Sebring Race 11/25/07

The Sebring race this past weekend was a race off attrition. Qualifying got underway with Patrick James #34 grabbing the number one spot despite severe wheel hop in the braking zones, by a few seconds over the 10 car field (a good A/Sedan turnout on a rainwashed slick track).

But for this event a new racer appeared by the name of Jim Glover. Glover a circle track racer, was shaking down a very nice looking Sunoco Firehawk car that he converted to A sedan specs and had some serious power and was a very talented driver as well. Unfortunately during qualifying, Glover got a little lost on the track (he had only made a few laps here prior to the event) and went off the course into the tires. He was a good sport about the body damage (he is a circle track racer) and he had the body back in shape and race ready in under an hour.

For Race One, Patrick James was qualified on the pole with Glover in second. James wheel hop problems in the braking zone were much worse this time (so no rear brake at all could be used) and he subsequently burned off his front brakes relegating him to third.

Meanwhile Chuck Dawson drove a mistake free race (that was the key in the morning event) and came out the winner in Race One. However, Dawson and Glover (Glover with some serious Chevrolet power) battled it out hard for the last few laps as Glover got accustomed to the track. But Dawson knew the track well and took the win as the other A Sedan racers in the back were running into various types of troubles and traffic.

One of those troubles was big. As the other contender #88 driven by Ted Geltz, (former Andy Mcdermid car) was involved in an incident in practice damaging his car when a driver spun in front of him. Adding insult to injury in Race one, Geltz engine exploded big time. The explosion was so violent a crankshaft counterweight was laying on the track. WOW!

Another contender Bruce Reichard, bent a valve in his Mustang and he called it a day.

So for the main event the field was slimmed down to about 7 cars.

Moments before they hit the grid, the James camp discovered a defective rear shock as the culprit for the wheel hop. So when the flag dropped, the wheel hop was gone in the braking zones. The James camp then opened up a gap on the field and took the win.

But the James car cut it about as close as possible on fuel (as the whole race was green flag with no cautions ... a rarity). As a result the James car ran out of gas on the cool down lap and came back on the hook.

It was a smooth and well run race as usual wth the SCCA taking exemplary care of the tricky track and folks that were racing.

According to mylaps.com: James Glover was the winner of Race One, not Chuck Dawson. My folks in the stands had the 2 blue cars confused as both of them have those 4 foot wide Sunoco Decals on them ya' know. : ) In their defense they said they had traded places so many times it was like a shell game out there. Good racin' : )

Patrick James
PRO SYSTEMS

Do you always refer to yourself in second person?

my wife wrote it and I tried to correct it some while I was working. That went well. : )

Congrats on the win.

My wife writes almost all of our promo stuff now. We had a service that used to do it but it was so statistical. You have to be involved with the people enough to really get the feel of the race to the folks.

I agree with her in that writing it as the second person makes it flow better and much easier to comprehend who is passing who or doing what (its much better than using "I" or "this author"...that pulls you out of the story).

Now we need to get you out there so you can join in the fun and stories.

I made some pretty fun memories this weekend for recall when I am older.

I got some good testing done this weekend too and this time I really enjoyed driving the car. Its was truly a fun time.

I put some new metering blocks on for testing for the Final race and it was almost my undoing however. I took the win, the car made a bit more power and came out of the corner harder, but it used more fuel. I ran out of fuel a 1/2 lap after the finishline. Whew!

I do wish other folks would write up their races.

Last year there was a website that reprinted the complete 1967 Grand Prix season on a race by race blow by blow basis of who passed who etc.. in each race.

That was great reading.

It was unfortunately copyrighted MOTORSPORT Magazine material from 1967 so he had to take it down.

I wish I had copies of those articles. I could read them all again.

Hopefully other A-sedan racers will document our exploits as "Club racing" in Europe is wildly popular and well documented.

I have mountains of old VHSs (remember those?) and DVDs of the old racecars and race car drivers in old cars... I've seen them each a hundred times.

These tapes are mostly of "Club Races" and are still shown on Speed TV from time to time 50 years later.

See you at the track soon I hope Walther.

Patrick James

There was some good racing, for some at Sebring. For others it just wasn't there weekend.
Glad you made the corrections on the finishing order.

And Patrick, some of us are just not as wordy.
Chuck

Words are cheap both the wife and I type about 60-70 words per minute. : )

I had fun racing with ya' Chuck. See you again soon I hope.


Patrick James

[jimwheeler]

Nothing for this one. Just keeping Jorge way back in post totals.
wheel

Originally Posted by jimwheeler

Nothing for this one. Just keeping Jorge way back in post totals.
wheel

.01 doesn't seem way back?! Unless your counting chevy lap times, then it is so far it needs new motor rules, etc....