OK… here goes. Grab a cold one, put your feet up and get your reading glasses on.
So we had this little event this past weekend at Texas Motor Speedway. It was a double Rational/double Majors Invitational Showcase thingie. No BFG Super Tour, else I would have just dubbed it a MEGASUPERSCCABLOWOUT WEEKEND in order to save pixels.
With the promise of good weather, the registration list swelled to 25, including a veritable who’s who of MWDIV and SOWDIV hot-shoes. One thing to know up front is that TMS has by far the longest hip-dysplasia-inducing-right-foot-mashing-crush-the-radiator track segment of any place we run. Some call it a “straightaway”, but I call that “boring wordsmithing”. Total time WFO comes to ~49 seconds by my timing. That’s a long time. The draft is pretty critical, but fully ½ of that 49 seconds is spent turning so it’s not a dead straight stick-to-the-tail-in-front-of-you kind of run. It’s still a long way though, and the significant braking zone at the end of it (2nd or 3rd gear LH into the infield, depending on conditions and traffic) is far and away the best passing zone I’ve seen at any track. This is due to the width of the entry and the ~75MPH burn off. I’ve seen multiple incidences of 5-wide in there. Crazy.
So on to the story.
In a weekend of amazingly memorable moments, I want to focus on the absolute highlight and most important one first.
Doug Azzarito, after being “almost dead 6 months ago” (his words) was back, and he was right back at the front of the pack. We had a great get together Saturday evening with food and drinks, complete with quality bench racing and verbal rochambeauing (the Cartman variety). Everyone pitched in, including Clay Sylvester who wasn’t’ even able to attend the weekend. Classy move by Clay, as always… a tip of my hat to you, sir! Doug didn’t have as much energy as he’d like, especially when out of the car, but he handled himself quite admirably on the track, setting fast lap in the Saturday race and thereby earning himself the pole for the Sunday qually race. I could be burying the lead here, but there are so many potential stories from this weekend to lead with that, well, I can’t really bury all of them I guess, so I’ll just drop that thought. It was WONDERFUL to see Doug out there and running well, a big smile on his face whenever he was getting in or out of the car. He ran extremely well and if he follows through with the sale of his car (which proved again to be very fast – someone should snap that car up) we will all be glad that we were there for his last race weekend. Doug, big thumbs up buddy. You did us all proud this weekend. Hang in there and beat this thing so we can go nip and tuck again on a track in the near future.

Ok, so on to the racing action. Yeesh. Where to start. I honestly don’t know. The Sat race ended ridiculously. I’d be amazed if it wasn’t the slimmest margin of victory in SRF history. The qualification race on Sunday, while everyone professed to “play it cool”, was played as anything but, with insane racing and all sorts of fiberglass and cones all over the track surface. Then came Sunday’s race, which featured some amazing racing and a feat that only this track could allow, regardless of how fast a driver is…
So let’s get to it.
Friday was a test and practice day. Weather was overcast and humid, but dry. The entire weekend was warm and windy, leading to overall slower times than I seem to recall running in the past. Test and practice? BO-RING. Keith Verges seemed to be quickest, but Funk, Clark, Bellew, Azzarito, Monroe, and several others (including me) were all up there with very similar times. Enough on Friday.

Saturday qual: We were on track at 8:30 and I had to coach my daughter’s soccer game about 45 mins away at 9:30. As such, I went out at the front of the field, ran 3 hard laps, and parked my car at impound in case it was needed there. Oh yeah, did I mention that Mike Davies made an appearance? He did. It was great to see him. He was both thorough and helpful… exactly what you want from your 20$/weekend. Good stuff, as always, Mike! Ok… so I had my street car parked at impound. Ran my laps, changed, and tore out of the parking lot whilst the rest of the crowd was still banging away looking for that magic draft lap. I had a lap with a half-draft (not “bookended” which is what I call a draft on both ends of a lap) but as I came up on the draftee I missed 5th gear and caught neutral. Argh. I ended up 5th with the top 4 being Verges, Bellew, Funk, and Clark I believe. I wasn’t too disappointed as I know you can start pretty far back in the field here and make up ground quickly with the draft. After coaching the game, then attending her basketball game, then grabbing some quick food on the way back to the track, I made it back to the garage with about 20 minutes to spare before race time. Nothing like cutting it close. Dump 2 gallons in and off we go to grid. Perfectly sunny but windy and quite warm (I think my dash datalogger temp was 102 or so during the race).
Slow 2nd gear start and we’re off. I gained a spot by T3 and was in 4th with Chris Funk promoted to 2nd and Rick Bellew between us. On lap 2 I got by Rick and almost Chris, but decided that we were fighting a bit much and letting Keith get a gap… can’t have that! We tightened up on Keith and it was a 4 car battle with a pretty small gap back to 5th (Robey/Strickler/Monroe/Azzarito battle perhaps? Can’t recall). Coming into the last corner (38MPH 2nd gear 180 back on to the straight) on about lap 5, Keith slowed waaaay down for the entry. That caused Chris to pop him from behind, putting me into Chris, and Rick into me. Pow pow pow super quick. I caught Chris’ wheel with my RF but he wasn’t so lucky with Keith. Chris lasted one more lap before overheating with a closed nose and had to retire. That left Keith, me and Rick with a small gap back to the next battle. Rick got by me in the draft and we all continued to run identical times. My engine was running really hot so I was trying to pull out into clean air whenever possible. This dance continued on for several laps until I got back by Rick using the draft and set off to close the gap on Keith (about a second, not much). The gap between Keith and I varied from probably .5 to 1 second for the next 8 laps or so, with us running basically identical times. My problem was simple. I couldn’t get onto the straightaway. I’ve never had such a handling issue in that corner but I was just terrible all weekend (compared to Keith, Rick, etc.) I’d catch Keith in the infield, then lose all of it and more going onto the straight. Very frustrating. I was enough quicker than Rick that he couldn’t help me draft up on Keith either, so we played the accordion game for lap after lap, me filling Keith’s mirrors for about a minute, then him driving away from me for 40 seconds. Rinse and repeat. Finally I got a good run coming on the straight and was able to draft by him. Rick was a couple of seconds behind us at this point in a battle royale with Robey, and the next pack of Monroe, Azzarito, Kramer, Strickler, and both Bosiens was about 10 seconds adrift of them. I led for two laps, repeating the same accordion where I’d get a bit of a gap on Keith (not much, but a little) in the infield, and he’d be all over me on the straight. He chose not to draft by as he knew that Robey and Rick were lurking, so on the last lap, coming onto the straight (the spot where he was way better than me), he made his move. I’d have played it exactly the same as he did had the roles been reversed. He was so much quicker coming off the corner and under low RPM power that he didn’t even really have to wait for the draft. By the time we caught 4th gear he was already moving up outside of me. By the time we approached the front straight (not even in 5th gear yet) he was even with me, pulling ahead. “Oh jeez” I thought, “not again”. This same thing happened to me when Robey made the same move on the last lap a few years ago and beat me by .019 seconds. No way a finish can get any closer than that. Or could it? As Keith pulled ahead of me, we both caught 5th and stalled out a touch. His momentum dwindled and I got a little bit back. We see-sawed all the way to S/F and crossed it… dead even. Neither of us knew who had won! I didn’t know until they waved me to the checkered flag (nice souvie flag and pretty cool to get to run a victory lap!) that I had taken it by a nose. And “by a nose” I mean “by .004 seconds”. That’s four one-thousandths. The average eye blink is around .2 seconds. Fifty times longer than the margin of victory. Just insane. I heard that they had to use the photo to tell for certain. Awesome. Keith and I happily congratulated each other on a spectacular race afterwards, with the promise of more to come on Sunday. Rick finished out the podium with Robey right behind him in 4th.

For Sunday’s national/major race, instead of a qualifying session there was a qualifying race with grid position based on fast lap from the Saturday race. This played out exactly as designed as Chris Funk turned a quick lap before DNF’ing, so he started 2nd in the qual race (rather than starting last based on a DNF). To further underscore how the pack (peloton? ) was where the big draft laps happened, Keith and I having led the majority of the race only had the 8th and 7th fastest laps respectively so that’s where we started the qual race. Doug Azzarito turned the quickest lap in the race so he got to lead us to the green. We were all very pleased to see him up there and we all promised to play it nice and clean since “it’s just a quallly race!”. Well, that didn’t turn out to be the case. Doug led us to another great low 2nd gear start and he held his lead for the first few corners. Coming off of the oval and into the infield, Rick, Robey and I tried to go three wide through T3. Rick wasn’t having any of that (maybe because he had Robey outside of him) so I went to the dirt on the inside to minimize contact. I was up to 6th at this point but Keith got by me on the exit. I got by Rick in the infield at the same time that Chris took the lead from Doug. As we headed out on to the oval for the end of the first lap, Robey got a solid run on Doug in the braking zone. As they headed onto the straight, Robey’s RF made contact with Doug’s LR. To keep from spinning Doug, Robey checked up (the smart thing to do – well done, Robey!) which caused Keith to get into him. In the process, Robey’s nose lost half its weight and Keith got his nose folded up. This melee promoted me to third behind Chris and Doug, with Chris having a nice lead from the brouhaha. Robey continued on but was wounded on the straight I believe. Keith made it one more lap before having to come in due to overheating. By the end of the straightaway I had pushed Doug up to Chris and as he got by in T4 I followed on the inside, promoting us to first and second. On the next lap I was so close to Doug going through the chicane that I popped out a couple of feet to get a better view of the turn-in… and WHAM – cone to LF corner at about 80, popping the nose up and bending the clip that holds it to the center section (foreshadowing!). For the rest of the race the nose floated about 3 inches up the entire time on the straights. Less than optimal for straightaway speed. I chased Doug for a couple of laps, tried to pass him once into T3, got it all wrong, slid past the apex and he over-undered me… good stuff. I got by him a couple of laps later in the draft and led for several laps, but on the last lap he got me back on the straight. As we came into the infield, Doug drove a very defensive line and I couldn’t get by him. Coming onto the oval for the checkered, I could tell that Rick and Scott Monroe (third and fourth) were going to have something to say about how this played out. I got a run on Doug going into the last braking zone and we exited onto the straight side-by-side. Doug pulled ahead of me in third and fourth gear but then Rick decided that he’d draft me and that was the difference. With Rick pushing me I crossed the line just ahead of Doug, with Scott just behind Rick. I think .6 seconds covered all four of us, or something like that. All of that just for a qualifying spot in the national! Classic. (and yes, I’m using my video to recall all of this – the racing was so great that it really did all run together in my mind. I couldn’t remember which race had what finish, let alone what action).
I need to take a break… I’ll return with Sunday’s national race, and yep, it was every bit as exciting as Saturday and Sunday AM!

Sunday’s race… based on the qualification race Sunday morning, I started on pole (again, only because Rick chose for me to do so ) with Doug outside of me, Rick in 3rd, and Scott Monroe in 4th. After folding up his nose and overheating, Keith would start dead last. I predicted to him (and others) that by lap 3 he’d be in the top 8 based on the ability to charge through the field at this track using the draft and the multiple passing zones per lap. I figured once he got to around 6th or 7th he’d start to run into some resistance. Apparently I was close, but still a bit off on my prediction.
I led us around to another low 2nd gear start (heck, the first two worked so well, if it ain’t broke…) and was in the lead heading into the infield on lap 1. Now, between the qual race and the national start I had worked to fix my nose where I clipped the cone that morning. Focusing on that, I neglected to fix the center section clip (d’oh) that had gotten messed up, causing my nose to float like a parachute on the straights. I would come to realize this about a third of the way through the race when it came loose again. But back to the action…
I honestly can’t recall who was behind me, but I had told everyone that the best possible thing for Keith was for me to be in the lead since I was the slowest of the top 5 or so coming off of the last corner and on to the straight. As such, I was going to hold up the front pack a bit as long as I was in the lead. And that’s exactly what happened. I ran solid but unspectacular laps out front, with no one passing me in the draft. While this was happening, Keith was using book-end drafts and (I presume) deep braking to pass multiple cars per lap, setting fast lap(s) in the process. By lap 3 I had a few car length lead up front and Keith had moved up to third behind Rick Bellew, right on our tails. Quite a run! We had a bit of a three car breakaway and I led for some time (again, not the best guy to be leading). Eventually Rick and Keith blew by me (literally) on the front straight nose to tail with probably a 6-8 MPH differential. On the next lap (lap 6 or 7 I think), Keith drafted by Rick and completed the last to first run. We ran all over each other (Keith, Rick, me) with a comfortable, though not huge, gap back to the next guys (Robey?) until Rick got back by Keith a few laps later. On that same lap, as we exited back on to the straight, Rick (still leading) had an arm restraint catch on his shifter causing him to miss the 2-3 upshift. In this crowd, you usually get one mistake max… and sometimes none. That one would end up taking him out of the running for the win. Keith inherited the lead with me in second, and Rick fell back about a second or two, still well within striking distance.
It was clear to me that Keith had me covered in the last corner and going onto the straight again, and I had his measure if not a little bit more than him in the infield. Pretty much just like Saturday. Hmmm. Funny how that works out (even though I had made a change hoping to get off the last corner better – it didn’t help). So just like on Saturday, Keith and I ran around nose to tail (except on the straight when he’d leg it out) running identical lap times. At some point during these laps my stupid nose popped loose again and became my favorite parachute. At one point in the video you can see me reach up to try and hold it down on the straight… arm... restraints… not… quite… long… enough…
Anyway, with me unable to catch Keith in the draft until the very end of the straight usually, Rick was able to hang on to us just a second or two back. I made a conscious decision that I’d rather have a 2 car race for first and second than battle for the lead and let Rick back into the fray (he was none too happy about this decision afterwards ) so I gave Keith the “let’s go” hand signal so he’d know that I wasn’t going to dive bomb him into T3. We did this for probably 5 laps, with at least 3 or 4 them me passing up an opportunity to pass him going into T3, by design. As we got near the end of the race (I’m low tech – I go with a velcro’d watch on my steering wheel and I estimate what time we should get the 1 to go) I came to the conclusion that one of two things was going to happen:
1) If Keith led me onto the straight on the last lap he was going to win by several car lengths
2) If I led him onto the straight on the last lap, Sunday’s finish was going to look just like Saturday’s, giving me a shot
So it was clear that I needed to get by him. On the penultimate lap (I didn’t know it was such at the time), I got next to him exiting T4. I would have been on the outside going into the 4th gear chicane and I believed fully that it’s not a 2-car wide area… so I backed out figuring I had some more time. Keith managed to provide an entire car width on my side all the way through! So I felt pretty silly having passed on the opportunity which would have almost certainly netted me the lead, but discretion is the better part of valor I guess (unless it possibly costs you the race ). I even gave him a thumbs up on the exit and immediately felt stupid. I mean why give a guy who’s beating you a thumbs up because he gave you racing room when you didn’t even take it? I laughed a bit in my helmet (and again when I saw the video) but I stayed glued to his tail. We hit the straight and he pulled away… and they gave us the one to go! By my watch, at least a lap early, but oh well (on the vid you can see me give the starter the universal driver signal for “yo WTF, it can’t be last lap yet?!?” which again, isn’t really a motion worth much in the grand scheme of things). Keith had a nice gap on me unfortunately at this point and my nose was just floating around like crazy so I bore down and tried to sniff every bit of draft I could. As we approached the T3 braking zone I had closed on him but wasn’t right on his tail. I knew how he’d been taking the corner and knew that I could get a nose inside him if he ran the same line. He did, so I did, and we went two wide to the apex. We had a slight wheel-to-wheel bump and exited similarly with him on the inside for T4. I held him to an inside line and then dove out to try and execute another over-under like on the previous lap, but this time he got a great exit and I couldn’t get up next to him. I followed him around, exited onto the straight behind him, and lo and behold, he beat me by several car lengths (.3 seconds I think). Rick finished a second or two back to round out the podium. So Keith had a great run coming from the back, and then an even better one hold me off as we went side by side through multiple corners on the last lap. I’ll go two wide with him anywhere, any time, and I hope he feels the same about me. All in all, a spectactular weekend of racing, and yes, I will post some video highlights at some point.
So far this season I'm very pleased that I've managed to get 4 national races, a hard core qual race (as hard on the tires as a regional at least), and 3 national qualifying sessions out of one set of sticker tires. Not bad, though the rears are now bald. If you treat these tires right, they will reciprocate.

To date this season has been a blast, with some excellent racing coming out of the Majors pilot program (I didn’t ever write up Hallett, but it was great too… just not quite as great as TMS).
My thanks go out to everyone who raced tight and clean this past weekend. Thanks also to the guys who came from pretty far away to race this weekend, and also I want to thank everyone who helped make the Doug shindig happen. Thank you all - great stuff!

Denny

Wow, that was looong. Sorry all. Flame away.

No flames,, thanks,,

No flames Denny - excellent job reporting on Doug A. Sorry I missed the event but will see you at TWS.

Great write-up, Denny. I've been in a self-induced coma recuperating from the event, but now I'm ready to recount the weekend...

6 months ago, I was wondering if I had one more day. Last Sunday was the day I was hanging on for. My brothers came with me to crew, and that made a big difference. We spent Friday making sure the car survived a year in the garage. My times were in the lead pack, so I felt pretty good about my goal to be the top non-runoffs finisher. I took a set of stickers out for Saturday's qual, but could only secure 9th. I got a good start in the race, managed to side-step the turn 3 melee, and then found myself in a battle for my life with Kevin Bosien. He worked me hard but clean, but by the time I shook him off my year-old tires were in no mood to continue. I was in 5th, but out of touch with the top 4, who were running nose-to-tail. As I nursed my tires, Scott Monroe got me, as did Steve Kramer. I was able to repass Kramer, but Scott pulled away and took 5th (and the top non-runoffs finisher). When he got the award he passed it on to me, which was a very generous gesture.

The results said I pulled off the fastest lap, which put me on pole for Sunday morning. I considered protesting the results, but decided instead to get ready for the party in the garage. Lots of fun listening to Denny's crash stories and Kramer's imitation of a grumpy old man!

Sunday was cooler and overcast, so I had hope for my old tires. I got a clean start, but Chris Funk got by me on lap 1. I used a strong draft (hey, I told everyone my motor is stout) to retake the lead, only to find Denny on my tail. When he sailed by, I was happy - you don't want to be lead dog on this track. I had a few laps to practice my draft pass, and realized I couldn't catch him before the flag - I'd have to make my move with 1 to go. When the time came, Denny offered little resistance (more charity, perhaps?) but then I'd have to hold him off. Of course I slid wide on the last corner and let him get underneath me, which meant I had to take the long way around. With a firm bump-draft, Denny was able to get me by 1/2 length at the line. I didn't care, I was back, even if I did pass out in tech!

For those who want to ride along, you can watch it here.

I didn't think I could top the A.M. race, but I went out Sunday afternoon anyway. My crew chief worked hard trying to get my car to turn right, but it meant I had to re-learn the all-important entry onto the oval. I stayed with Denny for a few laps,but there was something wrong with the car. People were picking me off easily, and I had to hang on for another 6th-place finish. This time I earned the top non-runoff finish, which I of course gave to Scott, who was DNF because of a gearbox. I found out why I was struggling - a rear wishbone was rattling around! I don't want to think about where I'd be if it let go.

This event was BY FAR the highlight of my year. Thanks to my crew, to Perkins & co. for all the help with my car, Dalrymple & co. for answering all the questions, and for everyone who made the Saturday night party a success. I will get a lot of mileage from this memory!

Some pictures from last weekend's SCCA Majors event at Texas Motor Speedway (click on any image for a larger version).

The accomodations at TMS are quite nice...



Hard at work in the garage:



The SRF field taking the green flag on Saturday:



Working through the chicane:



Roger Krebs said he thinks he cut a tire...



Close-up of Roger's hitchhiker:

Great posts, guys!

How does Denny remember all that stuff?? Really? I have to take a peak at my Texas Drivers License to get me put right every morning. Nice job Denny and Keith. A lot of fun and clean racing at TMS. Really liked the Qualifying race and the schedule. Kept everybody in the race mode all weekend.

Robey - Denny has nothing better to do. I think he watches his video in slow motion, takes notes, transcribes the notes to his computer - then he adds more of whatever pops into that Denny mind of his -and only then does he post it for all of us to share. I'm like you - I start to the bathroom and forget where I'm going after 3 steps.