The race season started very early this year with the Formula Vee 45th Birthday Party at Roebling Road Raceway in Savannah, GA. Fortunately the weather held for the monumental 950 mile tow from Detroit. It is probably not something I would do every year but the Birthday Party is a once every five year event. Having missed the 2003 event by one week because of car damage (an understatement) I was determined to make this event. I had been to Roebling Road as a spectator but never as a driver. It is a pretty fast track for Formula Vee's with average speeds over 80 mph (faster than Road America). The track is one of those places which is pretty easy to go moderately fast - but obviously has some subtle tricks to it. But as I said to fellow racer Garrett VanCamp "It goes both left and right - what else do you need to know?"
There were nearly 130 Formula Vees for the event which was a great turnout. Of those nearly 40 were Vintage cars from 1969 or earlier - probably the biggest field of vintage cars any place to date.
Friday was a test day with a late start as we were fogged in - not a typical Midwest track delay. I did manage three sessions as I recall with about 1.5 hours track time total. Everything seemed to be coming together nicely and the fresh rebuild by Shings Racing was producing satisfying horsepower.
Saturday practice started well. With ever darkening skies I got to grid early for clear running. This was good strategy as I ended up 5th fastest in the session with some early quick laps before conditions got worse.
Unfortunately qualifying worked exactly the opposite way. Extremely wet conditions at the start with drying throughout. To make matters worse I picked up a horrible vibration in the front of the car in the 80+ mph right hand corner coming onto the front straight. Consequently I found myself at the other end of the grid in 32nd. Hero to zero in a few short hours.
After kicking a few things and being disgusted about my situation I went over to talk to Charlie Wilson who always manages to have a good time at the races no matter what. When told about my predicament Charlie said "Just pretend you are Pac Man and gobble them up one at a time".
Race day was back to good weather. The warm up showed that the vibration had departed and I was ready to go. I lined up on the grid in 32nd. Do you have any idea how far back 32nd is - I could not even see the front of the field. I was still in the last turn when the green flag came out.
Fortunately being farsighted has its advantages as I was able to get going and picked up 6 positions before the start/finish stripe and another 3 in the first lap. After that came 13 more laps of traditional close and hard Formula Vee Racing
At the end of 14 laps I had worked up to 14th position and was within striking distance of the 13th and 12th place cars.While I would prefer not starting 32nd ever a gain I can tell you that getting by 18 cars in 14 laps is quite a work out!
After giving myself a brief pat on the back I got the car loaded for the trip to Virginia to drop the car and trailer for the next race in two weeks.
No comments:
Post a Comment