Well the team was made up of a few people I met through the Skip Barber Racing school...
About 13 months ago, I attended the 2-Day Advanced Racing School at
Laguna Seca, and met Greg Strelzoff and David Cheng, we remained
friends and while I went to play baseball during the season this year,
they travelled for the "summer series" racing open wheeled cars in the
school's racing program. I recently completed a few weekends myself as
part of their "winter series" at tracks like Laguna Seca and Road
Atlanta, where I met Felix Serralles and Rob Slonaker (one of the
instructors). We decided in November to form up and join forces, and
with only about 3 weeks of planning, decided to take a run at the race.
Arriving on Friday Dec 4th at a track that we'd never driven on, and
getting the car competitive was quite a challenge but I guess since
we're all rookie racers and good friends, we managed to be enthusiastic
despite the challenges. Strategically, I watch the most of it on TV
(ALMS, F1, etc) and after talking to my personal coach we decided to
try and beat the faster teams in the pits, and run our own pace instead
of take the risk of damaging the engine, gearbox, etc by trying to go
too fast for too long. My argument was- once the sun comes up at 7am
(which still leaves 5 hours of racing!) we can up the pace and having
learned the track, really push our drivers harder.
I set our driver rotation the night before the race on the notepad of a holiday inn express:
(we are allowed to start the race with a full tank, in our case 14 gallons or so but only can put in 10 gallons per pit stop)
Race Start
11am
CJ- with
strategic runs of 85-100+ mins, we'd be able to shave off almost an entire stop
compared to teams stopping every 80!
Noon, Race Finish
Green Flag!!!
11am
I'm behind the wheel for the start- 45th out of 70+ cars...loud and
crazy for sure, but surprisingly clean racing for the first 2 laps.
That's when I started trying to pick my way through the field, nice and
cautiously. climbed up to about 6th in class from 8th, and 36th
overall when I hopped out and handed the car to felix.
2pm (3 hours into the race)
We could see it turned out to be a good call, our modest little team
kept plugging away and despite losing laps to the bigger teams, we made
them up by averaging more laps per fuel stop, by race end we'd use at
least 20 gallons less fuel than other teams! With 25 hours to race,
we knew fatigue would be a factor, so we set rotations for drivers to
sleep in the RV, eat meals, etc.
Throughout the race we ended up drinking a bunch of Phiten Aqua Gold
water to hyper-hydrate and just like my baseball team - I handed out my
drivers and crew some X30 necklaces from Phiten as well.
5pm, dusk
Night rolls in. Teams attach or turn on seriously bright headlights to combat the 13.5 hours of darkness that approach...
While some of the other teams had drivers crashing into each other from
fatigue and sloppy nutrition, we charged through the field with our
high beams into the night and saw that our strategy was paying off.
We saw our car lap for up to 105 minutes on 10 gallons of fuel while
the teams we chased or chased us could only manage 85!
The problem was, around this time we'd also been losing pace, in big
chunks per lap. So I decided to switch the order and put Rob in rather
than send Greg out for his second stint- we changed tires and pulled
the data off the car so we could see how it was running, how greg's
pace was affected by technique vs from tires. This was crucial!
David, who was such a key to our weekend as a spotter on the back side
of the track (yelling "go faster through turn 10!!!" on our radio
headsets...haha) actually took about 75 minutes with Greg on the
computer and looked at the telemetry.
In an endurance race, every driver and team member has to perform, and
this switch allowed Greg to clear his head, see the adjustments, and go
produce- which he did later in the race, big time! We could not
afford to skip him or minimize his time in the car.
The problem is now our order was screwed up. Felix was recovering from
his long double stint which was about 3 hours in the car straight, and
I had to save up for the 100% critical double stint from just after
midnight until just before 4am. We HAD to find a way to cover that
order
Need a ride?
They say, if you ask loud enough, the solution will appear...well out
of thin air- Jonathan Edwards, the 17 yr old prodigy winner of the
"Atlantic Championship Series" was just kind of hanging around our
tent- turns out that Rob was his instructor as a 12 or 13 year old at
Skip Barber. So as they chit chatted- Edwards was introduced to me
and I made the easiest audible call ever- "you wanna hop in later?"
2am- temps are dropping down around 30* F.
After 13 hours of racing, I was in the middle of my second tank of
fuel. Part of my technique when I drive, just like when I pitch is
to stay as loose as possible, and tell jokes, or play little jokes with
my teammates. Racing is no different- after busting out about 10 laps
of the same laptime within less than half a second and 3 or 4 within
.02 of each other, I belted over the radio "Get into the groove, you've
got to prove..."
3am- I ask Rob over the radio- "how long have I been in the car? it
feels like I've done 120 laps in a row!" Rob- "confirmed: long ass
time."
345am- Edwards hops in. Edwards on the radio- "man this car has no brakes into T6!" yeah dude we know!
4am- Edwards sets our team's fastest race lap at that point. Thanks!
Collective agony from the drivers as our pride is washed away by the
talent of the prodigy- after 9 laps he was already faster than all of
us.
430am- Greg on the radio to Edwards- "hey so how does driving our mazda street car compare to an indy cars?"
"Oh it's way faster! So much more grip and power!" haha we're all
in the RV dying of laughter as we take turns joking with him.
515am- Edwards out of the car, Rob back in. Rob decides to shut down
the big lights and just use high and low beams, because visibility is
better. Great! Rob, having to follow the previous stint from
Edwards, is partially demoralized but lighthearted about getting beat
by someone less than half his age.
The Turn of the Tides
640am- Greg in the car, with help from "Data" Dave Cheng, is now on
pace! This enables us to change our fuel strategy. Time to drive the
car harder and bring the fight to the competition. We start gaining
overall positions back as some cars are breaking and crashing around
us, and greg is unlapping our car from the competitors.
810am- Greg is now running fast- is completely a new man behind the
wheel as the sun shows there have been a lot of casualties during the
night- over 20 cars are grossly disfigured from accidents or parked and
broken- unable to finish.
930am- Felix and I are ready to finish the race strong as planned,
Greg is yelling and screaming WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO I DID IT!!!! his last
3 laps over the radio. Car#36 is looking good. We've calculated
that our fuel strategy has paid off and we will have prevented 2 pit
stops and saved over 5 minutes because of that compared to our
competitors.
Sprint to the Finish
935am- Felix hops in the car, we put in enough gas to get him around
for 80 mins and I tell him- "okay we've gotten this far by saving gas,
driving the car easy- I want you as fast as you can go"
1020am- Our chief competitor, the #84 car, has just pit for fuel.
After being 3-5 laps down on them the entire race, we've come to the
same lap count as them...around 610. Can they make 100 minutes around
the track? Another mazda shatters its left rear wheel and spins 3
times into the dirt. An acura's oil system explodes and sets fire to
the rear of it, and also makes the track slick. Five cars slide into
the dirt outside turn 6, Felix not among them
Full Course Yellow
1032am Race restarts to "green flag" conditions.
1035am- Felix blows past Edwards' fastest lap by over half of a
second. I make the decision to keep him in the car and have him
finish the race. If he pits and I jump in- it could take too long and
we could lose too much ground to the #84 car. He will pit for fuel
only and go back out. I'm done driving for the race...and upset
because I wanted to take the checkered flag! But- as the team
owner/race engineer- I'm 1000% proud of how far we came since friday
and just want felix to go as fast as possible.
1050am- The 84 car is now behind us by 2 minutes but we have to stop
for fuel. I make the call to put in 10 gallons- we'd been debating
whether to save the 30 seconds and just put in 5. If we have to
drive easy to save fuel I say- we'll be watching the other car drive
away sooner or later. full fuel it is...
1115am- We're collectively nervous in the pits as we chase the car in
front of us in the overall standings for 15th as the 5th in class mazda
chases us down. They're gaining at least one second on every lap
against us. They will catch us if we don't figure something out!
1140am- nervous, the 84 car is only about 20 seconds behind us now and
is being driven by a legit professional from the Speed World
Challenge. we've lost almost one minute in the last hour and are
trying to avoid telling felix over the radio.
1150am- another Mazda from Team MER is slotted behind us, car #81- and
we go on the radio to explain why we need them to stay there...and help
"you mean I get to play defense for the #36 car? DONE. We're out of it anyway"
1157am- every pit crew member and spare driver, wife, dad, etc is
standing on pit wall waving at the cars passing by. We're nervously
looking at at the flag stand- yelling "THROW THE FLAG!!!!!" The gap
is now 4 seconds to the car behind us in position, but the #81 car is
keeping about 3 car lengths off of our rear bumper- it's pretty hard to
pass 2 cars that are pretty much the same speed as yours.
12pm- Flag flies! Felix brings the #36 home 16th overall, 4th in
class with a 3 second lead on the 5th in class #84. I do my best
"race engineer" voice over the radio and congratulate him on doing
awesome but just end up yelling YEAH WE DID IT!!! over and over.
In the end, the teamwork of my 6 friends in attendance as team members
was the difference. We survived the 25. Not bad for a ragtag group
of rookies!
For more updates from C. J. Wilson, follow him at
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