(Continued from previous message)
For those of you familiar with P.I.R. (north, as Judi puts it), there is a very long front straight with a major chicane (the “Festival Curves as referenced on TV) and, also a long back straight. The organizers felt that it might be a good idea to have a “chicane” on the back straight as well, so used some plastic barriers filled with water (and promptly dubbed “LEGOs” by the workers!) There were several rows on the left to narrow down to one lane on the right going in, then a couple of barriers on the right to create a “slalom”…which is exactly how most of us treated it. The ‘penalty” for hitting the barriers was 2 HOURS in the “penalty box” (aka “impound”) so that was a pretty good deterrent for the most part (plus the $250 per barrier charge!). Of course, as we all know, they were hit eventually, so the race had to be shut down to rearrange and refill the LEGOs. They were hit again, after dark, and pretty much destroyed so, from then on, we did not have a chicane on the back straight!
This is “my” point of view, so you’ll be hearing about “my” experiences in the race. Erin was our first driver out, around 12:30 on Saturday (half hour delay due to fuel truck not showing up on time!). It was POURING rain (it’s Portland, what else?) So, she had the first hour of trying to keep the car on the VERY SLICK track and in one piece for the rest of us to be able to drive it….AND SHE DID A FINE JOB OF IT!!! I was up next………
Yes, I kept it in one piece and did NOT get it stuck in the mud, even though I did have a couple of trips off the racing surface. I was just super proud of myself for not letting it stall (notice the lack of the words “kill” and/or “die) and being able to finish my hour….needless to say, the adrenaline really had me riding high! (so much so that I didn’t see my pit person calling me in at the end of the hour and eventually was given one of those “meatball’ flags to bring me in!!!)
So, like all drivers, I wandered up to Race Control to check my times (not too shabby, I must say, given the circumstances) and volunteered to help out Bonnie Aarseth and Teresa Hankin. Not only did these two “power women” have stints as drivers in our car, they also pretty much handled race control for most of the entire 24 hours!!! I worked in Race Control for 4 hours until our scheduled ‘break” when the race was stopped for 2 ½ hours to “celebrate Halloween and have a Halloween Party” (and repair LEGO’s.)
I then went up to the Starter’s stand to work as a starter for 4 hours until midnight. As you can tell, we were VERY short on workers for this event…..especially since most workers had just worked a 12 hour enduro two weeks prior! However, I can definitely attest that the workers who participated in this event thoroughly enjoyed themselves! I went to a van at midnight to try to get some sleep……slept rather fitfully and finally realized that there was no more racecar noise. I assumed that there had been a red flag (in this event, there would only be “yellow lights” or “red lights” during the night) until I realized that the noise was gone for a really long time! Finally, around 4:30am, I received a text that the race had been halted due to FOG (it IS Portland in the fall….normal!)
The race restarted at about 8:15am on Sunday. Erin was out first again (on a dry track) and I followed her. This time I didn’t feel like I was driving on an ice skating rink and didn’t have to do “the slalom” on the back straight. My driving “confidence” was much better and I managed to “race” without hitting anything or anybody. I did manage to see the pitboard this time when my time was up. (unlike many of the teams, we didn’t use radio—too many different helmets involved!) I have to say that I was very, very surprised that I was not more sore and/or “weak-kneed” after driving for an hour. Once again, I went up to Race Control, checked my times and found a 16 second improvement over the previous day (different road surface, no chicane!) At the end of the day, my fastest lap was only 7 seconds slower that the fastest lap by any of our team’s drivers so I felt pretty good!! Our team finished 14th overall (40 cars started, 35 or 36 finished the race). We were able to follow ChumpCar’s #1 rule – “keep the shiny side up, keep the greasy side down” and had no major incidents at all! AND, that little ol’ CRX motor just kept on a’runnin’ for the whole time!!!! We finally changed tires at about the 20th hour!!
I then worked in Race Control for a couple more hours, then worked a turn for the last hour of the race. The race was extended due to the “fog break” so ended at approximately 3:00pm.
OHHHHHH and the trophies! You guys had to see these trophies!!!! I’m including a couple of photos that show examples---they were all sculpted from metal car parts….ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC!!! My assumption is that this type of trophy will be used at all ChumpCar races. In addition to awards for first, second and third place finishers, there were awards for:
Best Theme - #28; La Familia; Best Engineering - #11; Happy Toyz; Automotive Excellence Award -
Cars #1 and #10; Squirrels of Fury; Maytag Spin-Cycle Award - #15; Government Motors
Timex Award (they just kept on tickin') - #7; World Rally Chumps; Most Visits to the Penalty Box Award - #69; Rockerz 'n Dockers; Most Philanthropic Donation to Portland Community College Award - #00; Breast Men
Best American Iron - #74; Team IROC; Best International Entry - #13; Geri-at-Tricks-or-Treats
Most Driver Changes in Any Motorsports Event (ever!) - #3; Workers Revenge (THAT WOULD BE US!!)
Best Flat-Spotted Tires Award - #29; Team Zombiata / Produnk
Ugliest Car on the Trailer Award (before the race started!) - #80; Free Range Racing
Best Aerodynamic Modification Award - #20; The Brian Towey Surfing School
Alas, it’s now a week gone by since I started writing this…. I certainly meant to send this much closer to the actual event!! At any rate, for those of you who may be having a ChumpCar event coming to your area soon, (schedule for 2010 at
http://chumpcar.com/events.php ) I HIGHLY recommend it as LOTS of fun!!!! It seems that we may have had the “first and last” 24 hour ChumpCar event at PIR…. Our wonderful neighbors have, once again, raised quite a fuss with our fair city about “the noise” even though it’s been shown many times in the past that there is greater noise from trains, planes, etc. in that area.
If anyone would like to view more pics from this event, check out
http://gallery.shutterdriven.com/p458434576
“Racegracy”