O'Fest at Barber Motor Sports Park

[jlevie]

O'Fest is next week at Barber. I'll be there Wednesday & Thursday instructing in the CCA Club School and racing Friday, Saturday, & Sunday. Who else is going to be there?

[NigelStu]

That track is awesome! If I had the time (and a car... the Chump Car needs some work after the race this last weekend...), I would be there.


If anyone even has a tiny little thought in the back of your mind to ever go to Barber, DO IT!!!!!! You will not be disappointed!

[gobuffs]

See you there Jim!

[Nygdup]

I'll be at O'Fest instructing and administrating the Autocross events over at Regions Park. See you guys there!

[gobuffs]

I'm heeeere....

[gobuffs]

Good to see you again Jim.

[jlevie]

O'Fest was a wonderful experience for me. I instructed in the Club Race School on Wednesday and Thursday before the races. Great group of instructors and a great group of students. I must have done a pretty decent job because I now have an open invitation to instruct at any Club Race School that I'd care to attend. in Scott Hughe's words, "Send me an email to tell me you are coming and show up". I take that as a compliment.

For most of the Race School the car was down on power at high rpm and load. It felt exactly like a fuel delivery issue, but a new pump and filter Thursday morning made no difference. I still don't know what it was, but it magically went away Friday morning and both practice sessions were good. Needless to say, I didn't have high confidence that it wouldn't come back, but it never did. I really hate mysteries like this!

Fred Switzer and I intended to run qual nose to tail and nail down the first two spots. I'd already found two seconds in practice (thanks Eric P.) and was hoping for a bit more while chasing Fred. We got blocked by a Spec E36 for the first few laps and Fred finally found a way around the car. I was tucked in tight on Fred's bumper to keep from being split and we then we were looking at open track. For some reason I wound up in front and we got in one good lap before a car on it's side after the carousel black flagged the course. I wound up with a slightly faster time and was P1 in the SE30 field. Fred had P2.

Fred and I checked out on the start and had opened a decent gap when we ran up on a slow JS car toward the end of the race. Up to that point Fred and I had had a nice close race with a big gap on the rest of the field. The slower car allowed the rest of the SE30's to catch up. Coming out of the hair pin I could see something going on with Fred and Kish in my mirror and after the corkscrew I couldn't see either of them anymore. Kish got into Fred in the corkscrew and took both of them out.

On the last lap Rick Dravecky used the JS car as pick and got overlap in the tunnel turn, As soon as that happened I came up with a plan. We ran side by side to T14A and I kept him pinned on the inside, giving him exactly one car's width (and not one inch more). As soon as he committed to the turn I went a bit further out, trail braked hard to rotate the car, and shot down the hill, taking the position back. I was pretty pleased with myself for the plan and the ability to execute it.

On Saturday Fred & I didn't get to the grid early enough and were boxed in by slow cars. I got a reasonable time that I thought would be no worse than 3rd. I made a pass through the pits for open track, but that didn't work. So I came in. Fred and Allen Garner stayed out and got some pretty decent times. Sometimes you win, and some times you lose...

About a second before the green Kish rear ended me (hard). I had all I could do to avoid contact with the car in front and was still on the brakes when the green fell. That totally screwed up my start and I lost two positions right away. But it turned out okay. By the third lap I'd recovered the positions and passed two out of class cars that were in my way and had open track in front of me. The only problem was that Allen and Fred were about a quarter mile in front. Nothing to do for that but to see if I could chase them down. I found another 1.5 seconds and ran a bunch of laps in the low to mid 1:51's (thanks Eric) and caught them just as we went one lap to go.

I could have tried an act of desperation move to get around Fred on the last lap. But I refuse to put another racer (and friend) at that risk. So I settled for third.

The win on Friday was great, but I got more personal satisfaction from Saturday's race and what it took to get to the leaders. In the end I ran 3.5 seconds faster than my previous best at Barber. Barber is my home track, but I actually have more days at Road Atlanta, so I don't think that the break through is going to be limited to Barber. After four years I think I have finally learned how to drive fast (okay, so I'm slow learner). What I was doing at Barber (and where the speed came from) should be more or less independent of the track. I'll find out if that is the case at CMP.

The Sunday enduro was the pits. I qualified third in class and in the process I discovered that I had no tires left (and I mean zip, nada, nothing). And it just got worse from there. No matter what I did I could see the loss of a tenth or two every lap. I have never worked so hard for so little apparent result and finished fifth. I had a spin in the hairpin, almost spins several other times, and more two offs that I could count. I'm pretty sure I was getting everything the tires could give me, which was pretty much nothing. I guess it made a great show for anyone behind me, but it was terror in the car from the driver's seat. I'm convinced that I could have gone faster (and safer) on all season street tires.

I have heard it said that after 10-12 heat cycles you lose a second on the current RA1's. I had 21 heat cycles on my tires at the start of Saturday's race and 24 at the start of the enduro. I don't know what that translates into in terms of lost time, but I can say positively that 24 heat cycles is "right out". I'm not ever going to do that again.

As I said, it was a great week. My favorite quote from the weekend came from Eric Nissen on Sunday morning when he said, "Jim has been out of control all weekend and has just been silly fast". I like that!

[Skafrog]

Jim, congrats on your victory and the massive time gain!! Comp school was a blast, I cant wait to be on track with you guys soon.

[jlevie]

Here is video from the first sprint race on Friday.

http://vimeo.com/30776866

[dude8383]

Here is video from the first sprint race on Friday.

http://vimeo.com/30776866

Nice driving, you certainly had patience with that JS car.

Around the 17:45 mark that car put you in a hairy situation there... was he blocking you or just genuinely didn't see you riding his in mirrors??

[jlevie]

I talked to the driver of the JS car Saturday morning. I waited until then because I was pretty "hot" after the race and didn't want to say something I'd regret later. He claimed he wasn't blocking, but the video tends to say otherwise. At the point I caught him I was running low 1:52's and he was running high 1:55's. If he'd let me by I'd have been out of sight in a few laps. The smart thing for him to do would have been to let me by and try stay with me. That would have probably led to him running faster laps.

This is a classic case of "racing out of class". There wasn't another JS car in sight ahead or behind him, so there was no reason not to let me by. I did, by the end of the race, have the Spec E30 pack closing on me as a result of his slow lap times. With a slower car in front there was an excellent chance that one of those Spec E30's could use the JS car as a pick. Which was exactly what happened on the last lap. I was able to overcome that for the win, but it could have turned out otherwise.

[Skafrog]

Here is my in-car from the mock race:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvPUJXzKk9U

[Don Stevens]

Good driving. Looked like fun.

Didn't some of those cars not even have a cage? Nomex? Hans?

Don

[triggergt]

Here is some in car from the same race but diff car.. sorry about all the extra crap at the end of the vid!!! I forgot to turn off the GOPRO!!

http://vimeo.com/30857055

[jlevie]

Attendance at a BMW CCA Club race school does not require a race car or personal race gear. Ordinary DE rules apply. I think that is a better way of doing things. The other organizations require one to have full gear and be in a full up race car. Unless you can borrow all or part of that there is a sizable expenditure required. A person might attend race school and find out that they aren't comfortable going wheel to wheel. I've seen that happen several times. Racing gets pretty intense and we try to give the students a good feel for what it is like in comp school.