Willow Springs Raceway
April 11, 2003
"The Fastest Team at the Fastest Track in the West"

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

Big Willow.  The track that everyone has looking forward to, as it seems to be the "reference" track for Southern California/central California racers.  Buttonwillow has too many damn track configurations to build any set of reference lap times, but everyone knows who's who at Willow based on their lap times and what they run. 

Turn 2 is 90-100 mph turn.  Turn 8 is flat out with no lifting.....if you got the balls

Willow Springs is a horsepower track with 9 turns, combining a long straightaway with 3 sweeper turns that you can negotiate on the edge from 90-160 mph per hour, depending on how big your balls are that day, how much horsepower you got, and how much trust you have in your car, your tires, and your mechanic(s).  If you have a suspension failure or tire failure in turn 8 (140+ mph), you could end up doing one of those spectacular rollovers where your car flips about 10 times before coming to a halt.  It is a track that can inspire fear in a driver, which is why it is called the Fastest Track in the West.  If you aren't scared at Willow, you ain't going fast enough in Turn 8 and 9.  Wayne and Rick are looking forward to this track...figuring turn up the boost a little, and that will take care of that pesky Supercharged S2000 that they are battling it out with.

Potential Overall Podium Finisher?

Raceaflais came out big time today.  Randy (Schatten), Kennedy, and Jason whup his ass.  They figure out that by taking a cut up old karting tire, they can stick a long nut and bolt through increasingly larger pieces of rubber to form a gas tank cap.  Putting a tie wrap through the whole thing, we can easily pull it out of the tank in case it starts falling through the filler.   Sweet. 

Raceaflais strikes back.  Luckily, Erik ran 6 fast laps before everything went south.  He ran in the 1:25/1:26 range before the car started barfing again.  Damn, it was good for only six laps.  1:25 is smokingly fast in my car, or any car for that matter.  Slicks and Aero RULE!  By the time I took it out in the second session, it was sputtering real bad, and I struggled with a 1:31 or so, as the car isn't accelerating.  Damn.....My fastest lap time ever at Willow was a 1:29.5 almost FOUR years ago, and I thought I was gonna run 1:26 today.   We spent the rest of the day trying to fix it, checking plugs, coils, electrical, ECU, etc. We can't figure out what is wrong.  It seemed pretty good driving it from Comptech back to Willow last night, but at times it did seem to be "less crisp" when accelerating on the freeway.  Crap.  The last thing we want is some intermittant problem. 

We figure that if Erik had another wack at the track, he would run 1:24 with the car, which is much better than what I thought the car could ever do.  The Radical guys keeps coming back to our garage to check and see if we are going to run faster than 1:25, because we were real close from knocking off ALL the Radicals at Willow, and putting them 3-4-5 for Big Willow...or at least forcing DJ back on the track to see if he can beat our next set of laps. Unfortunately, we can't get the car running properly, it is sputtering even more now.  We are talking to Shad at Comptech, and Shane at Autowave.   Autowave agrees to work late tonight on the car, providing we get it to Huntington Beach.  It is sputtering so bad that Erik thinks I should not drive it to H.B, we need to trailer it, just in case it leans out too much and we damage the engine.

The Hardee/Southwell Acura NSX in Touring 2

Other people had problems.  The defending champs, Ondrack/Salter, lost a tire going full bore down the straightaway, taking out their exterior body pieces, hydraulic lines, etc, so they are heading home.  Mike Schrieber broke in his mini-NASCAR machine.  Scott in the BMW blew a tire in Turn 8 as I was coming off the track due to the sputtering.  I raised my hand and went way wide to enter the pits, and Scott passes me with FOUR WHEELS IN THE DIRT on the left hand side as he had no control of the car at 100+ mph.  He and the car seem to be fine.  I was worried that maybe I didn't see him and I ran him off the road.

Andrie/Tom in the U2 NSX didn't show up today due to broken valve springs.  Coffey blew  an oil pump shaft, luckily after co-Driver Brian blasted out a few fast laps.

We are solidly in fourth place, but if we can't get the engine stumble fixed, we could lose the 4th overall spot to the Smith/Arnold BMW in U2.  Or worse yet, Wayne/Rick could jump from 6th overall to 5th or 4th..........

We smoked everyone in T3 again for our 6th consecutive win in a row, and we intend to make it 7 in a row tomorrow.  More later, I am sure I will have lots of time in Huntington Beach while Shane/Mark are working on the car......

The Olsen/Schmidt 1972 Porsche 911

Erik and I are in the trailer, heading back to H.B., to fix the Flamemobile for one last day of racing at the OTC. 

The cars that EMI Racing has worked on are doing good. 

1.  Flamemobile - 4th overall.  Fastest "Street Legal Car Entered in the OTC".  The Viper Comp Coupe is not legal to drive on city streets, nor are the Radicals, nor Wayne's car, nor the Smith/Arnold BMW.

2.  Wayne/Rick's car - 6th overall, 2nd in class

3.  Coffee/Lampe - 9th overall, 1st in class.

4.  Pulp S2000 - first in class, 6 wins in a row so far for top time in class.

5.  Dearing/Wasserman Viper - 2nd in class

Erik and I are in the trailer, heading back to H.B., to fix the Flamemobile for one last day of racing at the OTC. 

Over to the lap time analysis, starting with the fastest time at Big Willow from last year's OTC:

Last year, Wayne/Erik ran fastest time at Willow in the 944 Turbo.  This year, that record got crushed.

Mumford/BP cranked out a 1:21 to take top time of the day.  At Willow, anything below 1:30 is considered fast, anything below 1:25 is spectacularly fast (for street-type cars). 

Rick pulled a hail Mary lap in Wayne's car, and I think they took 2nd today in U2 behind Scott/Arnold BMW.   Tomorrow will be a big shootout between Wayne/Rick and Kennedy/Rhoades for 2nd place in U2.  Jason ran a 1:27.9 in Kennedy's car, but Rick ran a 1:27.5 in Wayne's 944 turbo.  We have 4th overall pretty much locked up as long as we can get the car running decent again, but no chance for a podium unless Mumford or one of the two Radicals DNF tomorrow.  Mumford/BP are 5 points behind the Radical piloted by DJ, so if Mumford beats DJ at Las Vegas and DJ comes in 2nd, they will be tied in points.  I think the tie breaker is determined by how many wins you have, and Mumford/BP have 4 wins to DJ's 3 if they win tomorrow.

Last year at Willow in Touring 3:

We were kinda worried that the S2000 would be at a disadvantage here at in terms of horsepower, but the Penske triple adjustable shocks and AABAUW allowed Erik and Jason to keep their foot on the gas longer than other people.  I didn't get a chance to drive the S2000 here, as I was on the phone for a few hours trying to get help with the NSX. 

U3 was a mind blower.  Coffey and Lampe blasted to a 1:29.539, but more interestingly, Rylan and Aaron run a 1:29.7 in a normally aspirated S2000!  With them throwing out weight, adding slicks and triple adjustable shocks, they out ran ALL the Touring cars, including the Mosler and Dearing's Viper!  They were 9th fastest overall at Willow in an S2000.    They only have 120 cubic inches, with four itty bitty cylinders.  The only cars in front of them were the Comp Coupe, three Radicals, the Flamemobile, the Smith/Arnold BMW, Kennedy's Supercharged S2000, the Coffey/Lampe 240z and Wayne's 944 Turbo! 

Update:  7:00 p.m.  
I drop Erik off at his house to get some rest and grab some clean clothes.  I then drop off the rig at Autowave and have the wife pick me up so I can get a little rest at my sister's that is about 5 minutes down the road.  I try to catnap on my sister's couch, automatically waking up about every 10 minutes or so, to make sure I don't over sleep.  We have to make it to Vegas to keep our 4th place position overall in the standings.  I get a total of about 60 minutes sleep.

The Tilley/Tilley BMW Z3

Update 3:15 a.m.
Shane and Mark at Autowave worked on the car from 7:30 p.m. to 2:45 a.m.  They have a dyno at their shop, and were trying to find why the NSX keep missing and stumbling.  They replaced plugs, fiddle with coils, map sensors, vaccum hoses.  Later that night, they bit the bullet, pulled off the supercharger and valve covers, did leakdown, replaced injectors, etc.  At 2:10, I get a call saying, "We got it.  It's fixed".  So perhaps it was a bad injector that has been screwing us up.  And the more I think about it, perhaps when I was a bonehead and didn't put enough gas in the car at Thunderhill, and with Erik running the car at 8000 RPMS and running of out gas, probably put undue stress on the injectors.....as it was starting to barf right after that.....hummm......note to self:  ALWAYS have at least half a tank of gas in the car before doing a session at the track

Shane and Mark, very late Friday night, working on the NSX

Erik is taking freeway onramps and sweepers at 75 mph in the big rig.  I feel like we are in turn 8 at Willow, barely hanging on.  The first run group is at 8:40 a.m. every day, and NASA is running the event exactly on time.  We have 4.5 hours until the first run group, and 312 miles to go......for the final day of the OTC.

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