I’ll recap the SuperLap weekend by talking about each day separately. As you can imagine, this weekend was full of ups and downs. I’m finding I say that a lot, but that really is how motorsport goes. Nothing ever goes your way 100%. You just can’t control everything. So, you just do what you can to keep the flow of things going in your favor. I’ll try to step through it as it happened. Of course, I’ve already posted the results of the weekend, so now it’s about digging into the behind-the-scenes. It’s not glamorous. I’ll start by saying that I found myself saying thank you a LOT this weekend.
First, a bit of cool news. Something new for me. Titan 7, the wheel company, provided support for me this weekend at COTA. Two of the owners came out and were very very helpful in getting me setup on Friday, and were in the garage helping me out Saturday. I purchased 12 of their rims in 2018, and since then, I’ve gotten to know them from seeing them when they attend track days and time attacks. Really nice guys dedicated to making a great product. We always seem to end up hanging out and just chatting about all kinds of stuff, not just wheels/motorsport. At SuperLap at Buttonwillow last November, I had randomly parked my rig right next to where they ended up setting up their tent. During the event, one of the owners came over and said they really liked what my car was doing and they would be interested in providing some support for me in 2020. This year, as we talked more about it, it seemed to make sense to move forward. It’s not a massive, splashy sponsorship. It’s a generally organic mellower relationship where they provide some support and connect me with some other vendors that they know really well, and they may document some of what I’m doing this year. Anyway, I really like the Titan 7 guys, and I’m proud to say that I’m affiliated in some small way with them.
Friday Feb. 14
I arrived in Austin around Noon. The trailer rig was being stored in a satellite parking lot that is on the edge of the land that COTA owns. It’s in the middle of nowhere. Nothing and no one around. If you’re at the track, it takes a few miles to drive there. But you can see the tower in the distance.
Did I mention nothing around? (I’m dwelling on this for a reason.)
I headed straight to the trailer so I could work on the car. I had no problems replacing the wheel speed sensors. Very straight forward job. Anyone could do that…….not that it needs to be done very often. However, the gas pedal was another story. I COULD NOT disconnect the electric connector. I was trashing my finger tips trying to press the little side plastic pieces that should release the connector. I tried with a flat screw driver. I tried and tried. I was getting worried that I needed to use my hands for the rest of the weekend but the tips of my fingers were getting trashed and raw on this frustrating task. I called my tech friends. Nobody could talk me through it. I needed help. I was really hesitant to go crazy on it and damage the connector the day before a competition.
A couple weeks ago at the Chin event, OG Shark gave me the name of a tech that could provide help if I needed it. I called him but he was north of the city that day and wasn’t available for several hours. He recommended the same guy that b4hand recommended—Chris Taylor Racing Services. And while we were talking, he started texting Chris and told me that Chris was available. Chris has a shop right across the street from COTA. I called Chris and told him my [embarrassing] problem. He showed up 10 minutes later (!!!) with a handful of picks and flat tools and all sorts of things to dig in there.
He was in there for several minutes, and he’s like “Damn! This thing is really stuck on there!” My first thought was, phew……ok, well at least I wasn’t a complete moron. So, then he really goes after it—in a way that I would have never been willing to do—and a couple minutes later, I hear, “Finally!!” He got it. But he said it was really jammed on there and he had to use quite a bit of force. Several years of dirt and whatnot had it really cemented in there. So, my first big thank you is to Chris Taylor! He would not accept any compensation. We chatted for awhile because he’s going to go to a CA track soon.
So, I put the car back together and cleaned it and drove it around the remote empty parking lot and it drove perfectly fine. I was hopeful that these fixes would take care of my problems.
The reason I have emphasized my loneliness in this parking lot is because I knew the trailer’s rear door was really really heavy. I had not lifted it by myself yet, but I was dreading it because that door with the metal ramps is damn heavy (see pics). The spring-loaded wires did very little to assist holding the door. (It’s not my trailer, so I’m just working with what I got.) My back is prone to spasms due to several bicycle crashes over the years. When a back spasm happens, I’m in pretty bad shape for a couple days…..not exactly ideal in this situation. So, with no one around, it was on me to get that door back up. And it was terrible. I was straining pretty hard to get that door up by myself. My back didn’t spasm in that moment, but it was sore and cranky when I was done and I was worried that it would still spasm later. And I still had a lot of lifting to do that evening to get setup for the next day. All my wheels and tools and gear had to be moved into the COTA garage. Ugh. Not the best time to be fighting back issues.
At 5PM, they were letting people into the paddock. So, I enter, and there’s like 50 shipping containers all lined up in the paddock jamming it up. I wasn’t willing to take the double stacker trailer down near the garages because I was worried I couldn’t get out. So I had to park further away in the paddock from the garage. Here’s where the Titan 7 guys save the day! They did most of the heavy lifting for me and loaded up their minivan in several runs with all the stuff. I think I’d still be setting up if it weren’t for them.
The paddock with all the shipping containers for the Endurance race this coming weekend.
The first task to deal with was getting 8 wheels over to the Yokohama Rig so I could get my new tires mounted before they closed for the night. I’ve never dealt with a big professional tire rig like that at a track. So, the Titan 7 guys take all my wheels over there and I’m talking to the Yokohama Tire guy, and he looks at my wheels, and then gets an annoyed look on his face. He’s says, “Hey, uh, you gotta get those stems and weights off those wheels dude.” I looked blankly at him. My garage mate walked by and laughed and said, “c’mon man, this is real race car shit!” I didn’t know! I’m a moron, remember? So, I ran to the trailer, grabbed my stem remover and a couple screwdrivers and me and the Titan 7 guys are hacking at my wheels to get the weights and HVAC tape and stems off as quickly as possible. Once Yokohama pulled off my Pirelli DH, they had to get back to the trailer. So, the T7 guys took care of that.
And then, we had to get my golf cart rental which was parked over a mile away. Again, another task that requires more than one person.
And then, we still had to load everything in the garage from a trailer that was not near the garage—the car, the tools, other gear and the newly mounted wheels from the Yoko rig. I had to get the car through tech, I had to register, I had to badge up the car with the required stickers/banners. GTA, Yokohama and SCCA had requirements for placement of these items on the vehicle. Man, there was all KINDS of tasks to do. I didn’t prep the car for the next day because I wasn’t out on track until 9:30AM, so I had time in the morning to put new wheels on and get the car ready.
So the final word here is———I’m realizing at a big facility like this, you need some help. I’m so used to doing things by myself with my rig in CA, but at something like this, there’s just too many complicated and spread out logistics that can’t be done in a practical fashion by just one person. I’m learning!
I was exhausted by the end of all this. And I hadn’t eaten all day. The T7 guys took me to dinner.
Everything got done. I was just worried about my back.
Next up: Competition Day 1.