It never rains in California? - Cal Club R-N-R
Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2012 1:29 pm
The weather's been nice and it's been kind of boring around here, so Mike Boyle decided it was time to make his first trip to Auto Club Speedway for their big Regional / National / Regional event. And even though it had only rained for a couple days here since June, he had the foresight to rent a garage.
We arrived at Fontana right before the gates opened. The first people we saw were our Norpac pals, Mike and Andy from FlatOut Racing, accompanied by Ray Larue. The FlatOut bunch are definitely the most serious National competitors on the West Coast, they were led by Todd Harris of ProDrive fame, with Steve Fogg, "Johnny T" Tipton, Lee Douglas, and Tom "it always rains / snows in Seattle" Burt.
We saw the benefits of the garage right away, sharing ours with Aaron Stein and his dad Joe with Tordy (back from hiatus) and TJ Acker on one side of us, the FlatOut guys on the other side, and the ever-friendly MBI / Widget team across the "fan aisle". The only down-side for me was being the only systems engineer in a garage with four mechanical engineers.
The CalClub event format was creative, with SCCA-sanctioned test sessions on Friday morning, practice (1 session for all three races) on Friday afternoon, one regional qualifying (for both races), the national qualifying, and a regional race on Saturday. The National race on Sunday morning and the regional on Sunday afternoon.
FlatOut had gone through some minor bad weather on the way down which decided to follow them. So we qualified in the rain on Saturday morning.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/395389_3159251178235_1173947392_3465649_1873136378_n.jpg
All three races were good ones, each with a different flavor. I was spotting for Mike, so I didn't see a lot of the details, but I think the first race was pretty much a battle between Mike Miserendino, Todd Harris, and the up-and-coming Kyle Eggleton (finally got the spelling right, I hope). I believe there were 4 lead changes on the last lap, with Kyle taking the win by .3 second and Mike following Todd by 9/100's (apparently, more on this later). Other notable finishes were Steve Fogg in 4th, Doug Stewart in 5th (looked like he had a really good race), and Lee Douglas in 6th, and Johnny T in 7th. (gotta keep an eye on those FlatOut guys).
Our goal was to get Mikey B. into the 1:5x's, his times were dropping, but we weren't quite making it. So we sent him off the Mike M. to get help with getting on the oval while we tried to tweak the setup for the long straights and tight turns, which is pretty much the opposite of what we usually run. Both ended up paying off for us.
The weather on Sunday was just about perfect for racing. This race was almost too good to describe, apparently Mike M. and Todd H. were side by side for most of the last lap with Mike taking the lead just before getting on the oval, but Todd coming back and apparently taking the win by half a front tire. Followed by Eggleton, Fogg, Bellangee, Acker, Stewart, Tipton, and Lee Fleming (who started from the back).
I say Todd "apparently" had won, because when the had the podium ceremony (a nice CalClub feature for both regionals and nationals) everybody was stunned when they announced Mike as winner of the race. Turns out T & S had relied on the transponders to judge the results (blasphemy). Everything was settled pretty quickly when Mike handed the checkered flag to Todd and ran over to T & S to get things straightened out.
This is a good time to bring up one down side to CalClub, they group us with the Formula Fords and Vees, with the Vees in a split start. The Fords theoretically should be in front of us, and one was way faster, but the rest were a just a little faster and way less consistent than our guys are.
This came into play on the start of the third race when the Fords zoom away on the start and then for some reason check up coming off the oval, it looked like a real mess. Really couldn't tell what was happening, but when they came around I was impressed to see Steve Fogg in the lead followed by Lee Douglas.
Now this is where things get a little screwy. The race results don't show the same thing I remember. Mike M. keeps popping up in odd places on the lap chart. But the way I remember it, TJ Acker came from 15th and won the race. But the "official" results (still) show Mike winning. So while the official results show Miserendino, Acker, Harris, Bellangee, Fogg, Stein, and Stewart, they should not be trusted or I am having a major senior moment.
Bottom line, the only way I could have enjoyed the event more was if I had been out on track myself. And it was rewarding in a back-handed way to see nice guys that I really like to race with like Fogg and Stewart be so successful. We achieved our goal of getting Mike down to a 1:59.5, and he got quite a bit of experience in the draft (including a friendly bump draft that he really seemed to enjoy). My feeling is that this is going to pay off when we race back home.
The CalClub bunch (both drivers and officials) are really friendly, we had a lot of people make a point of coming over and thanking us for coming down. We got to hang out a lot after-race with the FlatOut gang, who are some of the funnest and friendliest people around.
If it is me that screwed up the race results, hopfully someone will correct me. I have a bunch of low-quality phone pictures I am trying to organize and will post later if anybody cares.
The next big National is Willow Springs at the end of February, which we will miss because it conflicts with our Driver's School. But we hope to see everybody at Thunderhill for the Double National in the beginning of March.
We arrived at Fontana right before the gates opened. The first people we saw were our Norpac pals, Mike and Andy from FlatOut Racing, accompanied by Ray Larue. The FlatOut bunch are definitely the most serious National competitors on the West Coast, they were led by Todd Harris of ProDrive fame, with Steve Fogg, "Johnny T" Tipton, Lee Douglas, and Tom "it always rains / snows in Seattle" Burt.
We saw the benefits of the garage right away, sharing ours with Aaron Stein and his dad Joe with Tordy (back from hiatus) and TJ Acker on one side of us, the FlatOut guys on the other side, and the ever-friendly MBI / Widget team across the "fan aisle". The only down-side for me was being the only systems engineer in a garage with four mechanical engineers.
The CalClub event format was creative, with SCCA-sanctioned test sessions on Friday morning, practice (1 session for all three races) on Friday afternoon, one regional qualifying (for both races), the national qualifying, and a regional race on Saturday. The National race on Sunday morning and the regional on Sunday afternoon.
FlatOut had gone through some minor bad weather on the way down which decided to follow them. So we qualified in the rain on Saturday morning.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/395389_3159251178235_1173947392_3465649_1873136378_n.jpg
All three races were good ones, each with a different flavor. I was spotting for Mike, so I didn't see a lot of the details, but I think the first race was pretty much a battle between Mike Miserendino, Todd Harris, and the up-and-coming Kyle Eggleton (finally got the spelling right, I hope). I believe there were 4 lead changes on the last lap, with Kyle taking the win by .3 second and Mike following Todd by 9/100's (apparently, more on this later). Other notable finishes were Steve Fogg in 4th, Doug Stewart in 5th (looked like he had a really good race), and Lee Douglas in 6th, and Johnny T in 7th. (gotta keep an eye on those FlatOut guys).
Our goal was to get Mikey B. into the 1:5x's, his times were dropping, but we weren't quite making it. So we sent him off the Mike M. to get help with getting on the oval while we tried to tweak the setup for the long straights and tight turns, which is pretty much the opposite of what we usually run. Both ended up paying off for us.
The weather on Sunday was just about perfect for racing. This race was almost too good to describe, apparently Mike M. and Todd H. were side by side for most of the last lap with Mike taking the lead just before getting on the oval, but Todd coming back and apparently taking the win by half a front tire. Followed by Eggleton, Fogg, Bellangee, Acker, Stewart, Tipton, and Lee Fleming (who started from the back).
I say Todd "apparently" had won, because when the had the podium ceremony (a nice CalClub feature for both regionals and nationals) everybody was stunned when they announced Mike as winner of the race. Turns out T & S had relied on the transponders to judge the results (blasphemy). Everything was settled pretty quickly when Mike handed the checkered flag to Todd and ran over to T & S to get things straightened out.
This is a good time to bring up one down side to CalClub, they group us with the Formula Fords and Vees, with the Vees in a split start. The Fords theoretically should be in front of us, and one was way faster, but the rest were a just a little faster and way less consistent than our guys are.
This came into play on the start of the third race when the Fords zoom away on the start and then for some reason check up coming off the oval, it looked like a real mess. Really couldn't tell what was happening, but when they came around I was impressed to see Steve Fogg in the lead followed by Lee Douglas.
Now this is where things get a little screwy. The race results don't show the same thing I remember. Mike M. keeps popping up in odd places on the lap chart. But the way I remember it, TJ Acker came from 15th and won the race. But the "official" results (still) show Mike winning. So while the official results show Miserendino, Acker, Harris, Bellangee, Fogg, Stein, and Stewart, they should not be trusted or I am having a major senior moment.
Bottom line, the only way I could have enjoyed the event more was if I had been out on track myself. And it was rewarding in a back-handed way to see nice guys that I really like to race with like Fogg and Stewart be so successful. We achieved our goal of getting Mike down to a 1:59.5, and he got quite a bit of experience in the draft (including a friendly bump draft that he really seemed to enjoy). My feeling is that this is going to pay off when we race back home.
The CalClub bunch (both drivers and officials) are really friendly, we had a lot of people make a point of coming over and thanking us for coming down. We got to hang out a lot after-race with the FlatOut gang, who are some of the funnest and friendliest people around.
If it is me that screwed up the race results, hopfully someone will correct me. I have a bunch of low-quality phone pictures I am trying to organize and will post later if anybody cares.
The next big National is Willow Springs at the end of February, which we will miss because it conflicts with our Driver's School. But we hope to see everybody at Thunderhill for the Double National in the beginning of March.