Leaving for TMS -- and the ALMS/Trans Am Race -- Tomorrow

[Chris S]

Will be leaving for Dallas tomorrow -- according to the latest, will be at T6 (on the infield) for part of the weekend. Have friends who will be at T1 (leaving the oval for the infield), so hope to have some good stories about the racing when I get back next week. I promise to let everyone know how well the ALMS cars cars look on the banking as the track configuration includes the entire oval except about 60 feet. Also will try to keep track of how C. Baird does in the Trans Am race.

[Jim Clark]

We await your report with bated breath....enjoy!

[marcus]

have a fun and safe weekend Chris.

[Liz]

And do write up a report for the newslteter! ALMS is one of the most exciting series we have, and I'd like to have more people know about it. If they didn't race at Mosport and Road Atlanta, I probably never would have thought to tune them in.

[Chris S]

Heat, heat and more heat. Dallas/Ft. Worth (and Texas Motor Sports Park) is today suffering through its 68th day with no rain, and the temps over the weekend ranged from 109 degrees F to over 120 degrees F "in the bowl". Workers were subjected to this heat for 13 hours on Friday, 14 hours on Saturday, and 6 hours on Sunday. I kept thinking of my English friends -- wearing their heavy fire-proof orange jumpsuits. They would never have made it in this heat! White cotton pants and sleeveless shirts were pretty much the order of the weekend. I am still fighting terrible swelling in my legs and ankles as our corner was concrete and not in the grass/dirt. The reflective heat from the pavement actually caused minor burns if you got your hands too close.

Frank and I spent our weekend at T1 (if you saw the race, this was the chicane on the oval at pit out) with three other workers. The prototype cars were coming down from about 200 mph to 120 mph to go through the chicane. They then thundered back onto the high banking of NASCAR T1 and T2 before leaving the oval to do the infield road course. We collected the #77 Audi during practice when it missed the chicane and launched over the rubber curbing, but the damage was not great and the car returned for qualifying. The 2 hr. 45 min. race was held on Saturday night (ambient temp., around 95 degrees F). Several drivers (including Wendlinger) were transported for heat stroke, but none required overnight hospitalization.

Working the ALMS night race was something almost "other worldly"; you see the headlights and hear the growl, and then suddenly, the car appears about 10 feet from where you are standing, echoing off the grandstands, where the flashes from the fans' cameras were constantly going off. Blue flagging the oval chicane was very exciting, and yellow flagging was more than a little unnerving. Working comm was weird, as you could not really hear your radio communications to control over the sound of the cars.

Leading with about 20 minutes remaining, the #77 car (Capello driving) lost its radios and missed its pit window for fuel. The #78 car took advantage, and Frank Biela (known to us Americans as the Audi guy in BTCC) was able to bring the car home to victory. The #77 car, however, remembered our corner well from its incident in practice and gave us a vigorous wave on the cool down lap (unlike most of the pro drivers). The #1 Panoz finished third, saving face for the Americans. The BMWs seemed to struggle a bit all weekend, but the sparks they left when climbing up the oval at NASCAR T1 was quite spectacular. Unfortunately, this caused some concern to the track owners as they were leaving heavy grooves in the track. This caused quite a bit of a problem and ultimately yellow lines were painted on the track between the banking and the apron. If a car was reported by T1 workers to go under the line, it was deemed a furled black violation; two "double line" violations resulted in a black flag stop and go penalty. It was not much fun for us workers at T1 as we felt to be more like traffic cops than course workers.

The race which brought the most excitement to the US fans was the win by Ron Fellows (former Trans Am racer -- and thus dear to all SCCA workers' hearts) and Andy Pilgrim in the Chevy Corvette over the Oreca Vipers. Ron also suffered heat-related problems, and Andy was required to take 1.5 stints in the car.

Most interesting moment at T1 (during the ALMS race, anyway) was the acquisition of the entire door of the #15 Porsche as it came through the chicane. The driver was kind enough, however, to leave the door right next to our wall and recovery did not require a yellow flag.

One last comment on the ALMs race. In the US, corner workers work all positions -- safety, flagging and communications. Rotation at T1 put me as yellow flagger for the first 20 minutes of the race. As we had been given a whole 8 minutes for dinner (and about 31 minutes for lunch), everyone at corner was hungry and very tired (along with being a little silly from the heat). Since you cannot actually see the cars while working yellow flag, I became quite used to identifying them by their sounds. We came up with an interesting "food-chain" way to describe the cars, using the sound they make. There was a lot of salad and soup on the track (Porsches), and we began to identify the BMW prototypes as fish. The Vipers and Audis were chicken and pork. The Corvette was definitely a 1/4 lbs. cheeseburger, with all the trimmings, but the most impressive was the thunderous growl of the "corn-fed beef on the hoof" -- the sirloin steak, if you will -- of the Panoz.

The Trans Am race on Sunday was shortened to an hour, as ambient temp in the bowl was recorded at 122 degrees F. There was a large amount of attrition, and our corner ended with the #23 Camaro leaving its left rear axle in the middle of the chicane (don't pick these up without welding gloves on!). Winner was Leighton Reese in his Pontiac Grand Prix (he calls it his "hot rod") -- an underdog whose first win in such horrid conditions was very well received.

Liz, I don't know how to send this to be included in the newsletter. Who do I contact?

Chris Safranek
(Toasted T1 Worker at TMS)

[Liz]

You can contact ME! Or if you don't want to write it all out again, you can PM me your byline (name and email) and I will just poach what you wrote above - cut and paste, that is. (Feel free to "revise and extend" if you want to, though.) It's fascinating stuff and I know our 5,000 subscribers will enjoy it.