Tuesday - 6 May

We did make it to the hotel by about 12:30 AM this morning but it felt like 1:30 due to  the time zone change again.  We were up at 6 and at the track by 7:15.  AMP is a private ‘club’ oriented motorsports park.  Members can rent garages and keep their cars there.  There’s also a go-kart track that a lot of people use.

The road course has 13 very tight turns in 2 miles with only one straight of about a half mile.  It’s very hilly and several of the hills have a ‘blind’ turn at the top that’s somewhat difficult execute if you’re airborne.   Also a tightening ‘negative camber carousel’ precedes the straight (that means it get worse several different ways all at once!).  It has a very large run-off area and was used several times today.

David took the bike out to survey the track and had to walk it up at least one of the hills.  While he was gone, I got our ‘camp’ set up and walked around the pits.  On the way to the track that morning, we had passed a barbeque place in the ‘hills’ of Georgia and it smelled awfully good for that time of day.  It turns out, they we the local outfit that had lunch available at the track.

In the morning event, David managed to execute another of his ‘tire squealing – will the headlights point sideways?’ turns again.  This time more people were able to enjoy it because it was right in front of the main spectator area.  It was ‘breath-taking’ for us, and people actually cheered when David masterfully recovered from his briefly unstable situation.  Later on, David used a different word than ‘breathtaking’…….  He ended up finishing in 44^th position.  One of our new-found friends in another M-3 beat David by just 0.023 seconds so there was a combination of threats, promises and hopes discussed at lunch.

During the noon hour, Brock Yates arranged to have the track open for ‘touring’ so I got to drive 3 laps around the course.  David went with and gave a turn-by-turn tour.  It’s a fairly technical course and they have  it marked with ‘turn-in’, ‘apex’, and ‘turn-out’ points.  It doesn’t take you long to learn that ‘their way’ works best.  It was fun.

In the afternoon, David went 3 seconds faster and finished 39^th but unfortunately our friend finished 38^th.  The ‘attrition’ of the “One Lap” is taking effect.  At the start of the event last Saturday, there was one car that withdrew.  We were losing about one a day.  This morning, there were 4 cars that did not show and another 3 did not start in the afternoon.  If you can’t beat them….  You might be able to out-live them.

We’re on the 140 mile leg to BMW in South Carolina and trying to brace ourselves for 630 mile run to New Jersey late tonight…

Monday - 5 May PM

We didn’t get to the track until 5PM and were only there less than an hour and half.  They would let two cars on the track at a time.  They followed each other for a ‘re-con’ lap and then lined up behind each other at the start/finish line.  The starter would let the first car go and after it was about a third of the way around, he’d release the second car.  They did 3 laps for time and would then exit the track for the next two.  It went pretty fast.

David said it was fun but he’d never driven a banked oval track before.  We hardly had any time to even watch other cars.  After we unloaded the car and got ready, David spent 50 minutes waiting in the car, on the grid ‘behind’ the track.  He was on the track for about three minutes and then we had to pack again to leave.

It was interesting all the different ‘lines’ that were used.  Other than a half dozen ‘ringers’, you could tell that most of the “One Lappers” don’t spend a lot of time on oval tracks.  David stayed very high on the straight sections and dove to the apex on the corners.  He said all he knew about banked oval tracks is that they can be dangerous.  There were no barriers on the corners and if you went over them, you’d never be seen again……

We’re on the road to the Atlanta area.  The GPS shows arrival about mid-night.  We have to be at Atlanta Motorsports Park (AMP) by 8AM tomorrow.

Monday - 5 May

We actually got to the hotel last night at 8:45 (we travelled ‘briskly’).  We had time for one adult beverage and a light dinner.  We were up before 6 and at the track by 7:30.  There was no food concession at the track for breakfast, so we unloaded the bike for David to check out the track and I took the car back toward  town to food, ice and some other supplies.  When I got back, David was in his driving suit anxiously waiting for his ‘race car’.  Our run group didn’t go out until an hour and a half later, so we sat around with other teams telling ‘stories’.  If you think fishermen can tell tall tales, you should listen to amateur racers sometime…

David was marginally happy with his first run, other than having the car briefly pointing in a different direction than the intended ‘line’.  He recovered nicely but probably made more noise than speed through that one corner.  His time for the 3 2.7 mile laps was 7:03.

A Mexican/Cajun food concession truck finally showed up just before lunch.  It was sunny and very hot, so we had to go find shade under the covered pit area where most of the other teams were hanging out.  We picked up telling more stories (they’re getting better all time).

We had time to check the car over and after careful consideration, we increased the tire pressures slightly.  It must have worked, because David’s time for the second heat was 1 second faster than the first.

We’re now on the way to Mobile to race on a high-banked ½ mile oval track.

Sunday Memphis, PM

David had a time of 4:43 in the morning race and finished in 49^th position.  After we got groceries out of the back seat and set the suspension correctly, his time in the afternoon race was 4:24 and finished in 41^st place.  He’s really starting to have fun at it now that he’s getting more experience.

Keith did the drag races.  In the first race, I was lined up a against a GT-R.  I had a great start off the line and thru 1^st and 2^nd gear.  My next shift was ‘clean’ but ended up in 5^th.  (I’m pretty sure that 3^rd would have been better…..).  Anyway I finished with a 15.228 seconds which was good for 41^st place overall.  That first race did not include my ‘reaction time’, which is the difference between when the light turns green, and the car actually trips the laser light.  My reaction time was.353, which I thought was pretty good for my first time.  I don’t know what happened to the GTR, because he was still at the starting line when I finished.

The second drag race is called a ‘bracket elimination’.  The idea is to ‘predict’ you next overall time from the green light to the finish line.  The car who comes the closest to their ‘dial-in’ time wins, unless they go faster than they predicted, which is called a ‘break out’.  I knew I could go a bunch faster, if I re-read the numbers on the shift knob, but really didn’t know how figure how much that might be.  If I just added my previous “ET” and reaction time, it would have been 15.581.  I guessed at 14.7 seconds.  I was put up against a Corvette with a dial-in of  13 seconds which meant that I got a 1.7 second ‘head start’.  I ended up running a 14.883, which was .183 seconds off my guess.  He ran a 13.149 which was .149 off so he beat me by 0.034 seconds.  My reaction time for that run .544 which was .191 seconds slower than the first run.  Had I been that much faster on the second run I’d have ‘broken out by 0.008 seconds anyway…….

Right now we’re in 6^th place in SSGT-2 Small Bore (also last….) and 49^th place over-all.  We’re getting better, but so is everyone else.  We’re having a great time, and are tying to compete, it just that we’re not so serious about it since Curt’s not here.

Right now we’re on a 410 mile run to NOLA Motorsports Park, south of New Orleans.  We could get there between and 9 and 10PM which would be great.

Sunday - Memphis Speedway - AM

We made good time to Memphis last night and got in well before Midnight (gained an hour back coming from Eastern to Central time zone).

It’s been hot today and we found a pit area that would give us shade under the grandstand in the afternoon heat.  When we opened the trailer, we found that two boxes of Dubler chocolate had come apart and sent pieces everywhere.  That was an excuse to empty the trailer and figure what all was in it and where it was.  We double-checked the tire pressures and David rode the track on the bicycle.  We cleaned the car and got it ready to go.  They gridded all the cars early and David had to sit in the car for over an hour before our ‘run-group’ got on the track.  David and organized a ‘special’ group of guys to go out with:  Old and slow….  David was first, followed by two Porche’s and another BMW M3 (followed by a BMW M6 driven by a BMW Performance Driving School instructor with a film crew).

After the race, when David got back to the pits, he took off his helmet, grinned at  me and said, “We can do better next time…..”  Apparently, we had forgotten to change the suspension from the ‘soft; highway settings from the night before and he realized that in the first set of ‘esses’ he ran.  He was also distracted by a Tupperware container full of seasoned bread sticks that got loose in the back seat.  After my first ‘expletive’ neither of us could stop laughing for 5 minutes.  We now have formal checklists for everything that has to be done both before a race and also before we leave the track for the next destination (two signatures required).

This afternoon we have one more road course and then the drag race and ‘bracket elimination’ drag races.  I’m supposed to drive for the drag races.

BTW:  We properly set the suspension this time……