Spring Fling at Road America (6/22/2003)
Way up north to Wisconsin went the Scottracing team on a big gun hunt at Road America for the SCCA June Sprints. Easily the biggest race of the year for the Formula Continental, 40 drivers showed up for the event with many time runoff champion Dave Witzenkopf leading the way and several times champion Mike Anderson right behind.
Carl found the high speed four mile course to his liking as he reached the limit of his 96 VanDiemen's speed by the end of the second practice session. Averaging more than 102 mph and peaking at 134 mph, the track provided a up and down hill ride through the woods of Wisconsin. Towing thorough days of rain and hail, we were pleasantly surprised by four days of beautiful, cloud free weather with temperatures in the 70s.
Qualifying went smoothly although we made a tactical error by using the first qualifying session as a practice which put the burden on Carl to put down fast laps on a hot slick track later in the day. In retrospect, we should have used the morning coolness to get our best times, but Carl's effort landed him 24th of the 40 on the grid. He was only a few seconds off the pole in spite of a very tired 15hour engine that had started to blow oil into the catch tank.
Race day brought more beautiful weather and something we never see in the West - Race Fans. The hill sides filled with a pretty good crowd of people who came out with chars, picnic baskets and a lot of knowledge to watch the races on the grassy slopes surrounding the track. Many fans also stopped by the paddocks to look at the cars and talk racing with the crews.
The FC main event included a split start with about 20 Formula Mazdas making for a grid of about 60 cars. As we began to roll to the grid, the clutch hydraulics failed and we had to push the car to get it into gear. A couple of passing fans were surprised to be enlisted as pushers when they went by the paddock. Pushing off from the grid was accomplished with the aid of the grid workers and then disaster - the pace car stopped the whole group on the hot pit lane. Carl needed another push which he got from a group of crew folks standing in the lane and off the class went.
The green flew and everybody got away cleanly with Carl and Greg Stern of Georgia teaming up to alternately race each other, with Carl having an edge in the slow turns 5, 6, and 8 while Stern had better straight line speed, and slice through traffic. Picking up a place or two per lap, Carl was running 14th by lap 7 when a full course yellow flew for a car scattered in turn 1 after hitting the inside retaining wall. The pace car missed the leader and it took three laps to get organized when a competitor warming his tires smacked the wall under the flag stand. Two more laps under yellow led to a green/white one lap sprint to the finish. The combination of no clutch and marginal radio led to a poor restart so he could not gain any positions and came home a clean 14th. During the race he made a number of bold but clean passes, usually under hard breaking but once a side by side stint in the long fast Carousel. The track allowed a fast driver who was down on power to get by cars with more straight line speed if the driver was patient and set up the pass early. This is the proverbial briar patch for Carl as he enjoys the cerebral aspects of driving as much as the thrill of driving at the limit.
Road America and the June Sprints lived up to their reputation as an event not just a race. We enjoyed the food, people and scenery and certainly salute the efforts of Chicago Region in taking on an enormous organizational effort to make things run smoothly.
Photo Caption: What a working environment - Scottracing Pitts at Road Atlanta competition pits area
Photo Caption: Assistant crew chief takes a break - Note progress in harry potter book just one day after it was released
Photo Caption: 24th spot on the pregrid is a long way back
Photo Caption: Turn five after the restart and Carl is hounding his new best friend from Georgia, Russ Stern
