Another van "adventure" on the way to the Glen and strange noises from the van on the way home. Crashes on both days (by other cars, not us!). Stifling heat the first day and a thunderstorm the second day that wiped out the Time Trial. And, before we headed home, a too-short visit with my good friend Steve Smith and his family. It was an eventful trip!
But all this excitement was overshadowed for me by two things: the continuation of my struggles with my confidence, and the rewarding realization that all of our suspension modifications had finally paid off!
This time the van adventure, though potentially a big one, turned out to be easily fixed. Again it happened on the New York State Thruway. This time, the van started vibrating rather strongly. We found a rest area and checked out the tires. All looked well, and we were about to get back in the van when I noticed a suspicious bulge in the sidewall of the right front tire.
It turned out that the belt had separated and was showing through the tread. The tire was very close to blowing. But in a few minutes Nate had the spare installed (all those racing tools we carry around sure can come in handy!) and we were on our way.
We rolled into the track right on time. The place is rich with memories for me. The first race I ever saw was the 1968 US Grand Prix, right here at Watkins Glen. I remember the glorious sounds of the Ford-Cosworth DFV engines in the Lotus 49's as Graham Hill and Mario Andretti screamed by, just the high wings visible over the tops of the guardrails along the esses until suddenly their gold and red and white bodies flashed into view.
I remember the hoarse shriek of John Surtees' Honda V-12, the wonderful raspy howl of the Ferraris, and the excitement I felt when Mario won the pole - in his first F1 race, and first time at the track!
I kept coming back, as the place was modernized and rebuilt into its current configuration in 1971. As we unloaded last week, I was delighted to realize that our Cobra was now ensconced in the very area of the garage where I'd watched, fascinated, as the Lotus and Ferrari team mechanics toiled over the gorgeous Lotus 72's and Ferrari 312B's so many years ago.
The Glen was new to Nate and it had been over 15 years since I'd driven there, but again we had practiced together via the Internet, using the Grand Prix Legends racing simulation. After the event, Nate said that this practice saved him at least three sessions. He didn't have to figure out where the track went; all he had to do was work on stuff like braking points and apexes.
The simulation practice helped me, too, but the Glen is one of the more intimidating tracks I've driven, and on the first day I just couldn't get myself to use the car's cornering potential. By the second session, Nate was taking Turn 2 flat - he was flat all the way from the apex of Turn 1 to the Inner Loop - but I just couldn't get my foot to stay down.
Stronger than my determination was the consciousness that my life's savings are in the Cobra; that if I crashed it, I would never be able to replace it. My racing days would be over.
And I couldn't forget that dark day so many years ago, when I arrived at the track just as those same guardrails along the esses claimed the life of Francois Cevert. I can still see the people running up the hill toward the crash, then turning away. In bad moments, I can still hear the sound of some of them vomiting.
In my last session at the end of the day, I stopped trying to push myself and just concentrated on being smooth and consistent. I really enjoyed this session, but afterwards when I looked at our times, I got very upset. I'd managed to improve to a low 2:29, but Nate had done a 2:23! Gak! I was six seconds off the pace!
After some serious soul-searching, I called my friend Doug Arnao. Although Doug had never experienced a crisis of confidence like this himself, he was able to help me concentrate on the technical aspects of the track, and help me focus on the most important corners, Turns 2 and 11. "Get up to speed in Eleven," he said, "and you'll feel more confident in the others."
I also talked with Nate, and realized that the first spin at Summit Point had come just at a point where I was beginning to push hard. When I start to push a car to a limit, I semi-unconsciously set my hip against the side of the seat. When I did that at Summit, the car let go (because of its street tires and a change in camber in the track). Consequently, I'd been unconsciously avoiding setting my hip - and avoiding laterally loading the car to its limit.
In the morning, I felt focused and more confident. Coming out of the pits the first time, I decided to take Turn 2 flat. My speed was low due to exiting the pits, and I short-shifted to 4th as well, but I figured that way I'd get my foot and my brain accustomed to keeping the throttle down there.
It worked! On subsequent laps I kept my foot down too. My first flying lap was a 2:24, followed by a string of four consecutive 2:23's. Awesome!
Nate promptly went out and did a 2:20, and we traded fast times for the rest of the day. He wound up with a 2:18.80, and I was just a second slower with a 2:19.89. On a track that length, that's not a huge distance - and I felt hugely relieved!
With my confidence restored, I could finally enjoy the wonderful handling of the Cobra. And it was truly wonderful!
Since we began our suspension development last summer, the Cobra had gained prodigious grip, and in smooth, slow corners like those that predominate at Loudon, its handling was excellent. But in fast corners, over bumps, and under braking, the car has always been twitchy and unstable. The spherical bearing mod we'd done before Mosport had failed to cure this problem.
After Mosport, I had gone through the car's suspension and found that some U-shaped alignment shims had fallen out of one of the rear suspension pivots. Since the car had been stable when I tested it on the street, and those shims had been there before we left for Mosport, I figured they must have fallen out on the trip to Mosport, or in Nate's first session on the track.
I replaced these shims with round shims, and added some thinner round shims that allowed me to firmly clamp the rod ends between the chassis tabs, to eliminate all chance of the rod ends moving on their mounting bolts.
I also replaced every rod end in the suspension except those on the rear anti-roll bar. All of the ones I replaced had play: all six rod ends on the rear control arms, and all four on the front anti-roll bar. I also removed the extra toe-in we'd previously put into the rear suspension to compensate for its squirrelly behavior.
I theorized that all those loose rod ends and the missing shims were allowing the rear control arms to move around, allowing toe and camber changes in transients. All the good we'd done by eliminating the urethane bushings was being undone by slop in the other joints.
If I was right, now that everything was tight the car should be a lot more stable.
It was! When I tested it on the street before we left for the Glen, the car felt transformed. It really felt like a different car. No more wiggling and nibbling over every bump or longitudinal crack in the road. It just went where I steered it. Instead of clenching the wheel with both hands (as had been standard practice since the car was new) I just drove around with one hand casually on the wheel, just like I do with my Probe street car.
Its behavior at the track was even better. With the wheels all pointing the way they were supposed to be, the car was rock stable. When he came in after his first track session, Nate said, "This is the first time I've ever driven it that it didn't have something wrong with the handling."
The contrast between its new and its traditional behavior was striking. No matter what you asked it to do, the stock Cobra was always in your face, making you adapt to its little idiosyncrasies and foibles, forcing you to pay too much attention to staying on top of the car and too little what you were trying to make it do on the track.
Finally, after two years of development, the Cobra behaves like a proper race car! It's now fast and stable, neutral and precise, with prodigious stopping power and ferocious grip. All of its vices are gone.
In a way, the car itself has receded from the experience of driving it. It no longer calls attention to itself; it just goes where you point it and does what you tell it. Now the focus is on the driving, not the car. It's a joy to drive at speed or on the street.
The whole second day, I got to experience the joy of hammering the newly wonderful Cobra around this world-class track. It was awesome! As my trust in the car and in myself grew, I edged closer to the limits in corner after corner. In some corners, I started to feel like I was really on the limit.
In others, I always felt I'd left a little on the table. In particular, the intimidating Turn 10 and the fast, downhill Loop/Turn 6 sequence challenged me to find their limit - and I never did. But I relished the feel of the car on the limit through Turns 7, 8, and 9, gently letting me know just how much grip it could give me and docilely responding to my corrections after I asked for a little more than it had.
I loved hammering the throttle before the apex in both Turns 11 and 1, feeling the car hunker down and hurl itself forward down the straights. I loved following the turbo Dodge Omni and pulling back on him in the twisty bits every fraction of the seconds he pulled out on me on the straights. I loved it even more when he waved me by! I even (sort of) enjoyed booming up the hill through the Esses at full throttle.
When Nate was out in the Cobra, I timed some of the other cars in our class. The class record holder was Don Durner, with a phenomenal 2:12.57 in his mighty big-block ERA Cobra. But Don wasn't there this time.
Still, we knew the fastest Corvettes were out of reach, their combination of handling, power, and low drag far beyond the capabilities of our underpowered, draggy Cobra. There were several other Cobras there, however - all of them with far more power than us - and none of them anywhere near as fast. That felt good!
But there were some bad moments, too. Near the end of the first day, as I was watching from the little grandstand inside Turn 11, one of my former students lost control of his 600 hp Mustang and smacked the guardrail at somewhere near 100 mph. The impact was explosive, and the noise was like a cannon shot.
Half in a panic, I dashed across the footbridge to the scene. Fortunately, the driver was fine, though the car was badly smashed. Foam blocks and a tire wall in front of the guardrail had minimized the impact, and the strong Mustang chassis and roll cage had done their job.
On the second day, I drew the second run group for the Time Trial. I completed one timed lap, but got a black flag the second time by the timing station. It turned out that a Corvette had apparently suffered a suspension failure and had gone hard into the barriers outside Turn 1. The car hit so hard that it went up over the barrier and came down on its roof - right on top of the foam and tire wall. The driver was very lucky to walk away.
Shortly after that crash was cleaned up, a thunderstorm came through and wiped out the rest of the timed runs. The Time Trial was called off. But the fastest Corvette, driven by club president Rob Goldfarb, had gone out in the first run group, and his time was posted: a 2:11!
Nine seconds. Nine seconds.