PCA club race at Watkins Glen 4-6 August, 2000
I finally got in to this race after being wait listed. No nice article for this race as I am disgusted with how it went, here were some posts I made to Rennlist Racing list.
Ron Savenor won my class (E) and was amazingly fast all weekend from the first session. He got an AMAZING start in the race. I qualified on the outside pole of the 40 car group of C, D, E, GT4 and GT3 cars. Of course it was wet in qualifying! The three GT3R cars behind me passed me about 1 second after the green flag, as it was dry for the race and they could use their power. Ron passed me at the top of the hill before the chicane on the 1st lap, passing about 6 cars on the way...
Here is the start of the race, you can see how many cars got by me by the first turn :
Here is one of our rare clear laps with Ron ahead, he had passed me the previous lap :
There are Turbo cars in E who continue to run with much more than legal power, just ask Jim McCarthy who has a D class 3.6 C2 Turbo with over 400 HP and could not get around these "E" cars, as well as Stephen Bauer, who's C class RS America Cup car was getting blown away on the straights and then blocked by these cars in the turns. Also there were GT3 cars blocking us at times pushing us off the course.
The sportsmanship at this "club" race was terrible, it's not worth the effort and cost to attend if we have to deal with these cheaters and blockers. During my race I was terrified when a GT3R 944 tried to pass me on the inside, on the only wet spot during the race, and I saw his car flipping end-over-end in my rear-view mirror. I thought it was going to be very bad, but I believe the driver ended up OK though the car is history.
I look at my original forum post (above) and I am embarrassed by my prejudice towards turbos. I am surprized that almost all of the replies I got were supportive. I don't mind running against legal turbos like Barry Lenoble (checked at Mt. Tremblant) and Dr. John Sullivan. John's car is probably as fast as you can legally make a 951TS and he pulls me by 2-3 car lengths on the straight at Pocono (which he should), hopefully I make it back up in the tight stuff. But cars like the '86 951 E car that Barry wrote about, who was caught at Pocono running the weber jet restriction to increase boost, was blowing by John and I like we had our handbrakes on, and he was still allowed to run. And seemed real fast again at the Glen... along with 2 other similar looking but later model 951S's that were also too fast. These guys are clever, they hold back when passing another E car but when a C or D car gets near them they let it fly.
I never had a clear lap in the dry the whole weekend so I don't know what I could have run, but my 2:16 flat was timed when I was held up the last 4 turns by a GT4S car, and using my practice tires that have 5 races on them. I have done low 2:15s on old tires so I should be able to run in the 14s at least. But not 12s like Ron! (though I did find more speed in future years)
I brought that 944T to attention at Pocono, and was very happy with the speed at which the officials checked it for compliance. Maybe I should have done it again at the Glen but I hate looking like a jerk. I thought I could just outdrive them even though they are cheating badly but at a track like the Glen I did not succeed.
Here is another post from Rennlist that helps me remember why the race was so lousy :