Off season

2007 racing season is over. It was a pretty uneventful season for me this year. I only entered three races this year. With a lot going on with our family and work, unfortunately there wasn’t a lot of time left over for racing. My last race of this season was in October at Pacific Raceways. It was a total rain fest, and I didn’t have any rain tires. To make matters worse, my engine broke another rocker stud during qualifying. So rather than risking racing on slicks in the rain, I decided to bag it for this race and the season.

During this off season I plan to replace all my rocker arm studs with ARP studs, add NASCAR style door bars to my roll cage to conform to the latest SCCA GCR’s, add a fire system, and I’ll probably replace my front control arm bushings. Other than that, the number 31 Camaro should be ready to race at the start of the 2008 racing season that will start sometime in April.

Here are some miscellaneous racing pictures to tide you over during the off season…


PIR in 2004



Racing in the rain at PIR in 2004.



Here is a picture of me during a race in Portalnd in June '04.



Here is the 383 stroker engine I installed for the 2006 racing season. It dynos 391 rear wheel horsepower and 393 rear wheel torque.



Here is a picture of the new (C5) Corvette ZO6 front brakes I installed at the beginning of this racing season. This addition resulted in at least 1 full second off my lap times at PR.

CSCC 8/19, 8/20 Race at PIR

8/18/07: Lisa, Alex, Skyler and I loaded up the racecar on the trailer and headed south to Portland to race at Portland International Raceway for the weekend. This was the first time we have been back to race at PIR since we moved back to Seattle last year. I miss living so close to a race track. We used to live only about 10 minutes away from this track. This was only my second race this season and I was eager to get back on track. I towed the racecar to work Friday morning and worked until Lisa and the boys picked me up at 3:00 and we headed south for Portland. Traffic was really bad and what is usually a 3 hour drive turned out to be a 5 hour drive. We drove straight to the track, registered and began unloading and setting up our paddock space. After that we went over to the Days Inn located next to the track and checked in into our room for the night. When Morning came I got up pretty early to get ready for the days activities. Lisa wasn’t feeling well so she and the boys slept in while I went to the track and got ready to take the car out on my first track session, a twenty minute practice session. The weather was perfect for racing. It was cool but sunny. My morning practice session went well and the racecar was running and handling pretty good. Afterwards I went back to the motel to pick up Lisa, Alex and Skyler and took them back to the track for the rest of the day. In the afternoon I went back on track for my first qualifying session for the weekend where I was able to set a fast lap time of 1:25.872. The car still felt pretty good so I didn’t change anything on the setup. When our group’s official qualifying results were posted, I found that I had qualified in 5th place. After my qualifying session I check over the car, check the brakes, tires, oil, etc, then we left the track and went out for pizza. After dinner the boys wanted to see a movie so we went and saw the Simpson’s Movie which we all enjoyed. Sunday morning we got up and packed up our bags, checked our of the motel and went back to the track. During my morning qualifying session I wasn’t able t better my lap times from the day before. The official qualifying results had me starting 5th on the grid of 26 competitors and 1st in my ITE class. After this session we just checked things over, bled the bakes and rotated the tires to get ready for the afternoon race. After lunch we were the second race group to race. As I brought the racecar over to pre-grid I began to strategize on how I would start the race. We left pre-grid and began following the pace car around the track for our pace lap, scrubbing tires and brakes to generate heat for the first turn of the race. As we came around for the start we all bunched up real tight for a good start. When the starter dropped the green flag we all jumped on the gas and raced for turn 1 into the “Festival Curves”. On my left was Scot Morton in a fast GT2 Nissan 350Z. I had the inside line and beat him into and through the first turn as I was hot on the tail of Alan Wendler in his fast GT1 Chevy Monte Carlo. As we exited the Festival curves I had about a 1 car length lead on Scott Morton as the leaders began to pull away slightly ahead of me. Scott stayed on my tail for the next 10 laps or so as we raced really hard together. He had better speed in the corners, but I had better straight away speed. He’d pass me in the turns but I’d pass him right back on the straights. After so many laps of that my tires started getting really hot and greasy making it impossible to keep him behind me, so I finally pointed him by. As soon as I did this I see in my rearview mirror the second place ITE car, a fast Mitsubishi Evo XIII driven by Wayne Monahan gaining on me real fast and getting really big in my mirrors. Soon he was all over my rear bumper looking trying to pass me. It was the same thing though, he was catching me in the turns, but I’d pull him on the straights and try to gain a little breathing room before he’d catch me in the turns. My tires and traction were getting really bad in the corners and I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep Wayne from passing me passing me for sure on the next lap. As we exited turn 12 onto the front straight I was determined to put as much space between us as possible so it was peddle to the metal all the way down to the brake zone for turn 1. As I exited the chicane and looked in my mirrors, Wayne was nowhere to be seen! I figured he must have overheated since he was driving a highly modified turbo charged car, they tend to be more susceptible to overheating with their high pressure intake charges. All I had to do now was cruise a couple more laps onto victory. I ended up finishing the race 1st in class, 4th place overall! It was a great race and a hard fought victory. During the race I was able to improve my best lap time slightly to 1:25.243. After the race we congratulated my competitors and began to pack up for the trip home. I felt good about the race and especially winning my 5th career 1st place finish! Unfortunately our in car video camera quit working so I don't have any video to upload.

2007 racing season

First race of the year for the 2007 race season.
I usually race earlier in the season but this was the first Conference (ICSCC) race at Pacific Raceways this year. Races at Portland usually begin as early as March or early April, but I haven't been able to get to any races there yet this year.

During the winter I retrofitted new Corvette Z06 front brakes to my car to improve the braking and compensate for the extra horsepower & speed from the engine I installed last year. I was eager to get my car on the track to evaluate the performance and to see what effect that would have on my lap times. Saturday morning Kyle and I towed the racecar to the track, registered, got our pits all set up and got the car through tech. Lisa, Melissa, Alex and Skyler got there around lunch time. The weather was cloudy and it was threatening rain. The Saturday morning practice session was on a damp track and I had to spend most of that session bedding my brake pads and heat cycling my tires. After lunch the track dried out just in time for my group's first qualifying session. I went out and tried to get some decent lap times. I could definitely feel the improvement of my new brakes. After a couple warm-up laps I strung together four hot laps that all felt like they were pretty quick. The car felt good as I really pushed it for this first time this year. After my qualifying session I was anxious to see the lap time results. When they were posted it showed that my best lap time was 1:34.038 qualifying me to start 4th on the grid. That is a little more than 1 whole second faster than my best lap time from last year. I was pretty happy with that but I felt like there was probably at least another second or so that I could shave off that time.

Sunday morning it was raining pretty hard. The track was really wet, so I knew my second qualifying session would not show any improvement from my Saturdays qualifying session. So when out group's time came to go out on track, I just took it easy and practiced my lines. We were the second group to race after lunch. The weather was still bad with rain and water on the track. I didn't have any rain tires so this looked like it was going to be a wet and slow race and I wasn't going to be very competitive. As we gridded up I just resigned myself to the fact that I would have to just let everyone behind me pass right on by because I wouldn't be able to have any traction with my slick race tires on the wet track. Sunday morning a Viper had qualified ahead of me and bumped me from 4th to 5th on the starting grid. When race time came and I reported to grid, I noticed that 4 of the first 5 cars on the grid all had their slicks on! I was really surprised because with a wet track, they wouldn't be able to have any better traction that me.

We left the pre-grid and began to follow the pace car around the track for the start of the race, all of us trying in vain to get a little heat in our tires so we might have a little traction for the first turn. As we came around onto the front straight we all bunched up waiting for the starter to drop the green flag. At the last possible second before reaching start finish, the starter threw the green flag and we were all off! The water on the track threw up such a spray from everyone’s tires that it made for near zero visibility. I just let everyone behind me that wanted to pass right on by rather that defend my position and risk crashing. I figured that I would simply strive to finish the race in one piece and collect a few points rather than force things and risk crashing or injury.

I was passed by about 16 cars on the first few laps of the race. On about the second lap I began to notice that my engine had a miss and an exhaust leak at the header. I figured that maybe the header leak had burned through a spark plug wire or something. I considered just bagging this race and calling it a weekend, but for some stubborn reason I decided to stay in the race since my car was still drivable. After about the sixth or seventh lap the rain stopped. The track began to slowly dry out in places. This allowed me to pick up my pace and I quickly began to pass the cars that had been passing me and soon I was almost up to my normal race pace. Pretty soon I had worked my way all the way up to 3rd place overall! I maintained that position for the rest of the race and at the checkered flag managed to finish 2nd in my ITE class and 3rd overall, being beat by the ITE Viper and a GT2 Mazda RX7. Not too bad considering my engine was only running on 7 cylinders and I had let almost the entire field pass me at the beginning of the race. Most of the cars in my group had rain tires on and when the track started drying out they could not keep up the pace without overheating and destroying their expensive rain tires.

I limped my car back to the paddock and it was pretty clear that my car was done for the day. It was running really rough and the exhaust leak made it sound pretty bad. I’d have to spend some time later on troubleshooting the problem. I was hoping for something simple like a burned spark plug wire, but my gut was telling me it might be a bad head gasket or something worse. All in all it was a successful race weekend and we all had a good although a little wet time at the track. I have uploaded a video of my fast qualifying lap for your viewing pleasure. This is my fastest lap time to date on this track. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ct-Jgnk0qCQ

Race video from Pacific Raceways 10-1-06 IRDC race

Check out the video I posted on You Tube of the start of my 10-1-06 Pacific Raceways IRDC race!

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

10/1/06 IRDC Race at Pacific Raceways, Seattle

Well this was my last race of the 2006 racing season. I guess I've pretty much reached my racing goals for this year. I rebuilt my racecar and ran as many races as I could. Even if I could only run four races this year I feel like I accomplished a lot. Anyway, on to the race recap....

As per usual I arrived at the race track Friday evening to unload the Camaro and set up my pit for the weekend. Saturday morning arrived bright and early and I got to the track about 7:30 in to prepare for my first practice session at 9:30. This was the first time I've been back to Pacific Raceways since Memorial Day weekend in 2004 and I was a little rusty. They changed turn 9 slightly by smoothing out the apex so its not such a sharp corner anymore. It is a little smoother now and allows a little more flexibility in your line through this corner. I still can't take it flat out though and I have to feather the throttle through this turn to maintain control. Maybe with better tires I can.

My Saturday morning practice session went well and I ended up improving my best lap time by 1-1/2 seconds. My previous best was 1:37.002 and my new best time set during this session was 1:35.551. The Camaro was running well and seemed very strong. I was taking it kind of easy and not wanting to push things too much until I shook off the cobwebs.

Saturday afternoon's qualifying session came right after lunch. I went back out on track and the car felt a lot different from the morning qualifying session. All I did was rotate the tires and tweak the tire pressure a little. The track conditions changed too with the humidity being higher in the afternoon. I decided to push it anyway because rain was threatening for Sunday morning's qualifying session and this might be my best opportunity to qualify well for Sunday's race. In spite of the fact my car was handling worse this session, I ended up posting a best lap time of 1:35.370 qualifying me in 5th position on the starting grid out of 42 cars registered for the race. My tires were getting hard and losing their grip and I knew this was holding me back from getting better lap times.

Terry Ward, a Canadian in a 3rd generation Camaro qualified right in front of me with a 135:278 lap time. I've raced with him before and I knew this would be a great match up. The rest of the afternoon I spent making a few more changes to my car's setup and getting it ready for Sunday.
Sunday morning I slept in a little after I decided to skip my Sunday morning qualifying session because my brake pads looked like they only had had enough left in them for the race. Got to conserve the equipment!I got the the track in time to watch my race group run their final qualifying session without me, but this allowed me to size up the competition from a different vantage point. I felt I achieved a decent qualifying time Saturday afternoon so I wasn't too worried, however, the weather was good and the track conditions were optimum for good lap times. I ended up getting bumped from 5th on the starting grid to 6th. Oh well. Still not a bad place to start the race.

Lisa and the boys came down for lunch and to watch my race. We had some fried chicken before I had to get suited up and report to grid at about 1:15. As I gridded up I spent a little time planning my strategy for the start of the race. I figured I'd end up having to take the outside lane at the splitter (person who directs you as to what side of the track to start the race on) but I was surprised to see they pointed me to the inside, my preferred lane for the start. As we drove the pace lap behind the pace car I scrubbed my tires and brakes too get them warm. As we rounded turn 9 we all tightened up our spacing in anticipation for the green flag. The starter waited until the last possible second to drop the green flag, and then we we off!

I immediately got a jump on the C3 Corvette in front of me and passed Mac Russell in his GT3 car too and set up right behind Terry Ward as we entered the braking zone for turn 2. Right at the start a really nicely prepared Red Porsche 911 RSA gridded right behind me had tried to pull out and pass me on my left, but my superior torque left him fading in my rear view mirrors. As we came around to complete the first lap they had standing yellow flags displayed at the starters tower and I immediately saw that the Porsche 911 RSA had crashed into the wall on the far outside of turn 1 causing a full course yellow and bringing out the pace car. Inever did find out what happened to the driver, but that nice Porsche was destroyed in the crash.

I figured it would take the safety workers most of the 30 minute timed race to clean up the mess but they somehow got it cleared off within three laps behind the pace car. During these slow laps behind the pace car we all bunched back up, so the re-start would be another chance to pass cars in front of me and better my position. When the green flag dropped I was able to pass Mac Russell (again) gaining a position and got right on Terry Ward's tail. As we raced on Terry had a little more power than me and he was putting a little distance between us. He had actually qualified a good two seconds ahead of me during his Sunday morning qualifying session and his better lap times were showing, but I was still keeping him in my sights. Chasing someone faster always brings out my best driving abilities.

We battled on through the rest of the race with me chasing Terry. As we began to lap slower traffic I would gain a little advantage only to lose it as we both passed through another batch of slower traffic. In the end when the checker flag was thrown, I finished the race about a second behind Terry in 4th place overall (out of 39 cars) and 3rd place in class (of 7 ITE cars) qualifying me for a trophy! My best race lap time was a 1:35.392, just a bit faster than my qualifying time. It was a fun race and one that I felt pretty good about. My car didn't exhibit any overheating problems like I have had in other raced this season and it felt really strong. If I had better tires and brakes I'm sure I could have broken into the 1:34 lap times easily and maybe even into 1:33's. I guess that will have to wait until next season though.

This winter will be spent upgrading my Camaro's front brakes to 13" Corvette calipers and rotors to compensate for the extra speed I'm now attaining with my higher horsepower engine I installed at the beginning of this season. I may also install some higher rate springs and new suspension bushings also. We'll see how it goes. Next season I hope to be able to compete in more races! I'll post some of my in car race video as soon as I can...

In car race cam video from the Rose Cup race...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QfQ3cHvRPU

Rose Cup Photos

Portland Rose Cup Race, PIR 6/9 – 6/11/06

Rose Cup weekend. This is a race that culminates the Portland Rose Festival and always draws a lot of competitors and quite a crowd of spectators. I’ve wanted to compete in this race for a long time and this year I finally was able to race in it. This year the Rose cup race did not include my normal race class (ITE) so I stepped up a class and raced in SPO where I was racing against some seriously fast purpose built race cars. I knew I didn’t have any chance of being very competitive, but it would be fun just to be out there with and mix it up with the big boys in front of all the spectators.

This weekend I was being sponsored by Parent Empowerment Network and Mother’s Against WASL and I was happy to be able to help support their cause. Lisa set up a table with literature and gave out stickers and buttons as she enlightened people about the WASL. They put out a press release and we had a reporter and photographer from the Vancouver Columbian newspaper come out and do a story on us. We were printed in the Monday 6/12/06 newspaper and they had a nice article and pictures of me, Lisa and the Camaro!

Thursday evening after work I trailored the racecar to the track and set up my pit. I needed to replace a leaking header gasket so I decided I better get it done that evening and began working on it there at the track. It took me about one hour to get the old header gasket off. I began installing the new header gasket and it began to be more work than I anticipated. I couldn’t seem to get the header bolts to line up and get the threads to start. When it started getting dark I had to go buy a flashlight at GI Joes (where Melissa works) so I could see what the heck I was doing. I got back to the track and continued working on the car until about 10:30 when I decided to give up for the evening out of frustration. I had to get up early and return back to the track first thing the next morning and complete this work because I had our group’s practice session at 11:30am. I finally got the header re-installed and everything buttoned up by about 10:30 and got my car through tech and got suited up to go out on track. I went out and completed the practice session and was able to complete some fast laps and size up the competition, but there were a lot of cars that decided not to go out for this session. The Camaro was running well and felt strong. The only problem was that I seemed to be losing some of my coolant. No much but it was a concern.

Saturday morning came and our qualifying session came next. When I pulled my car into pre-grid there were some very fast racecars showing up to go out on track with. The racecar that pulled up next to me was Monte Shelton’s 1984 Porsche 962 GTP. This car is known to be able to top 240mph at Lemans! Talk about a mismatch! A little intimidating to say the least! We went out on track and I was able to only get a couple of fast laps in because they had decided to split our race group’s qualifying session into two groups, the fast cars and the slower cars. I went out in the faster group but we only had about 5 laps to qualify, and I was trying to bed in my new brake pads too. I ended up qualifying at 1:25.199, just a couple tenths of a second off my best lap time from the previous week. This qualifying time placed me 32nd out of 41 cars on the starting grid. I’m not used to starting so far back in the grid. I spent the rest of the day readying my car for the race the next day my installing new brake pads on all four wheels and installing new rotors on the front.

Sunday was race day. I got to the track at about 7:30am to begin double checking everything. My race was scheduled for about 1:10, but they wanted us to get the cars in pre-grid about 45 minutes early for the opening ceremonies. This was something I have never done before and it was kind of cool. They interviewed the top drivers, had someone sing the national anthem, and then had a celebrity announce “Driver’s, Start Your Engines!” Pretty cool! We had one parade lap, then one pace lap behind the pace car. It was pretty hot, about 80 degrees and I was getting nervous about my engine getting too hot and overheating. When we came around for the green flag and the start of the race, the starter figured we were all too out of shape to give us the green flag and made us all go around for another pace lap. As we came around for the third time we finally got the green flag. I started out very conservatively not wanting to get out of shape for the chicane on the first lap and I made it through cleanly. As we drove through turn 6 there was a Porsche 911 that was smoking badly and I was afraid he was dumping oil on the track, so I had to drive off the racing line and slow down to avoid him along with a few other cars. This gave the rest of the pack a chance to brake away from us. A GT1 car that started a couple rows ahead of me was driving a lot slower than I thought he should be and was holding me up even more. I was stuck behind him, an SPM Porsche 911 and a couple of pretty fast EP Mazda RX7’s. We struggled behind this slower (in the corners) GT1 car for a few laps until he blew the chicane giving us a chance to pass him. That set me up to do battle with the 911 in front of me. The only problem for me was the two RX7’s that were catching and passing me or trying to pass me in the corners. I would pass them on the straights, but they would catch back up and pass me in the corners. I had some really close racing with those guys, a little too close. As I was battling the 911 in front of me, he must have felt the pressure because he spun out right in front of me as we were coming out of turn 7. I had to drive off the track and into the grass to avoid T-boning him. Just as this was happening the race leader lapped us.

With the Porsche 911 spinning out I was now able to gain a position and get a little breathing room in front of the two RX7’s. I began chancing some cars that were a ways in front of me for awhile but before long my tires started getting too hot and began to get greasy and lose traction in the turns. This hut my lap times and allowed the two pesky RX7’s to catch up with me again. As I battled with these guys, trading positions a two or three times per lap, my engine began to overheat! So I had to slow down a bit off my pace to let the engine cool down a bit. This gave the Porsche 911 the change to catch up to me and he ended up passing me. After a lap or so my water temp gauge indicated the engine was cooling down, so I increased my pace again and chased the 911 again. As we were entering the chicane he went in too fast, overcooked his brakes and began to spin. This presented me with yet another opportunity to re-pass this guy, I was happy to oblige and went on by. Before long my engine heated up again and I had to slow down to avoid overheating. The 911 once again caught up with me and passed me again. After another lap the engine cooled enough that I felt like I could go after him again. Then, as we rounded turn 12 onto the main straight I saw that they had put out the checked flag signaling the end of the race! Apparently the starter never put out the “last lap” sign. I only had half the strait to try to pass the 911 to beat him to the finish line. It was a drag race between me and the 911 but he was able to edge me out at the line by only maybe a foot or two! If we had another 50 feet I would have passed him for the position.

What a race! I had survived and made it through without any incidents. I felt good about that. But as I completed my cool down lap my engine overheated! I ended up finishing in 23rd place, three laps behind the top three finishers. All in all it was a pretty fun race weekend. It was real nice to have my family there to support me. I think they enjoyed the day watching Dad race. I still need to figure out why I am losing coolant and overheating though before the next race.

Stay tuned race fans!


Columbian Newspaper Article on my race: http://www.columbian.com/news/localNews/06122006news35244.cfm

CSCC Race at PIR 6/3, 6/4/06

This was my second race of this season. I had my racecar dyno tuned Friday and we were able to get 390 rear wheel horsepower and 393 rear wheel torque. These are great numbers and represent an 80 horsepower increase over my last engine setup. This increase in power was immediately noticeable once I got the car on the race track.

Saturdays practice session there were a few fast cars in my race group that used to be a lot faster than me. Not anymore. I was able to run with them and keep on their bumpers. In my Saturday afternoon qualifying session I posted my best lap time to date, 124.963. This is 5 seconds faster than my previous best lap time at PIR (with chicane)! I ended up qualifying 4th overall and 2nd in class on the second row right behind a fast Nissan 300ZX in my class.

At the start of the race I got a pretty good jump but wasn’t able to gain any positions before the chicane. I got passed my a pretty fast A/Sedan Mustang at the chicane entrance but quickly re-passed him. A GT1 Monte Carlo in front of me spun in turn 2 and bunched up the field somewhat. Then it was the Nissan 300 ZX, me and a GT2 Nissan 200 SX and we were nose to tail for the next couple of laps. I was staying right on this guys bumper in 2nd place with the Nissan 200 SX hot on my tail. The 200 SX was faster than me in the corners but I was faster on the straight. He ended up passing me going into turn 6. I probably could have held him off but that would have been blocking. So that put me in 3rd place so far. We would switch places like this for the next few laps. Then as I was entering turn 5 I was carrying too much speed and ran a bit wide and hit the rumble strips and went into the grass heading straight for the tire wall! Somehow I was able to get some traction and braking in the grass and managed to stop my momentum just before getting to the tire wall and turned around and headed back on course. This was my first of three off course excursions for the race, a new record for me, one I’d rather not relish!

So now I’m playing catch up with two A/Sedans that passed by as I was in the grass. I managed to pass them in another lap and a half or so, but in my effort to pass the yellow Mustang, I over cooked my brakes going into the chicane and ended up spinning out right at the apex of turn 2. Then after a few more laps there was some other race car on course that dumped oil and/or coolant on the track that caused me to loose traction going through turns 10 - 11 and causing me to go off through turn 12! Fortunately there was enough runoff room so I wasn’t in danger of hitting the tire wall.

After getting back on course again I just put the peddle to the metal and drove like heck. I started lapping slower racers and making my way through traffic trying to keep clean and not have any more offs. After awhile the checker flag came out and the race was over. As I was on my cool down lap I checked my water temperature gauge and noticed it was pegged! Somehow I had overheated my engine! I figured I had placed pretty poorly, but when pick up the official results later I discovered that I ended up in 3rd place overall and 2nd place in class! Not too bad considering I went off course THREE times!

When I got my car home and had a chance to investigate the over heating problem, I realized that I had neglected to screw on the radiator cap on all the way allowing coolant to escape from the top of the radiator. Dumb mistake, but at least it didn’t show up until after the race was over!

This race made me realize that now my car is putting out way more power than it can safely and reliably race with. I will now need to upgrade my front brakes and probably get a larger radiator. Considering I’m going a lot faster now, I really need to invest in these upgrades and probably a fire suppression system too.

Next race is this coming weekend’s annual Portland Rose Cup race. This is the most popular race of the year and there are supposed to be over 400 cars racing in 6 or 7 race groups with lots of spectators watching.

Stay tuned for more racing…..