| American Road Race of Champions |
 |
 |
| American Road Race of Champions |
|
|
|
The 2002 American Road Race of Champions weekend was one of the busiest I have spent at a racetrack in some time. Chattanooga Region was represented in ITC by Will Perry, Vesa Silegren and myself as drivers, and by Carl Blevins, David Brooks, Chuck Fullgraf, Cindy Pennington, Gail Perry, Theresa Silegren and Mike and Janice Strawbridge as crew. Although I unfortunately didn't have a chance to keep up with how they did over the weekend, Michael Cartwright and Dwight Floyd represented Chattanooga as well in ITS and SPU respectively. And we may have had the largest contingent of Chattanooga workers ever at the ARRC, but that is another story. After a comfortable qualifying session, Friday
afternoon was spent working on installing a two-way radio in the car so I
could communicate with the crew while on course. The final result was what
many crew chiefs dream of: A driver who can hear but can't talk back. That
is to say, I got as far as plumbing in the antenna, radio, power supply
and earphones, but didn't get the microphone switch installed. |
2002 Races November |
|
|
The cause of the brake fluid loss was discovered after the race so Saturday evening found us changing the master cylinder in my car. Twice, actually, since the first master cylinder from AutoZone was defective. We were also busy replacing the cylinder head on Vesa's car since he had been torn down for routine inspection in impound after winning the ARRC. And then it started to rain.
Everyone started on dry tires, but with one eye always on the threatening skies. The race started without any incidents in the tight traffic going in to the first lap. Things continued going smoothly until just before the first scheduled stop when rain again started to fall. I could hear Vesa discussing which tires to use over the radio and pondered the same thing myself. I chose rains on my first fuel stop. It turned out to be a mistake, but since I haven't logged that much time racing in rain yet, I'll go with learning experience. As slippery as the Hoosier dry tires had started to become, the Yokohama intermediates were far worse. After the second spin off course I decided to come in way ahead of schedule to switch back to Hoosiers. Now things were starting to feel good again, and the skies were clearing as well! So it went for the last hour of the enduro. When the checkered flag fell Will was first in class with Vesa in second. In spite of my total of three off course excursions I managed to hang on to sixth place. My thanks to the crew who dealt with unscheduled brake repairs on Saturday night and kept things under control in spite of changing weather conditions during the enduro. Also, thanks to the Scenic City Speed Freaks who came down for helping out by working at corner stations. -- Art Thompson
|
||
November 14, 2002
Art's
2002 ARRC Report
No
time to finish the radio on Saturday since a phantom brake fluid loss that
developed during the Smashing Pumpkins autocross a few weeks earlier
continued to worsen. No fluid could be found anywhere under the car or on
the inside of any of the wheels. Nonetheless, the brake fluid level
warning light came on a few laps into the ARRC race and by about the 8th
lap it stayed on continuously. Sometimes it's good to be driving a racecar
that still has a few idiot lights left! Just one lap short of getting
credit for the ARRC, yet fearing impending doom, I retired from the race.
Vesa and Will, on the other hand, put on a good show for the fans by
driving nose to tail for most of the race, with Central Louisiana Region
member Gareth Rebstock thrown into the mix for good measure. Vesa made a
pass on the last lap to pull out the win. Will finished third due to
another last lap pass by Rebstock.
The
Sunday afternoon enduro was scheduled to start at 12:30 and run for two
hours with two mandatory pit stops per car. We were sharing crewmembers
amongst three cars and, due to the large number of entries, sharing two
pit stalls between four cars. Sirocco driver Eric Alimena of Atlanta was
our fourth pit stall mate. This meant the crew would have to deal with
eight separate pit stop situations during the course of the race. Busy!
Even so, the Rivergate pod has apparently earned a reputation with pit
marshals as doing some of the smoothest stops. Despite making decisions on
the fly to deal with changing weather and track conditions, this weekend
was no exception.
