STEAMBOAT REPORT/UPDATE
While I haven’t checked for responses yet, I’m sure you’re probably all
wondering where I went. My intentions were to report in each day on the
event, however I quickly found the time demands of racing, repairing the race
car, attending to the logisitics of the weekend, and just having fun, sent my
time to sit down and report on the day out the window. Sorry about that,
folks. I’m now in the hotel on the way back home, and hope to get this
report out to you before we leave for the final leg of the trip.
THE COURSE
A quick overview of the course this year. You enter the track from the pits
just past Turn 1, but I’ll start my description from the Start/Finish line.
The front straight is really a long sweeping, downhill right curve to the
bottom of a hill where there’s a left turn intersection. Turn 1 is a hard,
slow, first or second gear, left-hander which goes off camber just after
apexing to the downhill street. Its almost 180 degress, but not quite.
Passing is possible on the inside or the outside, and its a very exciting
corner for the first turn of the race when 40 or so cars come charging in
here. It requires HARD braking from the downhill front straight and has a
small runoff area in the form of the pit entrance if you blow it.
>From Turn 1, its a short chute downhill to Turn 2, a greater than 90 degree
right turn. Its also a turn from one street to another and has an uneven
pavement surface making it slower than you’d think from looking at it. It
also has a wide entry, but narrower exit. If you went off on the outside of
2, you’d climb the barriers and end up in the parking lot of a rather good
Mexican restaurant, Montana.... Again, a good place to pass, usually on the
inside entering 2.
The short straight between Turns 2 and 3 is the only real straight on the
course, where I’d get up to third gear, before braking hard for Turn 3, a 90
degree right hand turn to another street. The braking point for this turn
was deceptive and the consequences for late braking was either contacting a
concrete K barrier, or some hay bales. Beyond the hay bales is a deep
drainage culvert, known as Fishkin’s Pond, for Ely Fishkin, the first driver
to “Go Fishkin” there in a formula car. More about this turn later. Passing
is possible coming into 3 on the inside, and even between 3 and 4 on the
inside.
A short shute to Turn 4, another 90 degree right hander, with nothing to hit
on the outside of the exit, but an easy place to drop a wheel off the
pavement. From Turn 4, the track starts back uphill to the “S’s”, Turns 5,
5A, 6, and 6A, a series of left, right sweeping uphill turns, with Turns 6
and 6A being almost 180 degrees. This was one of the most fun parts of the
track. In my car, you could enter 5 almost a full throttle in third, and
after letting the car settle from a huge dip just prior to the apex of 5, you
could power slide left, then right all the way up the hill. Passing was
possible through this series of turns on either side, depending on where he
car in front of you was....a great corner. The dip entering 5 causes the car
to get very light just a the apex of 5, exactly the wrong time. Event
Driving Instructor, and experience racer, Walt Maas even found this out as he
managed to loop his 911 backwards off this dip into the dirt embankment,
getting the car stuck there.
Continuing up the hill from 6A, is a short uphill straight to 7, a left
hander which crested right at the apex next to the K-barrier. The track
falls away on the exit toward the curb of a divided road, you’re now driving
down the wrong side of. It immediately breaks right and heads down hill
toward the fastest part of the course. I was always cautious about 7 as
there was no room for error on the entry, or the exit. There were a few
incidents at this corner over the weekend, but I don’t know what they did
wrong. Passing on the entry to 7 is a very risky proposition, and although I
saw it tried, I never saw it completed successfully.
Going down the hill now, you are first sweeping right, then left on a 4 lane
road that narrows to 2 lanes just prior to entering Turn 8. The narrowing is
accomplished first by cones, then by K-barriers as you pass under one of the
pedestrian bridges and brake from over 100 mph, down to 20 or so for the hard
right hander of 8. Turn 8 transitions from the downhill road, to an uphill
one with a tight right hand corner where you can immediately put the power
back down after turning as the car wants to push itself into the hill. You
run up the hill on the left side of the 4 lane road and enter the “chicane”
or Turn 9 at the top. Passing is possible on either side prior to 8, on the
inside entry to 8, and all the way up the hill out of 8.
Turn 9 is probably the most dangerous turn on the course. You come up the
hill fast, on the left side of a traffic island, and then make a quick right
flip through a hole in the island to the other traffic lanes. Its at the top
of a crest so the car is light, and there’s only room for one car at at time
through the hole. Going off on the left puts you into the K-barriers, and
the right into the hay bales. More than one car went off here during the
weekend. Exiting 9 sends you down the sweeping right hand front straight
back under the flag stand.
So, there you have the course....
FRIDAY....
Friday was low-key practice time to learn the course and get the feel of it.
I followed a local in a beautiful and quick grey Alfa GTV who had been there
a number of years. He helped me learn the line, which, surprisingly got me
the fast time of the day in Group 1 (small bore production cars), around a
1:40. During my second session on Friday, I was coming up the hill out of 8,
shifting from 2nd to 3rd, when the shifter broke off in my hand! “This isn’t
good”, I thought, and managed to limp into the pits. Fortunately, I had
brought a spare and after some reworking the old parts, got it back together.
Friday saw a few cars come to grief, as a beautiful black 356 pitted next to
me caved in his door with a hay bale, and the 911 mentioned earlier.
SATURDAY
Saturday morning was timed practice, and qualifying in the afternoon for the
races on Sunday. During practice, a quick Datsun 2000 roadster managed to
best my time by a hundredth, and there were 4 of us all running together, the
Datsun, a quick TR3, the Alfa GTV, and the Cortina. I had tried to video the
morning session, and found the video cut off mid session when my car started
sputtering up the hill. I thought at first I had fuel pickup problems, but
after seeing the video replay, realized I had lost power. So after tracing
some electrical gremlins, I found the starter solenoid had gone bad and the
power post had broken internally. Again, the gods were smiling on me, as I
had brought a spare solenoid as well. Replacing that took a while, then I
decided to adjust the brakes. While doing this, I discovered that I had
blistered my rear tires in the morning session, so I had to go back to my
newly shaved Bridgestone RE71’s from the Yoko 008Rs. I ended up qualifying
2nd, behind the Datsun.
SUNDAY
Sunday we were the first race on the schedule. The track, tires, the car,
and I were all cold as we went out for battle. At the green flag drop, I got
past the Datsun into Turn 1, and managed to stay there for 4 laps. I knew he
was slightly faster than me, but I could pull him on several parts of the
track. He got past going into 3, and I got him back on 4. Then, he got me
again on 3. Next lap, I was determined to catch him as we were now getting
into back markers. Then, coming into 3 on the inside while passing slower
cars, I braked a little too late, found my brakes locked and sliding and
heading for the haybales on the exit of 3. The Cortina “wanted to go
grazing” my friend John Kerby Miller said later, as it gently nudged the hay
bales on the outside of three and the front end launched itself up onto them.
There I sat, like a beached whale, with front wheels way in the air, the
rear wheels just slightly off the ground on the whole car up on a hay bale.
A little more speed on impact would certainly have got me into “Fishkins
Pond”, but fortunately I stopped short of that. Little damage was done, a
minor dent in my valance panel, and that was it. I really felt stupid
watching the remaining laps complete while all the other drivers got to laugh
at me as they went by. I did have company though, as a grey Sprite had done
exactly the same manuver on Saturday.
Sunday afternoon’s feature race had me now starting 34th. I did win the
“hard charger” honors as I managed to make it back to 7th before the checker
fell. That was actually a lot of fun. I haven’t viewed the video yet, and I
hope it worked as it will give me a view of lots of the beautiful cars in our
race group.
So, now we’re heading home, tired, but satified after a fun weekend of
racing. Tomorrow, I’ll file my final report on the social activities, and
some comments and suggestions for next year.
Regards,
Myles
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