Lisa Devlin's Racing Diary

I just couldn't get into my game. I don't know why. I knew things were gonna be bad when I was doing my usual prep of driving laps in my mind and I couldn't make it all the way around the track.

It was a regional/national weekend so we picked up some national drivers in the regional race. Our players for the weekend were Travis and Marc (both multiple national champions), Rich, Andy, Jim, Kurt and me. Because of the combination of a regional/national race and the tight sound windows at Laguna Seca, the regional groups were scheduled to be on the track for less than 20 minutes per day. They also combined the regional and national groups for practice which put us with over sixty cars on the track at the same time.

The carnage seemed inevitable and I think we got less than 5 green flag laps. One of the casualties was Kurt. His throttle pedal got stuck and he went into an Atlantic. The driver of the Atlantic got out of the car, punched Kurt, got back in his car and took off. At least Kurt still had his helmet on. In the incident, Kurt took a corner of the car off and was done for the weekend.

Andy lost oil pressure and spent the rest of the day swapping engines. Saroja made it a lap and a half in her practice session before she ran out of gas. The guy who had done the car prep said he had put gas in it. While this screw up sounds bad, it saved her from my screw up of forgetting to tighten lug nuts. I was going to land the car while she was running around doing paperwork, and I got distracted on my way to the torque wrench.

And this was only Friday! Two more days to go!

Saturday was qualifying for both the regional and the national. Andy had overheating problems in the national qualifying, but he added some water for the regional qualifying and was good to go. There was a lot of traffic, and qualifying was too short, but I still had some fun. Travis went by me going into turn 2, so I hooked up with him to see if I could keep up.

I was with him in the turns, but he walked away on the straights. About a lap or two later he lost his motor. Then I had to make a banzai pass in Turn 6 (I was thinking about you Rob) when a Formula Mazda wouldn't let me by. He was out of my mirrors by turn 10. My lap times weren't spectacular - 1:37's and 1:38's - but everyone seemed a little slower this weekend and I did figure out some problem areas.

I ended up qualifying 5th in class. Way behind Marc and Travis (as was expected), a few seconds behind Rich and within one second of Jim. Saroja did great, she qualified third in class.

In Sunday's national race, we lost Marc when he spun and took off a corner of his car. Andy broke a half shaft in the national race, but I happened to have the side that he broke, so everyone got together and swapped it for him during lunch to get him ready for the regional race.

While sitting on pre-grid on a 3 minute mark, Ted asked if I'd checked the air in the tires. Oops. He ran around and found an air gauge and checked the tire pressures as the cars went out on the track. 13 pounds all around. Only a pound low in the front, but three pounds low in the back. Not dangerous, don't think about it. What I needed to think about was how to get by the three cars between Jim and I on the start so that we could race.

I had a lousy start (despite what all the guys who I passed on the start said). I could see Jim, but I couldn't get through the traffic to get to him. Then I got passed by this S2 who then proceeded to drive the blocking line all the way around the track. I couldn't even fake him out and had to resort to another banzai pass at turn 6, and he was out of my mirrors by the corkscrew.

I was working on catching up with Jim when Jim's wing collapsed (!) and he spun at the top of 6. When he lost all of his down force, physics took him to the inside of the turn and luck put him in the only tiny dirt patch there. A split second later and he would have hit the wall.

Shortly thereafter, two formula cars came together on the front straight, blocking the track. The pace car missed the lead FA who then passed me (yes, under a standing yellow - no, it wasn't called in) and the second place FA is a friend of mine so I let him by so he might have a chance in his race.

Of course, this then put Rich and Andy (the only two others left of the original 7 entered) all bunched up behind me, and it put me at least a lap down instead of behind them where I should have been. In any case, the green came out for the last lap only and I didn't let anyone around me so it didn't matter. As it turns out, only having one lap was fortunate for Rich, since he had had some contact with another car that cracked his bodywork and caused it to rub on the tire. It's my understanding that there was some spectacular tire smoke from his car as Rich took the checkered flag.

Saroja's race was right after mine, so I came into the pits, jumped out of my car and headed for the wall. She was having a great time in her race, and running second in class until something happened and she lost power. Unfortunately, she ended up without a finish, but she drove a great race right up to the end. The final diagnosis hasn't been made yet, so we're still not sure what happened.

Off the track we had a great time. Fifty Plus Media Corporation hosted a brunch in our pits on Sunday right before the race. They brought a lot of people with them, so I knew I had a big group cheering for me. I think I race better that way. They are really great, supportive sponsors. The next race is another regional/national combined event at Sears Point on the weekend of August 20-22. My race is 10:30 Sunday morning, so Fifty Plus will be hosting a brunch after the race. Hope you can stop by.