Race Report

August 24-25, Texas World Speedway

The SRF Report
Nick St. Laurent

After finally succumbing to Tom Dalyrmple's entreaties to drive a Spec Racer Ford, I drove one for the first time in Saturday morning's fifteen-minute qualifying session. I had to remember how to use my left foot for the clutch and right foot for the brake. Ended up qualified 11th out of 24 as I tried to get a feel for the car. Rule 1: use the clutch when shifting. Rule 2: don't lift off the throttle abruptly in the corners... instant (actually, painfully slow, uncatchable) spin.

In the race I was running comfortably at the tail of the lead pack for the first three laps, and then I got a good run through turn 2, passing one car. Into the braking zone for T3, I was on the far left side of the track level with another car. Rule 3: never assume a SRF driver sees you (or gives a hoot, anyway). He booted me off the track across the rumble strips and into a spin. Nice enough guy, afterwards we talked and he said he didn't see me. Got going again, then a long double yellow period of four or five laps. When we got the green we did a few turns and someone spun or went off in front of me and I violated Rule 2 for a nice long power on spin. A couple laps later I discovered Rule 4: don't go through corners at half throttle. I had missed the apex at the T4 right hander just past the wall and tried half throttle, but just drove it right off the outside. Lots of yeehaws coming from inside my helmet as I bounced around out there.

Finally with only one of the 23 other cars in sight, far in the distance, I decided to try and do a couple clean laps and ended up with the 2nd quickest lap of the race, then we got the checkered flag. Finished dead last of the surviving cars. I saw a lot of incredible stuff going on. Some of these guys watch too much Winston Cup. In particular, Doug Azzarito was complaining about the black #48 car driving into his side "to make some room for myself." I think I may have that one on tape, along with many other wild and woolly incidents.

Sunday morning I qualifed 3rd, about one-tenth off pole, with a 1:17.16. Ralph Mayfield was pole man, with Rick Bellew next to him. Outside of row two beside me was the dreaded 20 year old guy in black number 48. I was told before the race if I knocked him off the track, I would make a lot of SRF friends instantly. I slotted into third behind Mayfield and the black car. Bellew had somehow blown his outside front row grid position and was back a ways. The three of us circulated nose to tail for eight or nine laps with the kid doing the most paranoid blocking I've ever seen. I was kind of amused by it and was showing myself in one mirror then the other, assuming that at some point he would make contact with the leader and I'd cruise through. But then he pissed me off with a block in T2 so the next lap I stuffed it under him in Turn 1A and didn't have to worry about him again (he may have gone off-roading). After the race, the kid told Marty Mary that he had let me pass him. Houston, we have a problem.

So now it was just me and Mayfield, with Bellew a little ways back. A couple laps later I went around the outside of Mayfield in 1A for the lead, but then he clobbered me in Turn 2 with his right front so hard that it folded the fiberglass over the top of my left rear tire. Instant blue smoke and forty degrees of oversteer. I kept my foot in it through 2 and was still inside of him going into Turn 3 but then spun exiting the corner. I don't know if we touched again or if the tire was just so screwed up by then that the grip was gone. Drove back to the pits with smoke billowing. Ended up with second quickest lap again (to Bellew), but I never really ran at my pace since I was behind the other two cars until the pass and contact that took me out. Mayfield went out one lap later with a broken exhaust, so the top four were Rick Bellew, Doug Azzarito (great job Doug), Rudolph Krueger Sr., and Mark Plummer.

The SRF cars require total concentration. The range of acceptable driver input seems considerably narrower than with the open wheel cars, but things happen much slower in the SRF's. There was one time early in Sunday's race when the leader made a mistake turning into the squiggles at Turn 4 (the 1.8 layout) so I thought second gear might be called for, which adds Rule 5: never try a gear that you've only used in the paddock. I couldn't find second, and by the time I got it back into third my heart was beating faster than the engine was turning over.

So, that's the story. My tab for the weekend will be increased by the cost of one destroyed tire, plus fiberglass repair and paint for Tom's brand-spanking-new-just-painted rear bodywork. I guess if it was my own car, I'd be less reluctant to bang them up. But it must be expensive to constantly be fixing and painting fiberglass. Open wheel guys usually try to avoid that kind of contact, since the result is more dangerous, whereas some of the SRF guys seem to think it's part of racing. Obviously the driving ability in the class is good, and I know that Stripling and Merrigi and Dalrymple and the other front-runners would be excellent in anything. But in terms of "correct" driving - proper manners - there may be a few drivers who should be told to go stand in the corner. I'm sure that's just wishful thinking on my part.

Anyway, I had fun learning to drive something quite different from what I'm used to driving.