Rochelle's race at LagunaSeca June 6 '93
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| Well Laguna was not at all Seca... In fact it was wetter then hell.
|
| We had gone down to Laguna on Tuesday to a Capri Club event as a
| shake down. It was chance for Rochelle to get back behind the wheel
| for the first time this year and to get familiar with Launa Seca.
|
| I had on put new wide wheels, new tires and new front fender flairs
| as well as new brake ducting. The car wasn't running well during
| practice and it quit on the last lap and had to be towed in. I
| found it had little or no spark so I took out the transistor ignition
| and borrowed enough parts from Andy to put a conventional ignition in
| it. I also changed the coil. The battery was running low and we were
| sharing a battery charger with Andy, who was having similar problems.
| We got hasseled about noise level and had to put on a new muffler.
| We were pitted next to a new Viper and accross from a Ferrari, both of
| which left because of sound problems.
|
| Electrical problems continued during Qualifing. We switched from one bad
| battery to another. As the cars were gridded before the race Jack and I
| were making bets as to which of our cars would run out of electricity
| first. Andy's E-prod MG lasted only a few laps. I think Ix's friend's Capri
| didn't even do that well. Rochelle kept lapping though the car was sputtering.
| To finish she only needed one more lap. As she sputtered down from turn
| 9 to turn 10 on her final lap she turned into the pit lane. She was one
| turn and about a 100 yards from the checker but she was afraid that if
| she continued on into a cool down lap she would never be able to make
| it up the long steep hill from turn 5 to turn 8. It was not a totally
| successful day but it was a good shake down for the SCCA race the following
| weekend.
|
| .........
|
|
| Saturday morning found us once again driving the 2 1/2 hour trip to Laguna
| towing the GT6 behind our 20 passenger bus full of tires and tools. The
| weather prediction was for intermitant rain Saturday and clearing Sunday.
| Saturday was practice-qualifying and Sunday the race. We had a new deep-cycle
| battery in the race car and I had reconnected the transistor ignition.
|
| Our practice was 1 pm. When we pulled in to the paddock it was packed. We
| found space in the far back corner unloaded the car and setup our pit.
| It showered off and on and sometimes looked like it would dry out. We
| found out that the windshield wiper motor in the race car had decided
| not to work. We did not have a spare. Several drivers suggested Rainex.
| After some search a bottle was produced. We decided that driving on "slicks"
| might be a mistake. We didn't have proper rain tires (this is California)
| so I put on another set of wheels with an old set of Yoko 001Rs. Rochelle
| went out and qualified on them, spinning out only twice. 8^) It was
| drizzling a bit and there were a few fairly wet spots on track.
|
| After her session I made some repairs to the air dam and a fender flair
| which had suffered from a longish cross country drive between turns 9 and 10.
| That night we went to bed in the bus looking forward to a nice dry day
| for the race. Rochelle needed to complete one more race to get her novice
| book signed off.
|
| A couple times during the night I was awakened by a considerable downpour.
| At 6:00 am the alarm went off and I turned on the radio. KCBS in San Francisco
| assured me that the unseasonal storm was gone and dry weather and blue skies
| were the order of the day. In reply the heavens parted and buckets of water
| came down. About 7:00 I dragged myself and our coffee pot over to Andy's pit.
| It was raining there too.
|
| I had optimisticlly put the slicks back on the night before. The big-bore run
| group race wasn't til 11:15, plenty of time for the dry weather to find us.
| At 10:15 I started changing back to the treaded tires while the sky opened
| up and buckets of water poured down my neck. Jack came over and provided help
| and moral support.
|
| The shower stopped. Rochelle warmed the car up and drove down to pregrid.
| There were puddles of water on pregrid. About a quarter of the cars were
|running
| tires with some kind of tread. Some had real rain tires. Some had slicks with
| grooves hastily cut in them. Some the tread was so faint you couldn't tell
| what it was. Most ran slicks and hoped that the track would be dry enough.
| There were 6 cars in our class. Most of the other cars were bigger. And
| VERY fast. A several of the bigger cars had failed to qualify the day before
| and were starting at the back of the pack with plans to blast their way
| through to the front. A few of the cars had just packed up and gone home.
|
| The cars went out on the pace lap. They came around turn nine formed up in
| two nice rows, the pace car pulled off into the pits. As the cars crossed
| the start-finnish line and into turn one, the green flag fell. The cars got
|as
| far as the enterance to turn two before the mayhem started: One of the
|leaders,
| A very pretty Mustang, got tagged from behind. As he spin he was hit by four
| other cars. I was Very happy to see Rochelle come around on her second lap.
|
| The car seemed to be running OK and though her times were much slower then
| some of the other car, they were good for a novice in those conditions.
| From were I was standing in the hot pit lain I saw several more spins and
| some bent metal. More of the cars were ending up out of the race. Rochelle
|kept
| coming around past. The checker fell. As she came through the "corkscrew" on
| her cool down lap, one of the course workers held up two fingers to her. I
| wasn't until later that we found out what they ment. As she pulled into the
| pits, I hurried to meet her and congratulate her on completing the race and
| getting her novice log book completed. We also congratulated the guy who was
| pitted next to us for winning first in GT3.
|
| At that point someone else walked up and congratulated Rochelle for having won
| second place. Now found out what the course worker had been signalling.
Of the 45 cars entered Saturday, 30 cars started the race Sunday. Some of the
others had been knocked out in practice, some chose not to run. Of the 30
starters,
23 finished. Four of the six GT3 cars failed to finish.
As we collected the official results and walked over to get her trophy, We
stopped to buy a souvenir tee-shirt with the names of all the race drivers on it
and the name of the race event:
********************************************
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* 3rd Annual SCCA SUNSHINE FAIR Regional *
* *
********************************************
/Dick
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