SCCA RUNOFFS H-PRODUCTION RACE REPORT

2006 SCCA RUNOFFS H-PRODUCTION RACE REPORT

The 2006 season has come and gone, and here’s the play-by-play from the season-ending

championship race.  As most know, this race was at a new track in Topeka Kansas, and

we spent a lot of time a long way from home.  Activities stretched over a whole week,

with four consecutive days of qualifying sessions, followed by the race itself on the

fifth day.  Our fastest qualifying time in any session would set our starting position

on the race grid.  We were a bit late in preparation for the race again, as we were for

most of the season.  Fortunately we had a great engine and fresh transmission in the car,

and we really weren’t worried about that part of effort.  We spent the week prepping

the car, and packed up for the 12+ hour haul on Saturday morning.  Somewhere around St.

Louis I realized I had left my logbook and credentials at home…  DOH!

We set up our paddock in a compound arrangement with two other H-Production drivers and

an F-Prod driver.  All driving British MGs I might add.   Fortunately, I race with these

guys all season and we had a really great arrangement. MORE BELOW......

Monday we were the second group out for qualifying.  The weather had turned blustery and cold,

although it wasn’t raining (yet).  As soon as we landed on the track I could tell there was

something wrong with the handling of the car, because it wasn’t turning right very well.

Left hand turns were great, so I tried wheeling it through a couple of left turns to grab

some speed, and next thing I found myself in a lazy spin through turn 3 and nosed the car

into an inside wall.  It didn’t hurt the car mechanically, so I got back on the surface and

finished the session, and we found ourselves in 5^th qualifying spot.

The rest of the day was spent with Marnie and I (and rest of our paddock) repairing the front

end of the car, and fixing the problem which caused poor right-hand turning (my own fault for

not completely tightening a few bolts from earlier work).  I didn’t use my checklist like I

should have.

Tuesday, the weather turned worse.  It was about 50, windy, and it started to rain about an

hour before our scheduled qualify session.  The forecasters said it was to be sunny and dry

later in the week, so we really did not have anything to gain by going out and trying to

qualify in the rain, so we stayed in and avoid the session altogether, along with about ½

the of the other H-Production cars.  We spent most of the afternoon sitting in the truck

with the heat on…

Wednesday, the rain had stopped, and I was very excited about getting out on track and

running some good laps.  This was our one session to run by ourselves as H-Production alone,

with only 27 cars on the track.  All other sessions we were combined with G-Production,

resulting in over 50 cars and it was really hard to get a clean lap.  Once we got going,

I found myself driving really poorly.  I was sloppy on my lines, ragged through turns and

at the end of the session, I only managed to improve my first qualifying time by .25 seconds.

Somehow, though, a lot of other cars were also slow, and I still maintained my 5^th place

qualifying position.

That session was bad for two of the other drivers in our compound as well.  Robert Bax in

his pretty green MG spun in the same place I did on Monday, in the same way (on cold tires)

and backed his car into the outside wall very hard.  In a separate incident, Dayle Frame

spun his blue Sprite at a narrow chicane on cold tires and was hit by another driver.

Both cars sustained a lot of damage.  Both were repaired and ready to go the next day, but

it took a lot of hard work to do it.

About the only good thing to happen on Wednesday was our appearance for a Speed TV filming

session which hopefully will be part of the TV coverage for the race.  Marnie asked me to

ham it up before and after the session so I’d be ready for the camera.

Thursday was our very last qualifying session, and I had to make this one count.  Fortunately

I had gotten video from the session on the day before, so I took a lot of time to analyze

the previous days run and see where I was making mistakes.  I spent a lot of time visualizing

the turns, thinking about my performance, and knowing where I needed to change.  When I got

onto the track, Marnie kept reminding me on the radio what I needed to do.  “Turn in Late”.

“Turn in Late”. “Slow-in, Fast Out”.  With her talking to me, I was the most relaxed of any

session that week.  I tucked in behind the #4 qualifier and within two laps I knocked 1.25

seconds off my previous days time.  I was ready to keep on dropping the hammer, when we were

shown a “Black Flag All” meaning everyone in the session had to return to the pits.

Apparently someone else had spun at Turn 3 and hit the wall hard, and there were too many

safety trucks needed to enable a safe session.  The session was ended after only 4 laps.

We ended it, however the 3^rd fastest qualifier in H-Production, and it moved me to 4^th overall

for the grid on race day.  We were very happy about our performance, and optimistic that we

had a “podium car” for the following day’s race.  All we needed to do was get a fresh set

of tires, run the early morning warm-up session, and then go racing late in the afternoon

on Friday.

Friday morning arrived and we bolted the new set of tires on the car, and went down for an

early morning (8:45) 10 minute practice session.  This would allow me to get the new tires

scuffed up, and make sure there were no other problems with the car.  Imagine my surprise

when I was not even out of pit road when the car was vibrating and shaking badly!  It felt

like I had a wheel that hadn’t been tightened, so I scrambled right back to the paddock,

unstrapped myself from the car, hit all of the lugs with the wrench (they were all tight),

and then blazed back to the track.  I only managed to get two laps before the session was

finished, but I could tell that something was causing a very bad vibration, which started

to calm down a little bit by the end of the last lap.

Back at the paddock we had the tires/wheels re-balanced, and found a little slop in the

steering rack, so decided to replace the rack while we were at it.  Because of these changes

we had to re-set several suspension settings, but by 1:00 PM that afternoon we were finished

wrenching, and anxiously waiting for the race.

We headed to the grid around 4:00 or so, and got ready to go.

A few reporters stopped by and asked for quotes or opinions on the track from me and other

racers, and whether we’d make it through turn 1 OK or not, since it was a very tight turn.

I said that I thought everyone in our class would be respectful not to ruin a race at the

first turn and that we’d be fine.  Well, those words came back to bite me!   This is a shot

of the top 6 cars as we warm our tires on the first of two out-laps.

First 6 Cars On Warmup:

http://ronleiferman.smugmug.com/gallery/2001642/1/102294002

Shortly past the drop of the green flag, even before we got to turn 1, the 3^rd-place-finishing

Volkswagen Scirroco, who started behind me, jumped to the outside and made a run as we

passed the start-finish line.  The track narrowed in that spot and he couldn’t complete the

pass without clipping a concrete barrier, so his only recourse was to hit me.  It pushed

the car over a bit, and fortunately no one else was terribly close by.  By the time I

regained control a couple of cars had already gone past, so I completed the first lap in

7^th place.

First Lap / First Turn:

http://ronleiferman.smugmug.com/gallery/2001642/1/102325667

Notice the dent in his door?

http://ronleiferman.smugmug.com/gallery/2001642/4/103166094

A video of the opening lap from farther back in the pack is at:

http://www.woundedturtleracing.org/images/3-videos/2006/06-HPT/03firstracelap.wmv

I managed to dig a couple of those laps back, and was back to my 4^th place starting position

for a while, but once our lap speeds started increasing, the handling of the car became very

bad.  The contact with that car knocked some of the suspension alignment out of the car.  If

the car was being turned tightly, and you began to relax the wheel to go straight again, the

car would want to “snap” back to straight, and that sudden change would cause the car to try

to turn the opposite direction.  It was a handful to say the least.   It took me a few laps to

figure out how to manage it that way, and by that time, I had gotten shuffled back to 7^th place.

The last half of the race involved me racing fairly closely with the 5^th, 6^th and 7^th place cars.

While doing that, the handling of the car surprised me a couple of times and I had minor

off-course excursions that left me pounding the steering wheel in frustration.

Running 6^th:

http://ronleiferman.smugmug.com/gallery/2001642/4/102357424

Apparently Speed TV took a liking to Marnie in the pits during the race, as they had the camera

on her for nearly the whole time!  She did a great job calling laps and taking times, despite

the interruptions.  We’re anxious to see if she gets any h(air) time.

Just as I was resigned to finishing 7^th, the car ahead of me spun on the last lap, and I managed

to finish the race in 6^th place.  That earned me a spot in impound, and was the last trophy

position for the race.

They popped the big dent out of the VW once they got to impound, so it didn’t look so bad:

Impound lasted a few hours, as they tore down the first couple of cars to make sure they

were playing by the rules.  As expected, they were squeaky clean, and we “officially” finished the

race in 6^th place.

The champion and his crew chief: http://ronleiferman.smugmug.com/gallery/2001642/5/102368069

If the contact had not of happened, I’m very confident that we had a 3^rd-place car.  I am also

very confident that we had nothing for 1^st and 2^nd place, as those two guys were a couple seconds

a lap faster than the rest of the crowd.

Thanks for all the help, support, emails, and advice from everyone who helped us through the season!

See you next spring!

-Matt and Marnie Brannon

#22 Fiat X1/9

H-Production