2002 Lime Rock Park Vintage Festival, Aug 30 - Sep 2.

Yes, these are two Ferrari 250 GTOs, one in the very rare (non red!) silver. These cars are each worth more than one of our PCA race groups... There were not a large number of rare and exciting cars like this but there were a few knockouts.
Friday started out wet, and it was my first time on Hoosier bias ply tires. It was just wet without puddles (!?!) so I went out and ran a few easy laps but it felt TERRIBLE, very unstable, so I came in early. That did not give me a warm feeling for the tires.

Here is my car after Damon from Series 900 in Sunapee, NH got through with it. The LR fender was completely redone, the hood redone, and the bumpers are new MA Shaw pieces, excellent quality. Damon also redid my numbers with a much better yellow color match. We also installed all new Euro turn signal lenses to make the car a more authentic 911RS.

Friday afternoon was dry and after a bit of warming up the tires felt great! We checked temperatures and pressures and it seems my camber and pressure settings were right on in the rear, front not quite so good. But I seemed to be able to catch up to most of the other 911s so I felt pretty good my 1st time out.

After my run I spied a familiar older 911 coming towards my pits with a bright green/yellow ducktail! It was Damon who mounted my new RS tail on his '69 911 Maus for transportation (easier to fit the stock lid inside the car!). It looked great, I could not wait to get it on the car but it was late and dinner was coming up. Sorry for the poor sequencing of pictures, the one above was later than the one below of course.

Here is the duck tail after painting and decal installation, in Damon's shop. Instead of buying the decals, Damon's friend with a graphics shop made them by laser cutting the correct color yellow vinyl. The graphics were scanned by me out of a catalog picture, then enlarged to actual size and emailed to Damon. Now he can make them in any color, or make a stencil and paint on the graphics. The Carrera side stripes on my car were painted on, same style as the prototype '73 Carrera RS.

Friday night we had an AWESOME dinner with Sam Posey as guest of honor, it was a very memorable night! Sam is really unique and everyone had a blast, including that "son of a bitch" (per Sam) George Follmer. If you ever have a chance to check out the film tribute to Sam (by the same guy who did the Lime Rock history film) see it. Sam has Parkinson's disease but is in good spirits and still working hard. I think F1 fans miss his commentary.

SATURDAY

On Saturday an excellent crowd had shown up to watch the short afternoon races including the last race group consisting of most of the '69 - 71 trans-am pony cars!!! It was like rock and roll...

This subLIME green Challenger was originally raced by Sam Posey and was looking awesome! My favorites are the 70 Mustang Boss 302s like the car behind it, and the 70 Mark Donahue Javelins (my first real car!). There were no '70 Javelins unfortunately, but there was one of the famous and successful red white and blue 1971 Javs.
Saturday morning I arrived and the tail was on the car - looked awesome!

Our next job was to apply some 3M clear film to protect the paint which Damon had recently applied to the hood/RF/LR fenders. We did it little by little and it also came out great, each piece better than the last. Lots of people were checking it out as we learned by doing... under pressure!

I tightened up the rear sway bar to get rid of some plowing and went out again and felt pretty good, pyrometer readings seemed a bit better. Saturday afternoon were the races and we were not told our qualifying times but were gridded by time, I ended up 8th out of 20 something cars, the 1st production based car (Lolas, 908, etc ahead) and one SUNOCO Lola just behind me, then most of the 911s.

Here I am in grid, with the Sunoco Lola behind me.

In the fun race (qualifying race?) I got an amazing start (or the others were sleeping, more likely!) and rocketed (?) past some 200MPH-capable cars ahead of me. I got by about two of them before the 1st turn, another one in the 1st turn, and maybe one more in the esses. Of course they soon re-passed me on the back straight but it was fun while it lasted. I did seem to have built up a good cushion to the other production cars behind me.

On the second lap a white Chevron B6 with BMW 2000 power was catching me, and tried a VERY late pass into the uphill. I did not easily yield, and he locked up the brakes and fell in behind me. But he was very determined so at West Bend when he tried again I stayed wide and let him go, then he ran away from me on the straight and was never seen again.

A few laps later I was approached by a Mallock M11B driven by Marc Evans of New England Classics. It is sort of a Lotus 7 squooshed wedge looking car with a cosworth engine. He caught me and zipped by, I tried to keep up with him but it was tough. The Hoosiers were HEAVY feeling and the car very mushy and tipsy, though the grip was great and they never gave up. I measured some laps in the 1:04 flat range which is 2-3 seconds slower than my times on the Hoosier (or even Kumho) radials with 200 pounds more weight... not very impressive but this was vintage racing and everyone had the same tire handicap.

We had a full course yellow and a pace car start, at mid race, but did not give as much action as the 1st start. I managed not to let any powerful cars pass me at the start due to a nice early jump by the car ahead of me (and me!). There was a '72 Pantera painted like the Partridge Family's bus getting closer to me by the end of the race but never close enough to get by due to his power on the straights. The race ended and I felt pretty good, working twice as hard and going 3 seconds slower... My PCA and vintage friend Prescott Kelly also from CT was going well in his 2.5 liter 911ST but seemed to be having some engine problems. Unfortunately they were major and he did not race on Monday. There was another 911 ST there, the yellow TOAD HALL car driven by another neighbor, Steven Segal from Ridgefield. The fourth 911 running was a nice early 2 liter car, a red 911 owned and driven by P.A.R.s Paul Resnick. I have bought a lot of parts from them since 1980 when I had my first 914. Paul was having carb problems all week.

After the last race, the track was open for BMW (event sponsor) factory race car rides for lucky ticket holders, and also for race-worker rides in several race cars. I asked Damon if he would like to drive my car to give rides and he did not hesitate. About an hour later he returned after giving some amazing rides to mile-wide-smile workers. The cars were going "a bit" fast, including the GT3 M3s (the cheating V8 machines) which were running about 56 second laps with fans as passengers! The M1 was no slouch either... passed Damon almost before he was seen in the rear view mirror! Damon was not quite that fast but he had to push to keep from being rear-ended by 400HP trans-am Mustangs. Everyone had a blast including Damon, who got about a PCA DE worth of track time for free. :-) I really enjoyed watching my car run on the track, it looked great.

Sunday was the Concours, and Damon would get the car looking better than ever, the paint and tail look great. Unfortunately we did not win this time, the classes were weird and I think we entered the wrong class. On the left is Vic Edelbrock and his Boss 302 which won. He has at least a $20,000 paint job. Monday I would head back up and try to have a good time racing.

Race Day

Monday was quite wet in Danbury but the weather map looked better for Lime Rock. I headed up and found the car covered by my small tent with the duck tail installed. There was some drizzling but it was pretty dry. By the time my warm up session came, the track was quite dry so I went out with the Hoosiers to try to get more data. I had found I was running my shocks at the wet setting, way too soft, which was why the car was so unstable. So I tightened down the shocks and also lowered the front of the car a bit as it was stting very high due to less gas and no ballast that I use in PCA racing.

These adjustments seemed to help, the car felt much better. I clicked off several 1:03 flat laps which was about a second faster than Saturday. The car was much more stable and inspired more confidence, yet it was still fine over the BUMPY Lime Rock surface, maybe due to the tall, soft tires adding compliance. I came in for some data and Damon found the pressures were fine, about 30PSI all around, and left side temperatures were quite good. Fronts were about 160 and rears 180, even from inside to outside each tire. This was about perfect for the cool damp day we had. I decided I could tighten the rear bar a bit more so we did that after the session for the race and left the rest of the settings alone.

Rain seemed to be approaching mid-day so the TRANS-AM group was moved up, putting our group last, with the highest probability of rain. At the Left is Damon wearing his prized orange BRUMOS hat from the Rennsport Reunion. He and I had pit passes so we walked among the T/A beasts and got some good pictures. The Trans-am race was fun to watch but the cars were rather slow, and there were several passes each lap, each driver had a chance to lead the race. The rain was holding off and it looked like we would have a dry track!

I was gridded 8th, behind the Mallock and Chevron, and ahead of the Pantera and #6 Sunoco Lola-T70 of Bruce Waller. Bruce has owned this car for decades but just restored it and this was their first time on the track! A tough one for sure. behind my car in the yellow raincoat is my old friend Jake Gulick who came to watch. He's now racing an RX7 in ITA, he used to autocross with me in the mid to late 80s. He also has a yellow 911 much like mine, which he has driven at a few PCA DEs.

On the track ready for the pace lap.
After a good warm up lap, we headed down the hill and the leader was going pretty fast, so I changed up to 3rd gear. Normally I start in 2nd gear, this would make the 2-3 shift problem a non-event! As I got into 3rd, I could hear some cars accelerating, I sped up a bit to keep up with the cars ahead, but the Lola blew by me on the right and the Pantera on the left, well before the green flag... most races would have been waved off but the starter still threw the green flag and we were off!! I got a good inside line into the first turn, broke late, and got a bit under the Lola. But he turned in, forcing me a bit over the curb, so I let him by. I did not see the Pantera, watching my video later it seems he had a bit of trouble on the outside entry to big bend and lost a lot of speed, so I passed him without knowing it. Nobody else other than the Lola seemed to get by me at the start so I was fairly pleased!

Here is the group coming into the lefthander just aftee the start, the Lola just ahead of me and the Pantera just behind! I dogged the 400+ HP Lola for a few laps, but his power and warming tires finally enabled him to pull away, while we both pulled away from the group behind us.

In my rear view mirror there was very little action, but I could see the Pantera every now and then. I drove careful but hard laps, and soon the Lola slowed, probably fuel pickup problems again, so I was back up to 8th place. I got a bit bored and concentration was hard to keep running all alone, until the lead 908 (seen out front on the left) and friends lapped me. I could almost hang with them in the slow turns, at least enough to admire them for a few seconds! One of the leaders had a problem, the yellow Lola T-70 of Vintage Racing regular and Danbury business neighbor Duncan Dayton, seen above leading the first lap. That moved me up to 7th place.

The red (of course!) Ferrari 512 (seen on the left) of John Giordano was gaining on me just as I was gaining on the red 911S of Paul Resnick I was hoping I could pass someone in this race, even if it was a lapped car. I left a lot of room on the inside of Big bend but the Ferrari was cautious and did not pass, so I went all out all the way to no-name straight and kept him behind so as not to lose time to the 911. The Ferrari passed on no-name straight but I could not quite catch up to the 911 by the uphill. I was closer in West Bend, but there was not really room to pass, so I decided to wait and get a jump on the downhill and pass on the main straight. As I pulled alongside at the end of the downhill turn, I saw a white car in my mirrors. I hadn't seen anyone up to that point, I was very upset that again due to my cautious passing, that someone was passing ME. It was the Chevron, and he passed me just before the finish line with the checkered flag waving. I thought that he was passing me for position but could not figure out how, as I had never seen him until the time he passed me. It turned out that he had lapped me... so it was not a pass for position but did not make me feel much better.

I soon found out that the only incident of the week was between the Mallock and Pantera fighting behind me. This picture is of these two cars waiting in the pits for the stewards to check their cars after the race, which ended early for them. The Mallock driver claims to have been blocked by the Pantera (the Mallock was faster but much less power, I know just how he feels...) and they made contact in the lefthander(?). The Pantera hit the LF cycle fender of the Mallock (seen bent in the picture), and became a bit airborn according to my family who were watching. I think the Mallock driver was blamed for the incident, he may not be invited back next year. I'm sure it was also the Panteras fault for not giving racing room. The look on Marc's face is priceless. The pantera had damage on it's passengers side which can barely be seen in the picture.

After the race we packed up quite efficiently thanks to help from all my friends and family. Our pits are on the left, Andy and Laurie Sanborn's turbo cabriolet next to my car, then Jens and Heidi's SC, then Damon's 911. My car ran and looked great.

The weekend was quite enjoyable although it was certainly not competitive racing for me, though I did learn more about car setup and bias ply tires. I need to learn to man-handle the car and slide it more to take full advantage of these tires, may try this at the next driver's ed event. But I can't wait to get back to my radial tires!!!!

Return to my racing pages -

Here is an excellent race report from theracesite.com by racer Peter Krause

THANKS DAMON, JENS, ANDY, LAURIE, and JACK for your help, and especially Heidi for that excellent massage!!!!!

You can also check out The group 7 entry list with some car pictures. Here is more info on the race.

- Mike Piera