Portland 15/16/17th May 2004

They say that racing should be fun. I can honestly say that yes it is one of the greatest things that we are allowed to do legally that is truly exciting, but boy there is usually a lot of work involved. This was one of the hardest weekends that I have run in a long while, but it is amazing what adrenaline can do.

Over the winter Eric Purcell our agent in Portland, fitted the new front and rear suspension for the car, widening it a couple of inches and making new bodywork to fit. As with most things involved with racing, the timetable of manufacture was running behind schedule, (glad to see that it is not just us Brits who have these problems some times!). Eric and I didn't get the bodywork until 1:30 a.m. on Friday morning, and ended up working all through the night to get it fitted to the car. We drove straight from the shop to the track and barely made it through tech in time to run the first practice.
The new front splitter fluttered badly during practice, shaking the whole car. After the session, we rushed back to the shop and fabricated some struts to keep the splitter stable, getting back to the track with less than 5 minutes to install them and get to grid for qualifying. I was very tired by then, but with adrenaline pumping I still managed to hustle the car around to get the pole - a 1:19.7, while oversteering badly the whole time. The tail hadn't cured enough, and was very flexible, causing the car lose all the rear downforce - the car remained pretty loose all weekend. We went back to Eric’s for a quick sleep after the session (and a badly needed shower) and returned to the track later to prep for the race. We finally got some decent sleep late Friday night.
Saturday morning we both felt rejuvenated, but the track was damp from a rain/fog combination. It never really rained enough to guarantee wet tires, so we started on slicks. The track was damp until about halfway, but got pretty good for a few laps in the middle of the race. The car was still oversteering, but a little less, and the front end was still just planted, so I was able to get down to a 1:18.55 in the race, which would have been a new track record!. (Why ‘would have been’….I hear you ask!) In impound, the tech crew took a fuel sample of our VP C-12 out of the car, and we failed the reagent B test, a test that checks for oxygenators. This was particularly frustrating for Eric, as he had the drum of fuel tested three weeks prior to the event, and it passed no problem. After the disqualification, we had the drum tested, and the fuel from it failed as well, so it wasn't an issue with contamination in the fuel cell, it was simply a matter of the fuel changing sitting in a drum for three weeks. We cleaned out the fuel cell with Avgas, drained it again, and pumped in some Sunoco 110 leaded. After Regional practice, we tested the fuel from the car again, and passed without issue. The end result was that we lost the finish and the win, and have to ensure that we finish the remaining Nationals to qualify for the runoffs.

We late entered the regional race, to get some more time on the new suspension, and ran the regional practice Saturday afternoon. The conditions were pretty good, and we made some more improvement with the back of the car - still very little rear downforce, but we were compensating with some set up changes to just make it as good as we could that weekend. I ran several low 1:18's, including a 1:18.03 - I was really trying to get a 17sec out of it, but the lack of rear downforce just wouldn't let me attack the circuit as I would have liked. I still had to make sure that I brought the car home in one piece, but we much happier that we have made improvements to the car with the new developments.
Sunday morning's regional qualifying went reasonably well, but track conditions had already begun to deteriorate. I managed a 1:18.36, setting a new qualifying S2 record, but was disappointed not to get in to 17sec bracket! After a fair amount of head scratching and data analysis, we managed to come up with the completely wrong set of changes for the race, and the car was the worst it was all weekend. But at least now we know! I didn't run away from the field this time, but still easily managed to keep the lead the whole race during miserable track conditions. Many of the other S2 guys had off track incidents (some more spectacular than others!), so we felt good to just leave the track with the car in one piece.

There was a pretty good turnout of S2's for this event - it was good to see both Bachofners and two Giroskis back on the grid. Mark Shue's Swift looks to be a nice, clean car, and John Brewer is always quick - even without his shifter working properly.

In the next 9 days before Seattle, Eric is going to be busy. The jobs include having a new tail and splitter made (and allow them to cure enough!), make a new tail stand, fix the numerous little things wrong with the car, make a new undertray and diffuser for the back of the car, revise the rear bellcrank ratios, and otherwise prep the car!.

I flew back to the UK on the Sunday night after the race and slept very well even in ‘sardine’ class. The weekend was difficult both physically and mentally, especially because the fuel issue makes the double national at Seattle that much more important. It will be tougher as Dave Ferguson is planning to make the trip from CA. He is usually quick where ever he goes, so it will be a good comparison for us.

Back to the day job for a few days…….

Nik Johnson