Lisa Devlin's Racing Diary

Mini-Nats at Sears Point

by Lisa Devlin

OK OK. So Mini-Nats was over Labor Day weekend and it's October. I've been busy! Here's what's been going on... The Mazda has had a little break (no pun intended) and August through September the Mustang got a little exercise.

It started with Mini-Nats over Labor Day weekend. Since I was doing registration, I didn't figure I'd get much track time. With this in mind, I was mostly gearing up for the Hillclimb.

First things first, get the Mustang ready. Since I was going to the Virginia City Hillclimb two weeks after Mini-Nats, I did prep for both. I spent a weekend replacing the clutch cable, the master cylinder and prop valve, heater hoses, thermostat, wheel bearings and doing all the basic other stuff.

The only thing left was tires. No big deal, right? Call Jeff over at Mountain View Firestone and get the Yokohama's (which work the best at the Hillclimb). The only problem is that they don't make the A008RSII's anymore and they're out of my size! Well, not exactly out, Jeff could only find three and they don't make the new Yokohama in my size yet.

I ended up trying the Tire Rack on the Friday the week before the event and they said, no problem, they had four in the warehouse in Reno. Life is good, until I get a call on Monday saying the computer had made a mistake and they don't have them. Accckkkk!!! Not now! What they do have, though is the A008RS's. Not exactly what I wanted, but they would work. Except I need them by Wednesday at the latest. Tire Rack put a rush on them, I got the tires on Tuesday and the car was over at Jeff's on Wednesday for tire mounting and tech inspection.

Mini-Nats was a blast! It was nice to get back to Sears Point in a non-competitive environment and without a strict time schedule. I would wait until cars were on the track, then get strapped in and go out and drive. This gave me the chance to break in the tires and get used to the feel of driving the Mustang on the track again (I love power steering!) I didn't want to push the car since I was primarily gearing up to drive seriously at the Hillclimb.

The most memorable part of this weekend was meeting John Morton. He started his driving career driving for Shelby and 35 years later is still actively racing. In hanging out listening to John talk to other drivers, it was apparent that this guy told it like it was. If you drove well, he'd tell you and if you could be driving better he'd tell you that too.

I spoke with him Saturday afternoon, explaining that I appreciated his honest approach to instructing, and I asked him if he'd mind going out with me for a few laps and giving me his opinion. He agreed and Sunday he made sure we got some track time.

We started by me driving and him critiquing. He told me there were only two spots I needed to work on - and that it wasn't a problem, just a minor finesse. The first was 2a up the hill into 3 and the second was the first right of the esses. I'm thinking to myself "What's wrong? Where's the guy who was holding nothing back yesterday?" That is, until I let him drive my car. It turned out that he took the same line as I did, but with the corrections he had mentioned.

And speaking of letting John drive my car... All I can say is what a wild ride!!! When he got in he asked me if there was anything he should know. I explained that the car has over 120K miles on it, so please don't rev it over 5K. Also, it has stock brakes and they are kind of ummm... sluggish.

You really have to picture this... John drifting all over, me screaming "you're gonna kill my car!!!" John yelling back "I'm not taking it over 5000!" True to his word, my car never saw 5001 rpm. What a great driver!

I learned a lot by watching him drive. What stuck - besides how smooth he was - was watching where he went slow and where he went fast. It really reminded me to go slow in the slow parts and go fast in the fast parts.

Another Mini-Nats over and only three weekends to get the Mustang ready for the Hillclimb. Oh yeah, and to get the Mazda in to the body shop...

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