Crash' Results for Round 3 WERC

[Cobra 61]

GOTCHA! Thought I would start out like I am writing for Yahoo News! Mike Holland (Crash) drove the 3 hour WERC endurance race at Buttonwillow last night. I will let him do the blow by blow "From the Driver's Seat"


The Brief
The GTM out qualified the SLC by .9 seconds putting both the GTM and the SLC on the front row. Mike took the commanding lead for many laps and then the SLC caught up. Dicing for the lead, the GTM was hit in the front by a lapped car, taking out the front toe and damaging some suspension parts. The SLC took the lead. Mike dropped to fourth as we tried to set up a pit stop to check and repair. Mike radios back that he will stay out and work with it and go into "save the car and tire mode". Mike later regained the lead but vibration and clunking noises became a big concern. We decided to pit and look the car over and fuel. Mike resumed the race 4 laps down to the new leader and in P6. We Had a lot of fun!

YES, I finished the article like YHOO News!

Stay tuned for "The Rest of the Story" ( I always loved to read and hear those segments by Paul Harvey!

GOOD DAY

Richard, team, and family

2014
WERC: 1st, 1st, 2nd
Sprint: 2nd, 3rd, 2nd, 3rd, 3rd,

[crash]

The weekend started out pretty good. We decided to test some tire combinations, so we signed up for both the endurance event as well as an HPDE event. This is a great way to get relatively cheap track time because NASA has a “Supersize” feature, that I am proud to say, I actually came up with a couple years back to help the endurance series gain car counts. So NASA gives you a discount if you sign up for multiple events during the same weekend. The only issue is running the car and driver for an extra hour or so the same day as a 3 hour event…in 100+ degree weather!

Anyway, it turned out to be a good thing, as I needed some time to learn the track because the officials decided to run in reverse to what we usually run, and we gained some valuable tire information.

Qualifying went well, and we out qualified the competition by almost a second. We were three to four seconds faster than we had ever had the car go with this track configuration. We have only run this direction twice before. Me driving last year, and another guy named Max Hyatt who ran this course a couple years ago.

Long story short we were feeling pretty good going into the start of the race as we would be on pole with the SLC beside us. They made a big deal in the drivers meeting about being on the grid well before the start of the race. Well, the SLC was there, as were we, but I guess time just slipped away from them or something. We got a 5 minute board, which is the course workers telling us drivers on the grid that we would be on track in 5 minutes, and seconds before that Chris poked his head in and said “good luck”. I said the same and figured that the other guy on his two driver team was starting the race. Apparently not. By the time Chris got into the SLC half the grid had already gone out on course! So the SLC started about 10 cars back.

This is a long race and it was HOT so I pulled out a good lead but then just cruised for a few laps. I had my strategy, but had not counted on the SLC starting 10 positions back. He hauled the mail trying to catch back up, and by lap 12 he was right behind me. We went into turn 1 and I gave him plenty of room. He took it and passed me but I had no problem staying right on his tail.

We go into a section of corners called “Magic Mountain” and he decides to go past a couple of lap traffic BMWs running in a much slower class. This was actually the turn before Magic Mountain where we caught them, so I thought we would be fine in getting past them on the outside. This would set us up on the inside of the two slower cars to go up and over Magic Mountain. Well the first BMW I guess didn’t see me hot on Chris’ tail and I guess wanted to try and use Chris to go around his competitor. As soon as Chris cleared the BMW he shot over to the left right in front of me. I felt like I was driving on the freeway through Los Angeles on the drive up from San Diego! No problem, I’ll just pass him on the outside of Magic Mountain…except the BMW then came right across at my door as I was already next to him now on the right! I hit the brakes hard, went into the dirt with the right side tires, caught the curbing dead center down the middle of the car and as he continued to come over the BMW hit my left front wheel and went for what had to be a pretty wild ride off the back side of magic mountain (video will be posted shortly)

The car then had some major noises coming out of the front end and I was forced to pit to make sure it was safe to continue. After doing so we were about 60 seconds or half a lap down from the SLC. I was mounting a fight but also trying to figure out how to drive the car with a slightly altered alignment. At that point all I wanted to do was to not let the SLC get too far out ahead of us as I was sure the second half of the race would be good if we were both there on the same lap when a yellow came out or we had to stop for fuel.

Unfortunately on lap 19 or so something quit on the SLC and then I just put it into cruise mode. Once half the race was finished and we were assured our 1st in class finishing points I decided to kick it up a notch or two, but only after coming in and having the crew take a closer look and make SURE that everything was okay. My wife and kids were in the stands and I certainly did not want something major to happen with them watching. So we take a long stop, pull the front wheels off, adjust some things, add fuel and I am back out to just turn some laps. Unfortunately I am more than a couple laps down.

This race actually had some pretty nice awards for brake products and a nice trophy, so I went out and decided to have a little fun and see if we could podium. I think we were in 6th place overall upon re-entering the race course with about an hour left. I also wanted to try some different techniques through different sections of the track. When it was all said and done I passed the 1st and 2nd place cars with two laps to go having unlapped myself from everyone except the overall leader, so I brought it home in 3rd place overall, on the same lap as 2nd place and a lap down from the leader. Not bad considering the lengthy stop and the earlier incident that damaged the alignment settings.

If there is one thing about our Mendeola Transaxles FFR PDG GTM it is that it is incredibly strong. Other cars seem to regularly bounce off the car and yet we usually sustain very little, if any damage. Sure it may be a little heavier than some of our competitors, but when push comes to shove, the Factory Five GTM is a well built car.
Next weekend Davy Jones is scheduled to drive the Mendeola Transaxles FFR PDG GTM in some sprint races and I think the car will be fine to do that. I can’t wait to hear how a professional racer and icon in the sport of motor racing feels about our new tire package. I am hoping and expecting good things.

[skullandbones]

You guys are like the Energizer Bunny. You just can't be stopped! BTW: do you have driver to pit communication so you can get lap splits and positioning?

Thanks,

WEK.

[crash]

We have radios and we have a GPS lap timer so I can tell when a lap is a fast one...or not. We also have two data systems. One attached to the ECU and another to do track mapping and such. We use a phone/netbook app that gives us live timing and scoring so we know exactly where we are at. It is called Race Monitor and anyone can get it for $4.50 and watch the laps click off as we do them in real time.

[kabacj]

This is a great way to get relatively cheap track time because NASA has a “Supersize” feature, that I am proud to say, I actually came up with a couple years back to help the endurance series gain car counts. So NASA gives you a discount if you sign up for multiple events during the same weekend.

I love supersize. I'm doing that in two weeks doing both time trials and the super unlimited races

My wife and kids were in the stands and I certainly did not want something major to happen with them watching.

Good call man. You need the support of the family and they need Dad.

If there is one thing about our Mendeola Transaxles FFR PDG GTM it is that it is incredibly strong. Other cars seem to regularly bounce off the car and yet we usually sustain very little, if any damage. Sure it may be a little heavier than some of our competitors, but when push comes to shove, the Factory Five GTM is a well built car.
Next weekend Davy Jones is scheduled to drive the Mendeola Transaxles FFR PDG GTM in some sprint races and I think the car will be fine to do that. I can’t wait to hear how a professional racer and icon in the sport of motor racing feels about our new tire package. I am hoping and expecting good things.

Great finish and great write up. Like you say it's not often you can sustain damage and keep going let alone finish on the podium. Says a lot for the durability of the car.

I had hoped to get up to Sonoma on Friday if team PDG were testing before the weekend, however sadly the stars did not align. Good luck , sounds like good things to come.

John