Las Vegas Motor Speedway - Derek Daley Track
April 7, 2002
"The Fastest Team in Las Vegas"

The Hope. The Glory. The Scandal.  The Redemption. The Truth!

Wow.  What a day.  All kinds of stuff happened, lots of Raceaflais stuff going on. First off, I forgot AGAIN to set my alarm clock back to PST time, as I set it to Mountain time the day before to try to fool Daylight Savings Time. (I was tired and confused).  Alarm goes off today at 5:00 a.m.  I wake up, stumble into the shower, and then realize that I screwed up AGAIN and forgot to change the clock back to PST, so I really woke up at 4:00 a.m.

Track Map for the Derek Daly road course

We get to the track early, and we see about 20 fighter planes taking off from the Norton Air Force base in spectacular fashion.  A couple of the pilots must have seen us prepping our cars for the morning session, as a few of them went straight up in the air at a 90 degree angle, as if to say, "You drive wimpy vehicles....this is how a Real Man drives." 

Greg Ross and Carl McGinn

For the first morning session, we send out Erik in the NSX.  Erik has never been on the Derek Daly track, but before the first run group, he zipped around the track on our gas powered scooter to figure out his line.  He goes out and runs a 1:22.9 or so, and I believed he ended up smoking everyone in the Red run group for fastest time of the day after the first session.  Yes, faster than Team Radical, who must have been going, "Holy shit, what was going on in the Flamemobile!".  Erik comes in pretty pleased, despite the fact that we didn't get the hot lap timer setup properly, so he had no idea which of his lines was the fastest.  But he said now has the car dialed in pretty good with the splitter, the new wing, the shocks, the alignment, etc.

A bunch of people come over to our pit area asking Erik how often he has been to this track.  He says it is his first time, and no one seems to believe that he could pick up a track that fast, and also beat the Radicals on a track that seemed to be more suited to their racecars that handle well and have aero mods.  But perhaps the Flamemobile now has better aero mods and handles better than the Radicals.  <grin>

Rupert Bragg-Smith and Mike Vietro

After he comes in, there is oil all over the motor.  Uh oh......looks bad....but car was running good.....it appears that one of us uh.....forgot to put the oil cap on the car after checking it yesterday.  Morons.  The day before, it filled up the oil catch can, but we are hoping it was because it was overfilled, due to confusion with how much oil goes into the car if there is an accusump installed.   Anyways, we clean up the motor, get a Honda oil cap from the local parts store, and it looks like we are back in business.  Hopefully the motor is fine.  It should be, it is giving us good HP, and not smoking or missing. Oil pressure, oil temp, boost, fuel pressure, and water temp all seem fine.

Erik has been accused of being a blatant cheater in a earlier life.  He used to race a Datsun 240Z in the 1990's, and apparently he got to be so fast in some of the SCCA "Spec Classes" that people were demanding that his motor be torn down and inspected for "Cheater Parts".  This  happened TWICE to him after spanking the field, as his competitors could not believe that someone could be that fast.  Both times after tearing down the motor,  they didn't find any Cheater parts, and was allowed to keep his 1st place trophy. The judges and his slow-ass competition walked away scratching their heads, "Humm...he can't be that fast, he must have done something illegal to kick everyone's ass".  Unfortunately, that is TWICE that Erik had to have someone tear down his motor and then rebuild the motor under the eyes of the SCCA folks, and uh...he has to pay for the labor.   And people wonder why more drivers don't race with the SCCA......

Bryan Sheldon and Chris Petersen

Erik also ran autocross, which definitely helps when trying to get used to a new track.  Shit.....it is gonna be the "Revenge of the Cone Dodgers."....I might have to get some autocross experience under my belt.  Our typical race day at TCRA/NASA/Alfa events consists of 3 practice sessions, and then a race, so we get 30-40 laps of practice in before we have to run our fastest laps.  At the Speedventures events, we get 50-60 laps to compile out fastest lap.  The autocross drivers only get 3-4 laps TOTAL on their competition days to turn a fast lap.  In the OTC format, those who can get put up fast laps with minimal wear and tear on the car and tires have a huge advantage.

Mumford shows up, scrambles to get his power steering hose thingy fixed at a local hydraulic place, and gets back by lunch, missing the first two sessions. 

I go out in session 2, and run a sloppy 1:24.x, about two seconds off of Messley's blazing laptimes.  Damn......I suck.....I need more seat time in my car.....need to learn to how to memorize a track better....and perhaps drive better.  The Radical guys start learning the track, and they run faster than Erik did in the first session.  I am peppering Messley with a hundred questions a day on suspension theory, cornering theory, etc, and his advice seems different from what you see in text books or learn in "driver's school".  Normally I would say, "Bullshit" to some of his advice, but he ahhh...kinda backs it up when ever he steps into a car and kicks everyone ass.  And I am going to use that information that I learn from him to kick YOUR ASS when we meet on the track. <grin>

Michael Schriber and David Gilbertson

Jason and Erik drive the S2000 today, with them turning good laps, and putting us solidly in first place after two sessions.  Around this time, I start getting tired, and I elect to not drive the S2000 today in session number 3, and instead rest in the back of the RV while we wait for Rick and Wayne to fight their way to the top.  No use beating on the car if we don't need to.   Plus I am averaging about 3 hours of sleep a night for the past four days.   We have a 5.5 hour tow to the next stop, and I am driving the 48 footer. 

In the morning, Mumford finds the parts to get his power steering fixed, so he and Messley are working on that.  After lunch, Mumford fires up the Comp Coupe for the first time in 24 hours, and blazes to 2nd place overall behind a Radical, and the other Radical in 3rd place, and us in 4th.  It appears that Radical #3 blew up the day before, so there is no chance for a 1-2-3 Radical finish for overall bragging rights for the event.  In any event, the Radical guys are now sweating a bit and going, "Hummmmm.......this ain't gonna be a cakewalk with the the Comp Coupe AND the Flamemobile putting pressure on us".

Toby Weir-Jones and Tony Colicchio

Wayne and Rick are fighting tooth and nail in U2, which is a very tough class.  They fight their way to second place for laptimes today, except Rick blows the head gasket in the process.  Uh oh....luckily Rick knows how to fix this, and will do so for the Buttonwillow event tomorrow.  The plan is for Wayne, Rick and Brent to take the RV and get parts for the head gasket, and we will blast towards Buttonwillow in the trailer.

Right before we leave, Jason and Erik check out lap times, and it appears that the Audi S4 blasted in front of us for session 3.  The Audi guys leave early for Buttonwillow, probably thinking we can't beat the time, or they were being Cheating Bastards and tried to slip off quietly so no one would look at their lap times.  Jason and Erik swap out the tires/rims on S2000 for our best set of lightweight rims and good tires, and we send "The Terminator" (Erik) out and he puts us back into 1st place at the end of the day!  The Pulp S2000 is still gunning to be King of its class!

Martin Check and Scott Mosier
 

We did not run this track at last year's OTC, so we don't have anything to compare it to.  But this year's laptimes are:
 

So we are still in the hunt for Overall podium finish.  The Ondrack/Salter team seems to be having some problems with their car.  They were pegged as coming in with a highly competitive Fiero, but they seem a bit off the pace so far.  But last year, it took them a few tracks to get their 914 dialed in, and then they took the overall championship.

Over in U2 land, Wayne and Rick have their hands full trying to chase down the Smith/Arnold BMW.  The Allan/Allan NSX takes third, with rumors of them being at this track recently to take a driver's school.  The Kennedy/Rhoades S2000 is right behind them.

In Touring 3, we narrowly beat the Babcock/Babcock team at this track.  There are three cars within a second of each other for 2nd place.

Surprise performance of the day probably goes to the Rogers/Barnard Shelby Cobra in the Unlimited American GT class.  Who says Old American Big Ass Iron can't handle.  They ripped off some 1:25.x laps.  Hummm....must be their home track.

Or, you argue that the surprise performance of the day the Flying Miata Turbo Dog with the sixth fastest time of the day from the U3 class! 

We stop at Primm to get gas for the S2000, and grab a quick bite to eat.  BP calls me, and tells me that one of the teams has crashed their support truck and trailer on I15, and they completely shut down the freeway about 20 miles outside of Baker.  I used this as an excuse to hit the blackjack tables.  Over by a closed down section of the craps table, there is a guy on the floor, shirt open, and paramedics are trying to revive him with CPR, defibulators, pumping his chest, etc.  Ain't looking good.  I take a seat at a table closest to the incident, figuring that karma would mean that this unfortunate individual sucked all the bad luck out of the surrounding area, and I will have good luck at the Blackjack table and kick some ass.  Turns out I was right, I end up winning about 400 bucks, offsetting my $200 I lost the night before at Sam's Town.  So up $200 for the week.

JR Smith and Rod Golsan

Wayne was taking some of those Vivarin caffeine pills today to stay awake.  Unfortunately, he took five pills.  So now his face is flushed, and he feels like he has heart palpitations.  He ends up at a walk-in medical clinic to make sure he isn't gonna die.  After a long wait, they prescribed some Valium for him. So now they are a good 3 hours behind us on the road.  We were going to blast to Buttonwillow and starting working on Wayne's car this evening, but now it is past midnight.  The RV won't pull into BW until 2:30 a.m.  We decide to sleep until 6:00 a.m., then get to the track early and start swapping out the head gasket on Wayne's car.

Lance Boicelli and Alex Brooks
 

At the beginning of the OTC, everyone had this great strategy that they are just going to do 10 super fast laps in the first morning session, and then drive to the next track.   But now it looks like people are staying around for that last 4th session, just to make sure they can either hold 1st place in their class, or battle for first place in their class.   The competiton is heating up.....and we got five more days of this!

So far, we are 4th overall out of 53 cars with the NSX, and first in the class with the S2000.  Wayne is 2nd in class for Unlimited 2.  Mumford is tied with one of the Radicals for 2nd place.

I drove the trailer 320 miles to Buttonwillow with Erik as a passenger, Jason drove the S2000, and Brent is driving the RV.  With Wayne passed out on Valium!

Richard and Dan Lofgren

Gotta crash, looks like 3.5 hours of sleep tonight, before duking it out at Buttonwillow and then doing the 6 hour tow to Thunderhill right after that. 

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