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January 2004a look ahead from our director, a look back at practice day, and two reports covering the National Tour.
Our next activities are the Awards Banquet
on Saturday, January 31, and the first event Duplication allowed in whole or in part, provided full acknowledgment is given. Mike Driscoll, Editor Mark Johnson, Lead Reporter |
ARIZONA REGION – Mark Johnson was taken home from the hospital of his birth in a big Healey, and has been interested in sports cars ever since. He claims to have learned to read from Road & Track magazines and books by Moss, Carlsson, Nuvolari, Clark, & Stewart. His junior high homeroom teacher ran an Alfa Romeo GTV in hill climbs. So, by the time he was in high school, the sports car thing was pretty deeply implanted in Mark's psyche.
His first exposure to autocross was in Ohio, driving a borrowed 1973 911S in a Porsche Club of America event. He placed first in his class, even though the first time he'd driven the car was on the way to the event. The reading was paying off. Later that day, as a passenger in a Porsche 912 on some fun runs, he felt the driver intentionally rotate the car to line up for a better corner exit, just like he'd been reading about. Mark was hooked, and determined to do the same.
So Mark drove the 911S in a few more PCA events during the next season. His first SCCA Solo 2 event was in Cincinnati where, he says, the talent "humbled and enticed" him. Soon after that, he moved to Boston and his own Mustang SVO, competing with several independent clubs and in the New England Region SCCA. But, although he joined the SCCA in 1989 and has been a member ever since, other activities pulled him away from autocross for a number of years.
Truth be told, he had moved to Colorado and become a ski bum during the winters and a cycling junkie in the summers. After finding himself in Oregon once upon an autumn, drained of the ambition needed to bicycle back home (Ohio, again), he bought a small pickup truck and drove there, then continued to stumble back and forth across the country, picking up scattered belongings. Fortunately, employment as an engineer with a semiconductor firm in Oregon and a return to SCCA Solo 2 rescued him.
After a start that he describes as "rocky," Mark became a regular with the Oregon Region SCCA. He stayed to clean up one day and was soon helping run the club. As his volunteer involvement grew, he began traveling to SCCA Divisionals, Tours, and Pro Solos. He attended his first Nationals in 1998.
Mark moved to Phoenix in 2001, fully experienced in autocross competition and club support. He recently joined the Pylon Press as lead reporter. He also maintains his long-standing Solo Safety Steward certification, and has expressed his steadfast support of new club members by, for example, serving as our Novice Liaison. His was the idea for the article that Kevin Venisnik prepared for this issue.
Professionally, Mark is an Applications Engineer for SUMCO, a manufacturer of silicon wafers for the computer, electronics, and automotive industries.
ARIZONA REGION – Hello, I'm Tage Evanson, the new Director of the Arizona Region. If you've attended any of our events in the past year or two then you'll recognize me, since I've been conducting the drivers' meetings that help get those events started.
Mark Shaw was the club's Director for 2002 and 2003. He'll officially complete his directorship duties at the upcoming Awards Banquet. I'm taking his place as Director for 2004 and, probably, 2005. Most of Mark's work was done behind the scenes, so you'll just have to trust me when I say that his will be a tough act to follow.
The Arizona Region runs extremely well, which is a direct result of over two decades of fine tuning by a host of talented folks. So, you might ask, what are my goals as Director? What do I want to change? What do I want to keep the same? The format of our regular competition events will not change, since what we have now is very good. But I do like to tinker, so expect some changes to standalone events like practice days and drivers' schools. I promise that any changes tried will have the goal of increasing efficiency, flexibility, seat time, or all of those.
Our club is financially sound and has a large core of dedicated volunteers. So expect more of the good things that money and work can provide – cleaner surfaces for our courses, nicer trophies, equipment upgrades & additions, and two great award banquets each year – all with no increase in event fees.
I believe that no matter how good something is, there is always room for improvement, and things improve most readily when communication is good. The main page of our web site will continue to carry shorter term announcements, and its Forum will continue to provide active discussion of current matters. This column will appear in the Pylon Press whenever it is needed to provide a look further down the road.
Please note that the site's Officials page was recently upgraded to identify the members of our Steering Committee photographically, as well as by name, club responsibility, and e-mail address. So now it's easier than ever to contact a Steering Committee member and pass on your suggestions for ways to improve our club and its events. Perfection isn't possible, of course, but striving for it produces excellence.
17 January 2004, ARIZONA MOTORSPORTS PARK –
While much of the country was in a deep freeze, the Arizona Region SCCA was hosting a test and tune day at Arizona Motorsports Park. The chill even made it to Phoenix, as the 80 drivers who showed up for the early morning roll call were decked out in coats, gloves and hats to fend off the brisk 47° F morning. This was a practice day, not only for the drivers but also for the organizers, who rolled out a new event format. All were eager to get started.
The fastest times were in the high 30’s and low 40’s. Some speculate that the course may have evolved over the day, possibly the result of continuous running and on-the-fly worker change outs resulting in misplaced pointer cones. In the end, it really didn’t matter much; everyone got lots of seat time.
23-25 January 2004, FIREBIRD INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY –
Even though I have competed locally for a few years now, this was my first “big” event. It was a lot like a local event, only more intense. The amount of preparation required is increased, because you have to have numbers and class letters for your car (I made mine, rather than buying some, out of magnetic sheet material from a sign shop). And, of course, you want to make sure your car is 100% ready. I even bought new windshield wipers in case of rain – a good move, it turns out. You are also required to have five SCCA decals (two on each side of your car and one on the front) and a TireRack windshield decal. All are available at the event and are all free except for one SCCA decal that costs $3.00.
I mounted the decals for the sides of the car onto magnetic sheets, using a trick that Brian Peters taught me. Just spray both the sticky side of the decal and one side of the magnetic sheet with Windex, apply the decal to the sheet, and then squeegee out the windex with a credit card. The decal doesn’t stick until the windex is squeezed out, so you can slide it around till it’s in the perfect postion! The decals for the front of the car had to go directly onto the paint since the hood on my car is aluminum. Another trick here: put down a fresh layer of wax before applying the decals, and they'll peel off easily.
One other thing you needed is a current Solo 2 rule book, from 2004 in this case. Rule books are always available for purchase at the event site, as well as from one's local region. Rumor has it that some people just borrow a copy from someone else, since you only need have a copy in hand when you register. The purpose of this requirement is the implied acknowledgment of SCCA rules, I think.
Like the event's intensity, the level of competition is greatly increased. My class – E Stock – ran in the first heat both days. It had rained Friday night, so the course was wet for Saturday morning's heat.
The person who won my class (Paul Brown) rolled up to grid on Saturday with Hoosier A3 S04’s mounted, then before the first runs he switched to Hoosier Dirt Stockers (the preferred tire for standing water conditions).
He also had a co-driver, a.k.a. a tire warmer, so in dry conditions he would have warmer and theoretically stickier tires when he ran. That is the kind of preparation the big dogs make for these national level events.
The other competitors in my class all had S303 Hoosiers, which aren’t supposed to be as good in wet conditions as my barely scrubbed-in Victoracers. So, feeling confident that I had an advantage over them, I went out and spun on my first run. I managed to make a pretty decent second run and my competitors were having similar troubles with the wet conditions, so after the first two runs I was in third place and only about 0.8 of a second off the class leader's time! But the course was drying off, so he switched back to his S04’s and promptly cut 2 seconds off his time. My other competitors were also improving their times, so at the end of the first day I was fourth out of five, even though I managed to drop another tenth of a second on my last run.
Sunday started out dry, but turned out to be even wetter than Saturday when it counted, as rain started shortly before my run group. The class leader didn’t pull out the Dirt Stockers this time though. I’m not sure if this was because he was pleased with the performance of the S04’s in the wet on Saturday or if he felt he had enough of a lead that he didn’t need to use up the Dirt Stockers.
I think it was a combination of the two, plus he probably wanted to see how well the S04’s did in really wet conditions. Well, I think the fact that it was so much wetter did help me, because I ended up with the second best time in my class on Sunday, even though I got a cone on my third and quickest run.
But I didn’t do well enough to move up a place in the final results, which were determined by adding Saturday and Sunday times together.
Paul Brown ended up winning ES by almost 5 seconds and I ended up fourth out of five, managing to meet one of my goals: not finishing DFL.
Each day, after you finish running you are required to stay in grid to allow your competitors to view your car and file a protest if they feel anything is illegal about it. Luckily no one protested my chrome skull shift knob! Although there are anecdotal stories of protests over such minor things as that, it doesn’t happen often. Despite the increased level of competition, there is still the same sort of camaraderie among competitors that you experience at local events. After our runs, my competitors and I looked over each others cars and talked about the same sort of things people talk about at local events: cars.
I was especially impressed with how encouraging fellow locals were during my first big event. There were even people trying to talk me into going to the San Diego tour, which I’m very strongly leaning towards doing, as I hear it’s a really fun time and my girlfriend indicates she would be interested in coming along. Now if I can only get her to try actually driving in an event!
Shortly after the venue change was announced, lines of communication within the Solo 2 community around the country lit up with the news. Amazingly, nearly everyone got the word within just hours. As regisrants made alternative arrangements, event chair Tage Evanson and the event's local specialty chiefs scrambled to pull everything together. New course layouts, new brochures, new food vendor, new paddock and grid plans, all brought forth on very short notice.
Despite all this local effort, enthusiasm, and eminence, the event won’t be remembered as the best Tour ever. It had short bumpy courses, rain on both days, and was perpetually short on workers because of last minute cancellations. There were long lines in the Practice Day grid and for Registration. The Sunday course walks happened after sunset and before sunrise.
The first car out on Sunday was at 7:30 AM – an early start for any autocross. It tested everyone’s resolve. What made this Tour special was that it happened at all.
The Saturday course featured a small crossover loop with wide-open gates, big radius turns and not too many transitional elements. It used the whole FIR skid pad because Grid Chief Dave McCombs had set up shop in the lot across the street. It rained overnight and into the morning. FIR doesn’t drain well, so the course was wet for the first heat. It developed a dry line late in the second heat and continued to get faster all day long. Grid, on the other hand, stayed wet all day. Especially frustrating was fording the small pond on the return lane back to grid, effectively removing any heat from one's tires.
Sunday morning broke with a rainbow off to the west. Just as the first car left the line at 7:30 am, it started to rain again. Big puddles formed on course and in the grid. It got to the point that cones would float out of their boxes simply from cars driving by (and they counted too!). The finish was especially spectacular as cars threw water several feet in the air, reminiscent of a Pro Rally stream crossing. The spray and waves were tripping the timing lights, creating headaches for the Timing crew. At least one STS driver had to take a rerun in order to back up an incredibly fast time thought to be caused by a false trip. It got so bad that a 5 mph No Wake Zone was established on the return lane and No Fishing signs were contemplated for grid. Course workers were advised to not eat for at least an hour before their shift, to avoid cramps.
The 2004 Phoenix National Tour will most likely be remembered, in Friends style, as "The one where everyone dealt with change gracefully." It demanded a lot from people but rewarded them with stories to tell for years to come.
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(Posted and reposted 30 January 2004.) |