Winning!
Photo by Roger Schleicher
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The end of last season was bittersweet. Nate won the COMSCC time trial at Lime Rock - our first win in the car since I won the NERC autocross in August 2000. But the same weekend, Nate decided to move on. He wanted to race different types of cars, in wheel-to-wheel type racing.
Then over the winter I encountered financial and health issues. When I bought out Nate's share in the Cobra in December, I didn't know if I'd ever compete in it again.
I had to skip the first COM event this year, at Summit Point, but managed to make it to the first "home" event at Loudon at the end of May. I was delighted to find that the Cobra was as strong as ever, and felt wonderful to drive. Rain on the second day presented me with a difficult tire choice, and I was fortunate to finally make the right decision.
And then, after all the uncertainty ... victory! Such a joy!
Unlike previous seasons, I wasn't able to make many changes to the Cobra over the winter. However, I bought a new 15" Kirkey Intermediate Road Race seat, and Nate came down and helped me install it. He also crawled around under the car and did the nut and bolt check for me.
Nate was planning to drive the Cobra, but at Summit Point he hooked up with John Spain, and they decided to build a Spec Miata. They worked fast! The Miata arrived at Loudon for the COM event Saturday morning, fresh from the junkyard via the roll cage installer and Nate's garage, and ran flawlessly all weekend.
I had been looking forward to the event with some apprehension, concerned about the impact of the exertion on my health and also how I'd feel doing an event alone.
But everything worked out great! I shared a garage with Nate and John and their newly minted Spec Miata. John, Nate, Gary Cheney, and several other people helped me with the heavy stuff like loading/unloading, swapping tires, etc. John even stopped by my house a few days before the event and helped me put the race tires on the Cobra and load the street tires and Cobra on the trailer.
The weekend went great, despite rain on Sunday. We had dry weather on Saturday and I had a great time. All the online sim racing that I'd been doing this winter apparently paid off, because I felt immediately at home in the car, and found myself doing much the same things in the cockpit that I do when racing the sims. I've been tweaking my setups for the last few months to make the simulated cars handle more like the real-world Cobra, and I think that makes the simulator seat time even more relevant.
All the winter practice plus the new Kirkey seat made driving the Cobra at Loudon feel very comfortable and natural right away. I really got into a flow in the last session, which felt fantastic. I managed a 1.20.00, which was within 8 tenths of my personal best. I was over two seconds faster than the fastest time produced by any of the FFR Spec Racers (although we didn't have times for all of them).
The Kirkey seat turned out to be a really good choice because it made the car much easier to drive than before. Last year I'd driven Gary's FFR Spec Racer, which had a Kirkey seat. (The Spec Racer is very similar to my car with the same engine, frame, body. The main differences are a roll cage, a live rear axle, no anti-roll bars, and somewhat different spring and shock settings.)
I'd been struck by how much easier Gary's car was to drive than mine, and now I understand why. The Kirkey seat holds you so much more firmly, and gives you good support along your ribcage, so you don't need to clench the wheel and brace yourself in the seat to keep from sliding to the side. This gives you much better feel and precision handling the steering wheel, and also reduces the physical effort required. (A thousand thanks to Ken at IOPort Racing for getting the Kirkey to me in time!)
Saturday was hectic because in between my own practice sessions, I served as instructor for an FFR Spec Racer owner, Mark Dougherty, and gave rides in my car to both Mark and John Spain. I also rode with another FFR Cobra owner, Mark Webber (the FFR marketing man who helped me when I was first looking into buying an FFR kit!) and tried to give him some guidance on getting more comfortable with his new car on the race track. All three seemed delighted with my contributions.
Sunday was tough because I couldn't decide between my ancient street Yokohama AVS Intermediates (which used to be reasonably good in the rain) and my soft-compound Kumhos, which still had a fair amount of tread on them.
Two years ago at Mont Tremblant, when the Yokohamas were fairly new, they proved to be better in the rain than the nearly-bald Kumhos I had at the time. The Kumhos stuck better where the water layer had been vacuumed up by the other cars' tires, but anywhere there was any standing water at all - even just off the "damp" line - the Kumhos aquaplaned. The Yokohamas had less grip generally but didn't aquaplane.
The Kumhos I had now were better than the ones I'd used then, but they had at least one event on them, last November at Lime Rock, and some had also done time at Loudon in October. They all still had visible tread at least on the inner half.
I ran the Kumhos in the first session, but it wasn't really representative of the way the forecast said the track would be later in the day. It had rained overnight, and there was standing water in turn 11, but most of the rest of the track was dry. I got into the 1:28's, but Gary ran away from me in his Spec Racer, with 1:26's.
In the second session, which was fully wet, I disconnected the rear anti-roll bar and tried the Yokohamas. Nearly three years old, hard, and pretty well worn, the poor old Yokos were hopeless. I was sliding everywhere, and barely got under two minutes. My best time was a 1:53!
I talked with Gary afterwards. He'd tried street tires in the second session too, and found them hopeless - although he got into the mind-40's, which was a lot better than I did. For the time trial he decided to go back to his Kumhos, which were new and had good tread.
With the two scheduled practice sessions over, I had no way to find out how my Kumhos would be in full wet conditions. I knew they had a much softer compound than the Yokohamas, but even when new Kumhos don't have much tread, and mine weren't new. I was very concerned about aquaplaning.
After a lot of agonizing, I finally went with the Kumhos, which turned out to be the right decision. The amount of water on the track varied through the day as the rain stopped and then restarted. I was lucky to run near the end of the day, when the ran had stopped but the track was still wet. Most of the other cars in my class ran late in the day too.
Despite catching two other cars on my third and final lap (which blew my time for that lap), I did a 1:35.5. That beat all the other cars in my class by several seconds!!
I also beat all the FFR Spec Racers. There were about a half dozen Spec Racers there, mostly owned and driven by FFR employees, so beating all of them was very satisfying! (However, one of the FFR engineers, Dave Riha, was within 9 hundredths of a second of my time. He's going to be tough to beat in the future!)
Nate's partner John crashed their Spec Miata but fortunately only hit the tire wall in turn 3, with cosmetic damage. I figured that with their skinnier tires and the Mazda's terrific suspension, they would obliterate me in the rain. Nate took 2nd in his class, but I beat him by 2 seconds.
This was my first win ever in COMSCC. Following on Nate's first win at Lime Rock last November, it feels fantastic!
I wasn't planning to go to any "away" events this year, but now that the Cobra is handling so well, I really want to run it at Mosport. It was very twitchy when we ran there last year due to a problem with the rear suspension, but this has since been fixed. It should be a real blast there now!
Finances are really tight, but my tires were new at the end of last season, and with only me driving, they should last most of the season. Ditto the brakes. And COMSCC gives instructors a discount, which helps with the entry fee.
Gary Cheney invited me to ride up with him. He can take my Cobra in his new two-car trailer. Gary says my share of the gas to get there will be less than $100, and motel rooms near Mosport are fairly inexpensive, so hopefully I can make the trip without going broke!