track position (twice) and blown up the engine.
Yesterday in qualifying a lock nut on one of the Integra's valve adjusters had come off,fallen into the head and stuck there without causing any damage. This makes the B18B a 15-valve engine. But it still runs. Remarkably well, in fact. A quick description of the problem over the radio leads to this diagnosis and it's decided I should stay out. In the rain, the car is just as fast as it was with 16 valves so this doesn't really matter. Remarkably, I choke my way through the remaining laps without driving off the road again.
When I return to the pits, Quan's Civic is working its way back through the field and has passed the Integra in class standings-thanks in part to my forays into the slop and the accompanying pit stops. Much of the rest of the evening is a blur of sleep-deprived shivering, miserable cold and way more rainfall than your average Southern Californian is accustomed to.
At this point I've pretty much given up on surviving this affair with my dignity intact. Remember, this is what I do for a living. It's not like I can wake up tomorrow, go to work and forget about cars. Nope, there they are, waiting to be driven, waiting to be tested. I'm supposed to be good at this. So it doesn't help when Quan tells me he's nervous about sending me out again in the dark. Not that I can blame him.
But he does it anyway. Just before sunrise, he pulls the trigger and I'm back in the Civic. Through some miracle of good driving (not mine) and attrition, we're now second in class and 10th overall. That's 10th overall in a race filled with 911 Porsches, 3 Series BMWs and enough sports racers to complete a field at the SCCA nationals. So now, the pressure is really on.
I vow to keep it on the track and to leave here with my ego intact. It actually works, too. Within minutes I'm making peace with the Civic and for the first time in 36 hours, the weather is improving. Gone are the two-track lanes through the ugliest turns replaced by wide swaths of tarmac clean enough to actually get grip. I don't make mistakes and as the sun comes up my lap times creep down to within a few seconds of Foo's. I make clean passes and the car feels good. This is why people road race. I had always wondered until now.