Open Throttle Race 2
ChampCar “Race Under The Stars”
Sebring International Raceway
June 26-28
Friday-practice
We arrived in Sebring around 2:30, plenty of time to check into the hotel, since we didn't need to be to the track until 3:30. We pulled up to the Open Throttle paddock area and found one of my co-drivers, Wyatt Wood already waiting. After a quick greeting with him,we walked over to meet the crew. Since this was Wyatt’s first time racing with OTR, I made sure to introduce him to the team owner, Mike Gorman, and the rest of the crew. After introductions, it was time to get fitted in our car for the weekend, a 1999 Porsche Boxster named “Redbox”. My first impression was that the interior was a little cramped, but it should work. The two most important things in a racecar, for me, are how easy it is to reach the gear shift, and how far I have to stretch my legs to use the pedals. The shifter in this car was set up great, easy to reach and shifted quite smoothly. I also thought the pedals were in a good position for easy use…. That would turn out to NOT be the case once I was on track. While I was busy getting acquainted with the car, Melanie realized that a fairly famous person was one of the drivers of our sister car, “Bruno.” I would be sharing a paddock area and pit stall with one Mr. Ross Bentley for the weekend….. This guy LITERALLY wrote the book on modern racing techniques, and I would be driving for the same team as him….. WOW! After freaking out for a few seconds, I composed myself, and we headed to the practice day drivers' meeting. Afterwards, it was time to get suited up and hit the track for our 6–10 pm practice session. Since I was the only experienced member of our team there for practice, we decided it would be best if I went out first. My first several laps were pretty uneventful, other than coming to the realization that the pedal spacing and orientation to the seat made it very difficult for me to heel-toe downshift efficiently. Other than that, the car was pretty fun to drive, and I got comfortable quickly. After about 8 laps, a black flag came out, so I took that opportunity to return to the paddock so Wyatt could get some laps before it got dark. I did another 8-10 lap session later on after it got dark, and still struggled with the downshifts, but improved somewhat. Wyatt then drove the car until practice ended a little after 10. Then we went into town to get supper and dessert at Culver’s…. Unfortunately, their ice cream machine was “down”, so no frozen custard for us. We retired to the hotel, and relaxed for a bit before going to bed and resting up for the race.
Saturday/Sunday-The race
Since this race was going to be 12 hours long, from 6pm Saturday to 6am Sunday, our goal was to sleep in Saturday morning…. Which we accomplished, not waking up until after 10. We decided that breakfast would most likely be the only good meal I would get for the next 24 hours. So we went to The Sebring Diner to load up on protein and carbs. I had 2 scrambled eggs with cheese, a grilled pork chop, grits, a fruit cup, and a large chocolate milk. Much more than I normally eat for breakfast, but I wanted to make sure I was filled up. After that, we returned to the hotel, and relaxed as much as possible; I may have even taken a short nap, lol. We went over to the track around 3, and I started experimenting with ways to cope with the strange pedal placement in this particular car. The only plan I came up with was to be very conscious of where I was positioning my right foot, so I could work both pedals at the same time. After that, I needed to get my helmet checked in, as well as check myself in with registration. While waiting in line, the third member of our team, Abby Lockwood, arrived. Once we returned to the paddock area, the last member of our team, John Allen, finally made it. I was quite obviously going to be the slowest driver in the car. If I could stay within a second and a half or so of the others, I felt that would be good enough. During the drivers' meeting we decided that I would get to start the car, with Wyatt second, John 3rd, and Abby getting the fourth stint. I was pretty excited to be taking the green flag, and also a little nervous as well. With close to 80 cars on the grid, the first few laps were bound to be busy! Finally, it was time to climb in the car and get strapped in, everything was going to plan. I was belted in, the window net was up, the Chillout driver cooling system was working very well, and the comms seemed to be coming in clear. Then, about 2 minutes before rolling off grid to start the pace laps, everything stopped. At first I thought the car had died, but no, it was still running. I tried cycling the master electrical cutoff, still nothing. I finally got some of the crew's attention by waving my left hand out the window and revving the engine. They immediately jumped into action, checking what connections they could see, as well as any fuses. Everything in the cockpit seemed fine. They opened the hood, and at first didn’t see anything, then found the source of the problem. But at that point, we didn’t have time to fix it. I was sent out for my first stint with no rearview camera, no driver cooling system, and most importantly, no way to communicate with the crew. This meant I would have no advance warning for when the green flag was about to drop. I would have to be on my toes!
I knew the green would be flying before I got to turn 17, since we were starting around the 60th position. (ChampCar uses a random draw to determine starting order, bad luck for us this time.) As we neared the new pedestrian bridge, I readied myself to take off at the first sign from another car that it was now green. All at once, a couple cars from behind me took off, so I went too. To say there was a lot of traffic was an understatement. There were cars EVERYWHERE! It was easily one of the most hectic laps I’ve ever driven in the ten years I’ve been racing, but I kept cool and had no issues…. Until getting to the back straight again. I got a good run on the car in front of me, who was driving mid track for some reason. Even with the good run I had out of the corner, the car I was driving didn’t have a whole lot of horsepower, so it was past half way down the straight before I caught them. Right as I got to their bumper, in the outside lane, a Corvette ran us both down in the inside lane. The driver I was passing must not have seen the vette coming, because suddenly, they started veering to the left. At this point, there was no backing out for me, and I was NOT going to put my left side tires off the track into the soft sand while going over 100mph. So I held my line. Just as I thought I was cleanly through…. “Tink”, we hit. Luckily it was a very light bump. The only damage being a couple scuffs to the body, and my passenger mirror was now bent back and pointing into the cabin…. With the glass dangling from the adjuster cable, and tapping against the inside of the door. It was rather annoying. I passed several more cars in my class, while running “ok” laps, then after lap 8, I noticed a green pit sign in the fence trackside as I went by start finish. My brain immediately surmised that it was possibly intended for me. Since I had no communication with the team, and OTR is known for their green cars, I made sure to locate the sign as soon as I exited turn 17 on the next lap. I stared it down as I accelerated down the straight, and once the crew saw it was me, they started waving the sign. “Yep, that’s for me! Guess they want me to come in.” Is what I thought as I waved in recognition that I got the message. I brought the car down pit lane the next time around, and pulled into the pits to see what they wanted. Turns out, the electrical problem that killed the comms also cut power to the car’s transponder. This is crucial to determining what your actual position is in the race. So they NEEDED to get the problem figured out, so we would be scored during the rest of the 12 hours. While I was driving, I wasn’t really aware of how hot it was in the car. But while sitting there in the car with no air movement, I started to bake. At first, I was able to block it out. But the hotter I got, the more claustrophobic I became, to the point where I HAD to get out of the car. I hate that it happened, but it did. Luckily, our next driver, Wyatt was standing right there already suited up. By the time the electrical problem was fixed, he was strapped in and ready to go.
With three other drivers to go before my next stint, I now had A TON of spare time on my hands. I spent the first couple of hours relaxing and staying cool in the suite overlooking our pits that we had access to, thanks to our sister car being sponsored and driven by BF Goodrich employees. Let me tell you, it was very nice to be able to sit in a comfortable chair, away from the noise, and in some amazing air conditioning. I was able to relax for a couple of hours before returning to the pits. As the night wore on, we kept picking up positions. The officials had credited us for the laps I drove in the first stint that went unscored. So we were only 2 laps down when Wyatt got into the car. By the time our 4th driver, Abby, got in the car, John Allen and Wyatt had us up to 5th in class, and things were looking good. With her taking the wheel, I knew I would be up again somewhere between an hour and a half and two hours. So it was time to get back in a good headspace while making sure my body was properly fueled.
Right before 1am, Zach Barfield gave me the 15 minute warning to start getting ready. I ended up starting my stint around 1:10, and right from the start, it was frustrating. The normal headlights on that car are not very bright, so the team had affixed an LED lightbar to the center of the hood, to help with our vision on this dark track. The light bar decided to not work when I got in. I tried cycling the master, the ignition, the normal lights, and the switch for the light bar. Nothing would make it turn on. “Oh well, I’ve driven here in the dark twice before. It should be ok.” Was my thought as I headed back on track. Well, that wasn’t entirely accurate. As I discovered, while heading into a big braking zone with a tight corner at the end, the windshield had become covered by “something” . I don’t know what, exactly. It could have been fuel from an overflow that was pushed onto the windshield as we drove, or fluid leaking from a car that we were following at some point, it really doesn’t matter. All that matters was that I couldn’t see anything at certain points of the track. I did my best, and slowed my pace for the corners where vision was the worst, and did ok. Unbeknownst to me, I was doing better than ok. During my 1hr and 20 minute stint, I got us up to second in class, and third overall. Unfortunately, all I had to go on in the car was the laptimer, and it wasn’t being very kind. During my first stint, which officially had no lap times, I had managed a 1:50 lap. The fastest I had run in that car all weekend. I also had a couple of 1:51 laps, so my goal for that second stint was to get under one minute fifty seconds for a fast lap. The lowest time I saw was a 1:52, I couldn’t push it anymore with the vision problems I was having in a couple of the turns. To make matters worse, two laps before pitting, I caught a car on the back straight that was in the process of blowing its engine. Of course, being extremely dark, I had no way of knowing this until I got close to him going into turn 17. Suddenly, my already hard to see through windshield was coated with engine oil coming from this car’s exhaust. Not only that, but as I was following in their tracks, my tires were also coated, causing a loss of grip. NOT a good mix. I was able to get around the car on the front straight, but found it nearly impossible to see through the window for turn 1. I nearly ran off the track at exit. I had the same problem in a couple of other turns, along with completely blowing turn 15. I felt lucky it was dark so no officials saw my massive track limits violation! Then I got back to turn 17, and absolutely could not see where I needed to be, resulting in driving through the oil from the previous lap. I came extremely close to hitting the outside wall about halfway through the turn. Once I got myself all straightened out, I radioed to the pits that they needed to get my relief driver ready,asap. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep from wrecking the car. They replied that John was ready to go, and to pit next time by. I don’t think I’ve ever been so relieved in a racecar as I was when I heard those words! As I made my way to pit road, I radioed in to make sure the crew cleaned the windshield, since it was already nearly impossible to see through, and would only get worse. I was extremely angry and disappointed with myself for how I drove that stint. I felt it was completely below the level I’m capable of. After seeing me pouting, Zach came over and explained to me that I had, in fact, done exactly what we needed in that stint. And had gotten us up to second place in class, as well. He’s extremely good at managing people’s emotions, and said the exact right things in the exact right way. So I calmed down almost immediately after talking to him.
Since I was most likely done driving, I went into full on relax mode, changing into a t-shirt and sneakers, and snacking on all sorts of things I shouldn’t. But hey, it was 3am and I was at a race track! While observing the lap times John Allen was putting down during his stint, it became quite obvious that he IS NOT HUMAN! First he ran a 2:37.66 about 8 laps into his stint, then about ten laps after that, he had a string of 5 laps under 2:39, with an even faster 2:37.60. Then around 10 laps before the end of his stint, he did a 2:36.9, and a couple laps after that another 2:37. To put that into perspective, the great Ross Bentley was consistently in the high 38’s and 39’s, until running a “hero” lap two laps from the end of 37.0. John’s fast laps helped us solidify our 2nd-in-class and 3rd-overall positions by a good margin before Wyatt got in the car for the final two hours. Right before John came down pit road, I told Wyatt, “Just keep it on the track, and have FUN!”. And he did… for a while. On his third lap, Wyatt got us into 1st in class and 2nd overall. With 1 hour and 45 minutes to go, and both the second and third place cars still needed to pit! To say things looked bright was a severe understatement! Then we had a full course yellow for two laps. Exactly what the other two cars needed, and what we didn’t want. They still had a ways to go to actually catch and then get past us on the track with only 90 minutes left, so we were still pretty confident. Then 3 laps after going back green, the scoring showed a lap of 3:03. Which was concerning given that most of Wyatt’s laps were in the mid 45’s, but maybe he had hit some bad traffic. It’s pretty common after a caution for cars to get bunched up… Then the next lap was even slower. He radioed in that the car was losing power at high RPMs, almost like it was running out of fuel, but it couldn’t be. The team got busy researching what the possible causes were, and Wyatt continued to bleed time. He went over the 4 minute mark on the ensuing lap. Finally, team owner Mike Gorman came up with the most likely cause and a possible fix, so they brought the car in. It would mean losing a spot or two on track, but if we kept the car out any longer, there was a good chance it wouldn’t make the end of the race. After a very well executed emergency stop to disconnect a sensor, Wyatt went back on track in 3rd place in class, and 5th overall. Not all was lost, the top 5 in our class were all on the same lap, and with an hour to go, a lot could still happen. Unfortunately, not much good luck remained for us in that final hour. We dropped to 4th in class and 6th overall a couple of laps after our repair. The car didn’t seem to have the pace it did before, and we couldn’t keep up with the cars in front of us. Then even more bad luck. The car started handling in a strange manner, so they brought it in again to inspect the rear axle. While doing that, it was discovered that the left rear tire was completely off the rim! The team quickly grabbed one of our rain tires and got the car back out again, but the damage was done. We came in 4th in class, and when the scoring caught up after the stop, we were down to 7th. With only 30 minutes remaining, there was no longer any hope for a podium finish. The best we could do at that point was 5th in class, and that would take someone having an unplanned stop to get there.
I decided to get a jump on packing all my gear up, and made a couple of trips to the paddock area to get it all stowed in our rental car. Upon returning to the pit area, I ran into Zach partway back. He needed me to get suited up as quick as possible, because Wyatt needed a relief driver. This can happen in endurance racing. Which is why the next driver up usually gets ready to go when the driver in front of them is in the car. I figured with only a half hour left in the race, it was safe to pack up. I quickly retrieved everything from the car, even putting some of my gear on as I hurried back to the pits. As soon as I got there, Zach called Wyatt in, and it was go time once more. This time I knew there were 5 laps left at most, so I decided to go out there and drive angry and have fun. Turns out, there were EXACTLY 5 laps left for me to run. The first three were among my five fastest laps of the weekend, including the two fastest! Before leaving the track to take a nap at the hotel, I chatted briefly with Mr.Bentley and hung out with the crew for a bit. It’s going to be a long wait for my next Open Throttle race, on New Year’s Eve, at COTA. Maybe I can talk the CFO into letting me have a bonus race before then… Probably not, lol.
Next up for Fast Farmer Autosport, we are back racing Thunder Grinch with NASA Great Lakes. We will make a return trip to Gingerman Raceway, July 31 - August 2. Let’s see how much I learned in June!
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