The End of an Exciting Adventure

On Sunday, November 17, my brother Nate decided to bring our partnership with the Cobra to a close.

His decision came as a surprise, although in retrospect there were signs. In the van on the way to Lime Rock, we discussed our possibilities for 2003. I suggested skipping some events in order to save enough money to upgrade the engine. Nate liked the idea, because it would give him more time and money to devote to kart racing with his son Amos.

That evening, over dinner in a Chinese restauraunt in Lakeville, Connecticut, Nate said he'd rather find someone to buy his half of the Cobra, so he could move on to wheel to wheel racing.

I felt sad, but I knew that Nate had been wanting to go in that direction even before we built the Cobra. I'm very fortunate that Nate was willing to participate in the project with me for this long. In 2000, at Lime Rock, before we even started building the Cobra, Nate talked with racers at an EMRA event about what it would take to run a race car in the Improved Touring class - jokingly known as "racing for guys with kids." It was clear that Nate was intrigued, but he decided to go ahead with the Cobra project and defer wheel to wheel racing for a while.

Although we built the Cobra as a street car and intended only occasional track use, once we hit the track, we realized we wanted to get the best we could out of the car. One thing led to another and soon we embarked on a full-fledged brake and suspension development program. Our results in 2001 were very promising, as I finished 3rd in the COMSCC championship in our class and took second in class at Mont Tremblant. For 2002 we decided to run the full COMSCC schedule and go for the championship.

However, over time it became clear that it was beyond our financial resources to run the Cobra in a fully competitive fashion. The costs of running it and developing its suspension were so high that we were never able to make the engine upgrades we originally planned, so we were always at a huge power disadvantage to virtually every other car in our class. Also, we had to make do with compromises like two-piston floating caliper PBR brakes and Kumho tires, when our competition was running superior four- or six-piston Brembo or Wilwood brakes and Hoosier tires.

As Nate's driving improved and he got more competitive, the fact that outright wins remained just out of reach became increasingly frustrating to him.

In 2002, Nate bought a racing kart for Amos and they began racing it as often as they could, essentially every weekend that we didn't have a COMSCC event with the Cobra, and Nate wasn't traveling for his job. Amos learned quickly - winning his first race - and Nate was obviously enjoying this a great deal.

As the year went on, most of the maintenance and development work on the Cobra fell to me. Nate came to all the COMSCC events, and his driving continued to improve, to the point that I could no longer keep up with him. He was very energetic and committed to helping with the work it took to run the Cobra at the track. But between events I began to feel as though I was carrying the team in terms of planning, physical effort, and motivation. It became apparent that Nate's priorities were elsewhere.

When Nate said he wanted out, I immediately realized that I did not want to get another partner in the Cobra project. No one could replace my brother, who has been a terrific partner. He's contributed in so many ways - he did most of the construction of the car, he made valuable observations about its behavior as we developed it, he helped make excellent decisions about where to focus our efforts and our money, he did much of the maintenance and modifications the first year and a half, he acquired and adapted the transport van and trailer, and did most of the driving to the "away" events. Most importantly, I could trust Nate not to abuse or bend the car, of crucial importance since neither of us could afford to fix it.

In my mind, Nate simply can't be replaced. My goal is to find a way to purchase Nate's half of the car, and find ways to keep campaigning it in COMSCC events, although it's likely I will have to restrict my efforts to a partial schedule, and scope for further development of the car will be very limited.

Although my financial situation is currently constrained, at this point things do look encouraging. I hope that I'll be able to post more event reports for me and my experiences in the future!

In the meantime, you can read about how our partnership came to a close on a high note, as Nate took his first class win with a stunning time in COMSCC's season finale at Lime Rock in 20002.