Lime Rock June 10-11 SCCA National, Madsen, Foley, Givler represent'n Options

[Thorshammer]

The SCCA National race will be held at Lime Rock June 10-11. Chris Foley and Ed Givler will be running Fp and Erik Madsen (me) will be running EP. This should be a heck of a weekend. For Ed and Chris MArk Megliola in his Rabbit will be the competition as will the Cefalo boys. For me (Erik) EP will be tough with Chris Fox, Charlie Vaccaro, Jerry Hinkle (lap record holder last I checked) in a lotus. So if I can run with some of those guys and get some points it will be a good run. I am hoping for 1:01 laps, anything less will not meet my expectations. Of course if it rains, I should do very well.

If you have some free time, look us up in the Paddock, we would love to see ya there.

Erik Madsen 914-6 EP

[ChrisFoley]

Well,
My report is only slightly better than Erik's.

Before the race I fixed the ignition problems I was having in qualifying and verified that the car was running well in the morning warm-up. It was still rich, so I made another jet change to adjust for the hot/humid weather conditions. We had 95 degrees with heavy haze around race time.
(Side comment: on the pregrid a worker came up to me and suggested that I drive with "fender loving care!" Little did I know this was to prove very wise advice.)

The jet change worked. The engine woke up and I finally saw exhaust temps rise to near 1300 at the end of the front straight. Unfortunately I picked up a miss on cylinder 2 which sometimes lasted nearly the entire length of a straightaway. It came and went throughout the race and was not confidence inspiring, to say the least.
I got a decent start and went through the incident Erik described after all involved were scattered on the grass to driver's left. I saw Erik was moving along, headed toward the track and made room for him to re-enter as I passed. Good to see he was headed the right direction at least and it didn't take long for him to be ahead of me again.
Unfortunately, a lap later, as one of the other involved cars was passing me to regain position I had to ease out of the throttle at a critical corner, allowing Tom Burdge to sneak through as well. Since I was slowed significantly at West Bend a GP Sprite surprised me by diving under me at the downhill turn. Now I had to figure out how to get around him in order to chase down Tom. I managed to pass both of them after several laps and pulled out to a comfortable distance, except for the times when I was only running on 3 cylinders. (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/unsure.gif)
Around lap 20 a backmarker started leaving a trail of oil all around the track for two complete laps, before he spun in his own fluids and managed to cause several others to spin as well. I could clearly see the slick areas, right on the racing line and slowed a bit to avoid being one of the casualties. In fact I did have a sideways moment entering Big Bend.
The timing of all this couldn't have been worse for me though. The overall leader (a GT Lights car) lapped me only one corner before the full course caution was issued, so instead of being able to drive around to pick up the tail end of the field I was second in line with everyone else bunched up right behind me. We circulated for a couple of laps and then were brought in to pit lane to wait while speedi-dri was spread on the oil at all the corners.
We got a restart after a lengthy wait and I got lapped by the first four FP cars who were running close together in hot pursuit of each other. On lap 28 I saw two of them tangle in the left hander, but one resumed (with damage) and stayed ahead of me. As I came out of the down hill turn I saw another of them pulling back onto the track after making hard contact with the tire barrier at the exit of the turn. He had significant damage to the rear of his car and limped to the finish line as the checkered flag was waving. The race was ended a full two laps early because the 45 minute time limit ran out. The three FP cars involved in late race mishaps would not have continued another lap, so if the last two laps were run I could have finshed as high as second place. Instead I had to settle for 5th in class and 12th overall. Small consolation included an undamaged race car and the first Porsche across the finish line. (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/smile.gif)