Lisa Devlin's Racing Diary

Mother's Day at Thunderhill

by Lisa Devlin

I know I promised more racing soon, but things have been pretty hectic and I wasn't exactly ready to say much after the Tire Incident right before the May 10-11 race.

Well stocked for Thunderhill with Metallica CD's (for luck - which I desperately needed) and Bunny Power Pills (for Bunny Power), we left for Thunderhill at 7:30 pm on Friday.

Only an hour behind schedule, but then Thunderhill is about a half hour past "aren't we there yet?" so we didn't roll in to the track until 11pm and by the time we got the car unloaded and back to the hotel, checked in, go back to the front desk to report the light in the room was burned out, get that settled, go back to the front desk for toilet paper... it was well past midnight before we got to bed.

A side note on Bunny Power Pills. These are more well known by their common name of Peanut M&M's. Saroja and I started this tradition in 1994. We usually stock up with a three pound bag for a typical track weekend. BPP's are useful for meeting cute guys (OK not anymore), bribing announcers to say nice things about your car (although I'm not sure how well this actually works since I'm usually in the car), and as projectiles when your hotel roommates are taking too long to get ready (hence Dana's slogan "the hard candy shell explodes on impact, not in your hand"). Sometimes we even eat them.

Saturday morning was hot. Very hot. Mark had hauled Ted's car up in his enclosed trailer and the thermometer inside the trailer (where it was noticeably cooler than outside) was reading 95. Ted was also racing this weekend. His session was right after mine, so I'd come into the pits park the car, change into shorts and run back out to the wall for his race. This made for a hectic hour or so, but it was a lot of fun.

From the first session, the car never felt like it had any power. During testing the week before, I had carefully monitored my engine speed into and out of turns to monitor my progress. This weekend, I was actually going into some turns at a higher RPM, coming out of them with a higher RPM and I was turning slower lap times. This was getting frustrating.

My car was running hot during the first session, which is unusual, and just about the time I was starting to look under the hood, Bob Maybell showed up with a friend and the two of them checked out the vacuum lines and reset the idle. It sounded like it was running better, but when I went out to qualify, it ran OK for the first 2-3 laps then just lost power again. In talking to other RX7 driver's they said they were having power problems too. Evidently the motors don't like heat and lose horsepower the hotter they're running. I wrote it off to the heat and just went out to do my best. Something still didn't seem right.

I also couldn't keep out of impound on Saturday. After practice, I was called in to fix my numbers. Then during qualifying I was passed on the outside of Turn 1. Now Turn 1 is a high speed left hander. I'm doing about 100mph (which is about all the Mazda will do), when I tap the brakes for the turn. The exit of Turn 1 (as dictated by the laws of physics) is the outside of the track. Now I'm hanging on at the exit of 1 and I notice this car coming up behind me out of 1. No big deal, there's plenty of room on the inside and it's his responsibility for a safe pass.

Does he pass on the inside? Of course not. He goes flying off the track (I wasn't about to give him my line) , into the dirt and passes on the outside, bringing lots of dirt back onto the track with him at the entrance of Turn 2. I thought "that was pretty stupid" and promptly forgot about it until I came around to Start/Finish and there was a furled black flag shaking at me!

I shook my head "no" (you're supposed to acknowledge with a nod) and again promptly forgot about it. They pulled me into impound after qualifying, but no one seemed to be able to tell me why. While I'm waiting for some enlightenment, I look over and see the guy who passed me, so I figure I'll go talk to him. I said "hey, that was a pretty stupid pass" and he said "yep, but it worked didn't it?"

He then informed me that that was why we were in impound, they were saying that I wasn't watching my mirrors (I never did find out why they told him why we were there, but when I asked no one seemed to know anything). My reply "I saw you coming out of 1 and couldn't believe you were going to the outside, but I wasn't about to move off my line for you." He agreed that I did what I should have done and I guess tech overheard this conversation, since they let us go after that - with an admonishment to me to watch my mirrors, which really irritated me.

Sunday was better in that at least I managed to stay out of impound. My car was getting worse and it was getting hotter. Pouring ice water down my suit before going out to race helped me a little, but did nothing for the car. By the long race in the afternoon, I was turning about 500 RPM higher coming out of 1. Through 2, I was turning the same going into the turn, but 500-700rpm higher coming out and I was getting well into redline by the braking point for 3 instead of just touching redline. Turns 3, 4, 5 were getting smoother and I was working into a good line out of 5 that set me up better for Turn 6.

I was shifting sooner coming out of 6, and I was playing with the line in Turn 8 so I wasn't slowing down as much there in traffic, which made my speed through 9 better and I was hitting redline much sooner out of 9 onto the long straight.

But as the day went on, my times kept getting slower and slower. In the morning I made some good passes through the inside of 2, 5, and 8, but by the afternoon, I couldn't get out of my own way. As soon as the car dropped below 5000rpm, I had no power.

I put this off to the heat and still having the stock muffler. I had the muffler at home, I just hadn't had the time to get it mounted before the race. So.... next race, Laguna Seca June 6-7, I'll have a muffler and I'll be there with power all over the place.

About this time I'm getting very frustrated. What's the point in going for points when I can't get my car together? I don't think I've ever driven the same car twice, except maybe between testing and this race. I figured I'd put the muffler on and see how it goes at Laguna Seca.

It's really hard to sink more money into the Mazda when it was never my final goal, and the next step in my racing goal is staring me in the face. I have my budget for the rest of the year, and if I sell the Mazda, I might be able to finish the DSR in time to go to Las Vegas in November.

This is sounding better all the time, but I'm not going to make any decisions until after Laguna.

To send a letter to Lisa, email to devlin@thunval.com

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