Lisa Devlin Arken's Racing Diary

Sear Point Race

by Lisa Devlin Arken

I'm frantically getting ready to go to my next race this weekend at Thunderhill, so I guess I should give you the race report from the last race at Sears Point before I take off.

Rich greeted me at the track with the news that he wasn't going to be at the last race, which is a double regional race. If he misses those two races, this means that now I have slim shot at the championship for the season, and a very good shot at second for the season. All I need to do now is finish well in all the remaining races.

Practice started Friday morning. Ted, Andy and Rich started up on the front of the grid, Bob was somewhere in the middle, and Jim and I were next to each other near the back. I was busy running around getting stuff taken care of, and since we were the first practice of the day, I wasn't ready until the last minute. Jim and LaRue were nice enough to wait and make sure I got out of the pits and to grid, since Ted was racing and wasn't available to help me out.

Practice went great. There was little to no traffic, and I found myself catching and passing more than I got caught and passed. The highlight of practice was catching Andy and getting by him to start chasing down Bob. I finally caught up with Bob and we had fun playing for a while until we caught up with a Formula Continental. We went by him going into the esses just after Turn 7, Bob went to the inside and I went to the outside and ended up in front. Although all I did Friday was practice, it was enough fun to keep me amped up for the rest of the day... OK, probably the rest of the weekend.

Qualifying started off pretty well until, while chasing Ted, I went around Andy and all of a sudden my car got LOUD. A quick gauge check revealed nothing wrong and I didn't seem to have lost any power, so I drove around into the pits, hoping someone could help. LaRue was crewing for Jim, so he came over, listened to the car, looked around and figured it was an exhaust leak... No big deal.

So I went back out and did another three laps before I was brought in for sound. I tripped the dB meter at 113... 10 over what we're allowed! I told you it was loud. I came into the black flag station and they told me that my collector had come off. This was on my new headers. I had asked Ted about that, and he'd assured me that it wouldn't be a problem. So much for that.

Bob Crawford and LaRue unhooked my muffler, reconnected the collector and shoved everything as far forward as possible to try and hold it in place. It worked, but I only ended up getting three more laps that counted as qualifying laps. All my laps before the black flag were erased. In any case, I still ended up qualifying third out of seven in the class.

Besides the six already mentioned in practice, Charlie also made it to qualifying. Ted qualified first, then Rich, I was right next to Rich, then Charlie, Bob, Andy and Jim. Charlie ended up losing his transmission in the National race, so only six of us started the Regional race. I got a decent start in the race, and at about the halfway mark, I caught sight of Rich and Ted and I started gaining on them.

I'd come out of the carousel and I'd see them exiting Turn 7, then on the next lap they'd be in Turn 7, then going into Turn 7... This was fun! When the pace car came out for an incident in Turn 2, I was disappointed. While this was going to put me right behind Ted and Rich, I really didn't want to have any pace laps.

The restart went well and I was again getting to Rich and Ted when I was hit in the right rear wheel going into Turn 4. This spun me around and launched me off the track, over a ditch and in a place that had the tow truck drivers scratching their heads wondering how to get me out. Oh well, there goes the championship.

My car wasn't made to jump ditches, so I was really worried about the damage. I couldn't see anything obvious other than the bent rim where I was hit. Once back in the pits, the damage was assessed at a bent rim, a cracked nose, some bent sheet metal, a lost spring clip for the front right upright and a lot of dirt. Everyone pitched in, and the 100 plus degree weather made my fiberglass handiwork harden quickly.

By about 3, everything was done and I was ready to go for the sprint race at 4:15. We were gridded the same for the sprint race as for the main race and again, I got a good start, although some cars got between Rich and I. The track felt very slow, and I think I was also being a little cautious in feeling how the car was handling - I was still suspicious that I didn't sustain more damage after jumping a ditch in a car with about an inch of ground clearance. I had a good solid third going when Rich had to pull off in Turn 11 after hearing a pop and having all of his gauges go nuts at the same time. So I ended up with a second place in the sprint race.

Back at home, I did find one more little problem. One of the plug bolts in the brake caliper had loosened by ¾ of a turn. During the entire sprint race, I had been squirting brake fluid all over the inside of the tire. I had used up about ½ to 2/3 of the brake fluid in one of the master cylinders... Any longer and I could have been in trouble.

So here I am, ready to head up to Thunderhill... Think fast thoughts for me this weekend and I'll let you know how it turns out.

--Lisa Devlin Arken

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