re : Lime Rock Regional - Hot Eh? : rookie's report

I would like to thank all the workers and officials at Lime Rock,
which was my 1st SCCA race. The temperatures were nearly
unbearable but everyone did what was needed to be done
and tempers kept cool.
 
I ran my green/yellow '73 911"RS" in the Volvo Historic group.
I was worried about what I had in store as far as registration, tech
inspection, getting a logbook, photo id, etc but everyone was
helpful and there were no problems or delays. I have been to local
autocrosses that were more stressful!

The 90 second drivers meeting was sort of strange but was
all that was needed as people generally knew what was going on.

There were about 29 cars entered in the historic race, in 4 groups.
I was in the "big bore" group with my 2.7RS against
two other 911s (my friend Prescott Kelly in his fine 911ST and
frequent competitor Manfred Moehring), and some Corvettes, 
Shelbys, etc. Several people who entered did not show up, surely
due to the 100 degree heat. We measured track temperature on
Friday at 127 degrees. It was good to see a bunch of Volvos
running to help make the main sponsor happy.

Practice and qualifying went OK though the course felt very greasy -
no doubt due to last year's front tires and almost shot rear
tires. I thought I had one decent qualifying lap (had traffic problems
due to the large disparity of lap times in the 4 groups of cars)
but they were not posted until after I was more than ready to
go home and relax after a HOT day on Friday. Other than 
the 600+ HP ex-Trans Am Corvette of Ex-PCA driver David Cleveland,
only one other car (a fast MGB aggresively driven by 
Bob Kilpatrick) was passing me so I thought I was doing OK.

Saturday my group was not going to hit the track until
after lunch so I slept late and relaxed. Getting to the
track about 10:30,  I was pleasantly surprised to see I had
qualified 2nd in the group, just ahead of the MGB.
I knew he would be tough in the race however, with his
experience able to get him through traffic better than
my careful novice driving. My times were much slower than
I had gone earlier this year with the Porsche club
on new tires so I hoped I had some reserve speed.

I went out for practice on some newer front tires that had worn out on
the outside edge which I flipped on the rims. They felt MUCH better
than the old tires though I could not confirm with any good lap times in our
short 5 minute practice. But I felt I could take big bend much
faster and deeper with them so left them on for the race. The worn
part, now on the inside edge, was not getting any worse so I 
thought they would be safe for the race (they were fine after the race).
 
The start of the race was pretty fast. I was near redline in 2nd
so I went to third and kept squeezing the gas, then the green came out.
Of course the Corvette rocketed ahead and I tried to follow him; I guess
I did OK as nobody passed me! I was right on his bumper for most of the
1st lap as his Hoosier TDs were sliding a lot and my old radials seemed
to be hooking up pretty well. The MG was close behind though, and
got next to me under braking for Big Bend as I was too conservative
at the beginning of the race and forgot how much deeper I could
go on the decent tires. I let the MG pass (not that I had many other
options at the time!) and a lap or so later we had a pace car come out
to clear a Mini at the start of no-name. The MG lost an oil line
in big bend on a pace lap (!) and sprayed me and the entire line
around big bend with some Castrol. He then pulled off, giving me a sigh
of relief which was short lived.
 
At the restart, a Volvo P1800 driven by Duane Matejka got by. Then I
nearly spun on the oil in big bend. Even though I knew it was there, I had
no real plan of attack and slid through it, just staying on the
outside of the track. I soon got past the Volvo with a good run on the
downhill (and 40 more HP) but again nearly went off in big bend
but stayed ahead of him (he probably was too afraid of me spinning
into him to pass!) Finally, on the next lap, I found the inside
of big bend had good traction if I could slow down enough to
drive tight all the way around. The Volvo stayed close behind
and I had to drive a bit defensively but managed to stay 
ahead and not get held up too much as we started to lap
traffic after several laps. The Corvette was out of site by
then, my only hope was for him to overheat (my car runs cool
at 100 degrees with it's low stressed, oil-cooled engine - about
210 degree oil temps). 

Finally I was able to pull away from the Volvo, somewhat helped due to
him getting caught in traffic. Soon 1 lap to go, then the checkered
flag was out! I assumed correctly that I was 2nd overall and in class. 
On the cool-down lap I am waved to the inside of the uphill by the
workers and am saddened by the site of the pretty yellow
Corvette of Brion Tompkins which had crunched it's LF on the barrier... 
no longer a damage free race. Hopefully some fiberglass work will get
him back again soon. Most other races that I saw were also pretty
clean, except the 1st race, which I missed, was reported to have
several IT/SS drivers playing bumper cars. That is why I run
in vintage and PCA racing.
 
Overall, I found the SCCA NER ran a very enjoyable event! I had
many compliments on my car and people were quite friendly.
I wish I could attend more Volvo events this year but scheduling is tight.
Should be able to make more events next year, maybe I can find a 
400HP RSR engine  ;-)
 
Regards, mike piera  AnalogMike@aol.com  '72 911S Targa, '73 911RS Replica

http://members.tripod.com/~analogman/kulery.htm for (old) racing pix.
 
 ~^v^~ aNaLoG.MaN ~^v^~  vintage guitars   www.analogman.com