Lisa Devlin's Racing Diary

Willow Spring

by Lisa Devlin

OK, so I had most of this written the week after the race, and then things got crazy. I had two ski race weekends (I'm volunteering to care for a ski race team), my yearly mandatory Activator Seminar, getting everything together to start taking the Veterinary Chiropractic courses next month (in Illinois), Ted raced last weekend, I finally found and bought a convertible last Friday and I've been dealing with people not showing up to look at the truck and the Mazda.

Then there's running my business and doing the peripheral stuff that pays for all this fun and games. But I did manage to get to the track March 21-22 and here's what happened...

There were many reasons I had to go to the race at Willow Springs last month:
1) I'd get to hang out with Saroja
2) I got really tired of having a race ready car sitting in the garage
3) Willow Springs is one of my favorite tracks
4) I wanted to get a current race on the log book to help sell the car (do you believe that? I think it sounds convincing)
5) We really needed to test tow the new enclosed trailer

So, the Mazda went up on jackstands, the wheel bearings got repacked, the brakes got bled and the starter connector wire got fixed. Then off it went for a new alignment - the next step in my personal crusade against understeer.

The car was loaded on the trailer, ready to go the Monday before we left, so - having nothing better to do - we spent the next three days talking about how prepared we were and the virtues of an enclosed trailer.

I also tracked down some rain tires to borrow for luck against the rain. I got them on Thursday - the day it was pouring - and Ted called me at work to tell me my rain tire idea wasn't working too well so far. The weather was going to do whatever it wanted, and as long as it didn't rain at the track so that I needed the tires, I didn't really care.

We took off Friday at one (or so) for the six and a half hour tow to Southern California. The weather was really nice on Friday, but all the way down south we could see devastation the storms had caused. All the dams are full, fields have become lakes, and fences are underwater, if they're even in the ground anymore. We saw fields that looked like a lake with a roof peeking out of the middle and hay sheds that were only being held up by the hay they were housing.

We got to the track at 7:30, dropped off the trailer, went on some more about how cool enclosed trailers are and took off to Saroja's for dinner, checking out wedding pictures and watching South Park.

Saturday the weather was beautiful. It was cold, with some clouds, but no rain. The first session out was practice, and practice I did. When I got the alignment done, I had called another RX7 driver I know who has his car set up really well to get alignment specs. I took these numbers and asked for some very specific settings.

I didn't get them. All I got was all the negative camber they could get, but the toe out and the caster hadn't really been changed much. With the new set up, I wasn't sure what the handling was going to do, so I just took it easy for the first session.

Apparently, I had fixed the understeer problem, and in the next session, for qualifying, I was finally up to speed in the turns. Overall, I shaved eight seconds off my previous time.

The forecast called for rain on Sunday and, sure enough, I woke up in the middle of the night on Sunday to the sound of rain assaulting the roof. Of course, I lay there for what seemed like forever plotting the rain strategy. I'd really hoped it wasn't that bad, but when I went to take a shower and looked out the window, there was a lake where the driveway used to be.

It stopped raining until we left for the track, at which time it started pouring rain again. As we headed to the track in the downpour we could see across the desert toward the track. There was a hole in the clouds and we could see the sun shining on the Balcony at Willow Springs. (The Budweiser Balcony is at the top of Turn 4.) It was a sign... Well, we hoped it was a sign.

The rain managed to hold off until I was on the track for my second qualifying session. It started off raining all over, but then quit somewhat to where it was raining at various points on the track. It was a very strange experience. I'd go into turn 2 and halfway through it started raining. Then it quit at the exit of 2 and there was no rain until the exit of turn 8 where it rained through turn 9 and quit on the straight.

Very weird and my times weren't very consistent until I figured out that just because I had the windshield wipers going full bore, it didn't mean the track was wet (except for the big puddles at the exit of 9 going onto the front straight). I was within a half second on the slower side of my qualifying time the day before, which was actually better than I had expected given the unusual conditions.

I was the last race of the day and the second race after lunch. All during lunch the weather held. Through the first race after lunch the weather held. In fact the weather held out until we were all sitting on grid - then the onslaught hit. Fortunately, it only lasted long enough to soak the track and then let up and let the track dry out about halfway through the race. We had fun until the track dried out though.

I ended up in a race with an ITA RX3. (I was running in ITA since Cal Club region doesn't have a class for my car yet. More on that later.) I caught him at the end of the front straight going into Turn 1. I'd have had him there, but I could only go to the outside and it forced me to give him the line at Turn 1.

I got a better run at the exit of Turn 2 and we went side by side up Turn 3 into Turn 4 (uphill to a right hand, downhill, blind apex) where I couldn't get the loud pedal to go down far enough. We did this for a few laps until we were interrupted by an RX3 that did a roll and continue in Turn 4 (the track was still wet).

Cal Club gives out awards for class finishes in impound following the race. On Saturday, someone had stopped to talk to me about the RX7 and was telling me that he had put together rules for Cal Club that were basically the same as the class I was running in SF Region. When I told him SF Region already had the class he was surprised and we talked about it for a while.

I told him my car was for sale and he took the information. I didn't think any more about this until after the race. Before they did the awards presentation, he got up and talked about the new class. Then they said that while it wasn't official, they had special awards for the cars out there racing that were eligible for this class. First place-this guy's son. Second place-some other guy. That's it, thank you very much.

Hey, wait a minute! What about me? So being the shy reserved type (NOT) I marched up to him and asked about this omission. He informed me that (as he was pocketing the leftover 3rd place medal) "it was no big deal, it was just an exhibition and thank you for all your help and information yesterday." Huh? What's up with this? What-ever....

Overall, we had a fun weekend and we made it home (which became questionable when Mark's truck started having problems in Mojave). Lotsa thanks to my pit bunnies who all stood out in the rain to watch me race. Specifically to Saroja and Dana for housing and helping at the track, Mark for volunteering to drive the trailer, Sammy Maloof and his Crew Chef (not a misspelling) Dave for feeding us (Dave was feeding everyone) and, of course, Ted 'cause he's cute.

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

Check out the Distant Thunder archives for previous entries from Lisa Devlin's racing diary