If you ran at Oakland on 11-7-99 and didn't run yesterday you missed a near
"re-birth" of that surface.
As the most vocal, of the doom-sayers, I didn't expect that surface to get
usable far a long time, if ever.
On 11-7 we seriously broke through the slurry in about six places, while
creating an un-drivable loose gravel surface which resulted in many
street-tired cars having especially good times (sorta like in the rain),
especially in later run groups while cars on DOT "race" and real race tires
"skated" accross the gravel. Yesterday, at the mid-day walkthrough there was
no evidence of any significant break-throughs and there was noticeably less
loose stuff than we'd had at mid-day on 11-7.
Another four months of weather really helped! Or, maybe John went out and
gave the surface a "talking-to".
Yesterday, In an effort to evaluate and compare the surface from first thing
in the day with later run groups, Chris Cox took on the disagreeable task of
driving the GS in both the first group and in the regular, SS class', 7th
group. BTW, Chris had good qualifications for this job as he had run
Victor's BSP Datsun 240Z in the first group and had fast scratch time for
the day running in the first group on 11-7. The car was on street Firestone
Firehawk SZ50 tires (my "rains"), in anticipation of the expected loose
course by the end of the day. In the first group, Chris ran a very
respectable 44.7 while the fast time in the group was Tito Solis' OSP
Starlet with a 44.0
At the mid-day walk-through, the course looked like there was a pretty good
"clean" line everywhere and Chris felt (after also having ridden with
several folks in the other morning groups) that the DOT legal race tires
were going to be better than the street tires.
When we ran in the seventh group, there was a good clean path around almost
the entire course. The clean line was sometimes a little tighter than you'd
like, but there was no problem getting hooked-up throughout the entire
course, if you stayed on the clean path. During his 7th group fun-run Chris
was able to improve on his morning time by running a 44.3 and he felt the
surface was to the point where the car would have been quicker on DOT "race"
tires.
In the actual SS class competition, Kevin Steven's winning time was on DOT
"race" tires, with the street-tired GS finishing in second a ways back.
This event, unlike the situation on 11 7, resulted in some good fun
competition for all run groups with the surface condition being more of an
aside than the main focus of most discussion.
For future events at Oakland, except for rain, we'll be back on DOT "race"
tires
The Oakland surface is again our "friend" and should only get better, with
less loose stuff, as it continues to mature.
For anyone who is reluctant to run at Oakland after either experiencing, or
hearing about, how bad things were on 11-7, Your fears are unfounded after
yesterday's experience.
OAKLAND IS BACK!!!!
Don
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