Watkins Glen Independence
The Fourth of July is one of my favorite days of the year. Everyone dresses up in their best red, white and blue ensemble, we eat BBQ and watermelon, play games and celebrate our blessed nation with a big, loud fireworks show. This past Fourth of July weekend, in the rolling hills of upstate NY, World Challenge hosted its sixth round of the championship at Watkins Glen Raceway.
The Watkins Glen race weekend marked the halfway point of the World Challenge “Sports Car Wars” season. Our Horton Autosport/Truspeed team unloaded focused and ready to do battle on the track for those precious driver and manufacturer points. The talent in World Challenge is such that on any given weekend a number of different drivers may see the top step of the podium. No doubt we were hopeful this weekend.
Watkins Glen International is a bit out of the way and getting to the track can be a bit of a headache. My headache started Wednesday evening when our engineer for the #57, Andris Laivins, arrived into La Guardia late due to bad weather. We began our journey from the big apple and were immediately stalled by traffic, eventually escaping to the open highway and arriving outside of Watkins Glen at a quarter past three in the morning. Beginning the weekend on minimal sleep isn’t the best circumstance, but one we have dealt with in the past. Thursday’s test day went well for us despite the visible signs of our trek the night before. Team owner and crew chief, John Horton, hurried to finish our preparations for Friday as we would have two practices very close in time followed shortly by qualifying. I of course went through my cleaning and waxing ritual, making our Porsche not only pretty to look at, but slippery through the air. Andris and I were residents of the track for the rest of the race weekend, opting to stay in my Haulmark Toterhome (a semi truck with large living quarters) rather than sacrificing precious sleep driving to/from the hotel each day. Camping at the track is a blast, especially when you have all the amenities of home. We settled in and watched a classic film, Bill Murray in “Meatballs”.
Friday’s practice sessions left us near the sharp end of the field, but still lacking a bit of speed to keep up with the strong efforts of Ron Fellows and the Volvo’s of Pobst and Pilgrim. Interesting occurrences in the practice sessions were cause of some drama in the GT field. Kuno Wittmer had a big moment due to an ABS malfunction and made contact with the tires entering “the boot”. Fortunately for Kuno, teammate Jeff Courtney loaned out his Kenda Tire Viper in a great show of team sacrifice so that Kuno could qualify and race for those valuable points. Andy Pilgrim was again plagued with mechanical problems on his Volvo, in this case a cracked exhaust manifold caused a bit of damage to the #8, scorching some sensitive bits. Our #57 Porsche showed its endurance roots and soldiered on, running like a top.
Friday afternoon’s qualifying session was a bit of a mixed bag for everyone due to the fact that we normally qualify in the morning when the track is nice and cool. The afternoon session was near the high temps of the day. Some teams and drivers ran well on the greasy track while others struggled. We found ourselves third quickest behind the Rocket Man, Randy Pobst and my racing hero, Ron Fellows. I was able to put down a lap late in the session to barely beat out Kuno’s time which he did in a borrowed car – showing all of us just how talented he is. “Nice Guy” Jason Daskalos put his viper fifth.
We were very pleased with our qualifying effort and I could almost taste the champagne. Horton looked over the car and prepared it for the race while Andris poured over data and smart-guy stuff with the Truspeed crew. Then we made a team exodus from the track to Watkins Glen where we had dinner and took in the Small Town USA lifestyle. Mom, Dad and sister, Kielle were there to help make the good time complete. The family dropped Andris and I back at the track where we enjoyed the pre-4th fireworks show with the Zeiglers and James Sofronas.
Race day was upon us and in very abnormal fashion we got to sleep in! The biggest chore of the day was trying to keep cool and not think about the excitement to come. I was doing okay until the cars took their positions on the pregrid. I was salivating at the chance to race against two legends in Pobst and Fellows whose cars were the only two ahead of ours. Knowing the hard numbers of what those two had ran in practice and qualifying was a sobering thought, but one I promptly omitted from my thoughts.
After hours of waiting and thinking, we were finally strapped in and starting our parade lap. I could not believe how the quiet Watkins Glen track had transformed overnight into a bustling page out of Motorhome Magazine. For a few minutes I drove around the track in awe of the spectacle, perhaps knowing that would be my only chance to take it in before the visor went down and we waged war on this little piece of asphalt. Everyone had American flags proudly displayed, grills blazing and lawn chairs aimed at the track. What a way to celebrate our country’s independence!
Pre race ceremonies were awesome and my 3rd place starting spot on the grid gave me a good look at the happenings. Hearing our national anthem belted out over the PA system while the Stars and Stripes waved on the grandstands was a great experience. Then the butterflies started to come as we left the front straight and began our warm up lap.
As the start lights came to life I focused on staying patient; “slow on the clutch, dummy”, I kept saying to myself. I was patient and got a “blinder” of a start, as Greg Kramer and Tom Hnatiw would say – a start so good in fact that I smacked the rev limiter in first, killing much of my momentum. I ran defensive against two very fast vipers into turn one and exited with a gap. Fellows was nowhere to be found, but I doubted it would be that way for long. Trying to chase down the Rocket Man in his AWD Volvo wasn’t going well for me. Then by lap two the man who had disappeared on the start was back in his yellow corvette. Ron gave me a little love tap on the rear just to say “hi, I’m faster; please don’t make this too difficult on me”. I of course ignored that suggestion and did my best to fight the laws of physics. Ron and his old technology pushrod V8 proved their strength as he motored by me up the hill exiting the toe of the boot. “That was quick” I thought.
In an effort to try to keep pace with the two guys ahead of me I ran the Porsche very hard. A little too hard in fact as I went too deep into turn 8, missed a downshift and found the grass on the far side of the corner. Things were still okay until I tried the throttle and found myself staring at where I had come from. I waited for a gap to rejoin the field and slotted into 9th. Infuriated with myself, I drove even harder now to regain those lost positions. I got up to sixth before being thwarted by a very determined James Sofronas. His car was not handling particularly well, but he was still quite able to make it much wider than a Porsche comes from the factory. Then with two to go as we entered the boot, I had a nice run on the GMG Porsche and took a look to the inside. We were already braking hard when James tried to close the door on my bid for 5th. It was a little too much to ask of his car and he spun to the outside of the corner which left me to try to catch Daskalos in the remaining two laps. I was able to close the gap by a good margin, but had to settle for our second consecutive fifth place finish; a disappointment after a stupid mistake.
We loaded our #57 Porsche with good and bad feelings about the weekend. We are making good progress on a new platform and are starting to show some solid consistency. I learned a lot about how far is too far to push myself and the car, a lesson that will come in handy at our next venue, the streets of Toronto. I moved up in the driver points, but unfortunately we are losing the battle for manufacturer points by a sizeable margin. The Porsche drivers in the paddock need to focus on working together if we’re going to have a shot at defending the manufacturer’s championship this year.
The next stop on the World Challenge “Sports Car Wars” championship will be the Honda Indy Toronto street race. I really haven’t fared too well at the street races this year, but I’m much more comfortable with the car and feel that I can take advantage of the Porsche’s handing advantages – braking deep into the corner and being early to power on the way out. I know the Volvo’s will be strong there since Randy Pobst is the defending race winner (he won in a K-Pax Porsche in 2007, the last time WC raced on the Toronto streets) and teammate Andy Pilgrim finished fourth in a Cadillac. I remember watching that race on T.V. and there was quite a bit of drama. The GT race was held on a wet track and the Cadillac of Ron Fellows had a chance to run down Pobst in a NASCAR-esk green/white/checker finish. Lap traffic thwarted his efforts, but there is no doubt the venue tends to breed yellows and drama in general. Exciting for the fans, yes, but I’m already feeling my stomach turn at the thought of going two-wide into some of those tight corners.
I’d like to thank Horton Autosport, Truspeed Motorsport and Wright Motorsports for their support at the track. Horton Autosport and I would also like to thank Neo Synthetics and Hawk Performance for their continued support of our program.
