Lisa Devlin's Racing Diary

SCCA Driver's School at Thunderhill

by Lisa Devlin

Hey Race Fans!

The Season Has Started!

Things have finally settled down. March has been crazy. I rented my car to Mark (one of my crew for the Enduro) for driver's school the first weekend in March. The next weekend was the season opener and the following weekend was the second regional race. Enough to keep me out of trouble for a while.

At driver's school, Mark was complaining that the brakes were spongy. I'd bled them, and put fresh Motul in, but maybe there was still some old fluid from the Enduro. School went fine and before the first race all I did was repack the wheel bearings and bleed the brakes. I found a few tiny air bubbles and I made sure it was all fresh fluid in the system before heading to Sears Point.

In practice, the brakes didn't have that good old firm feel I was used to. This was the first time I'd been in the car since the enduro, so I tried to chalk it up to I hadn't driven it in a while and I was just remembering different brakes. Yeah, right.

The brakes were mushy all weekend. Oh, they worked just fine. They worked great in fact. It just isn't confidence inspiring to have them work great when the pedal is almost to the floor, especially in Turn 11! So, I ended up running about 7 seconds off my best time at Sears Point.

Nothing really exciting happened during the race. Well, I did lap a Vega, but that's nothing to brag about. It was seat time. It was testing. It was some points.

Now to figure out what had happened to the wonderful brakes I had come to know and trust. After considering all possibilities, I figured what had happened was that four hours of hard braking during the enduro had taken their toll on the stock, 1982, rubber lines. Either that or Motul sucks.

Since I really needed to change to steel braided lines - and it is an allowed modification - I ordered those for the next race. If that doesn't work, the Motul goes!

The second race was a one day regional at Laguna Seca. We only got a qualify and a race. The first lap of the qualifying session, I was testing the brakes. That was about the only time I thought about them. The brakes were back to working great.

Everything was working well except for the 2-3 upshift on the front straight out of Turn 11. My synchros are probably shot - another enduro casualty, but the only problem was second to third gear, everything else is working fine.

I'm settled into that groove, feeling smoother, getting all the apexes, the tires are screaming... I'm pushing more and more... then I screwed up at the corkscrew! I took a little too early apex, just a little too fast and ran up on the berm on the right side as you go downhill.

OK, so I slammed it. I spun around, down the hill backwards and stopped at the bottom in a precarious location. (That means with cars headed straight for me.)

Get the car started and head into pit lane. Have Ted take a look to see if there's anything obvious and I'm back out. I'm amped and I'm determined to do it right this time. I must have done something right, because when I got my time sheet later, it turned out that I'd set my personal fastest time at the track on that lap!

I only get that one lap before the checkered comes out. Back in the paddock, we look the car over and everything appears to be fine. Race time comes and the skies are threatening rain.

Sure enough, on the pace lap it starts sprinkling. The whole race went like that. Wet, dry, wet, dry... Until the end when a deluge hit.

This in and of itself wouldn't have been so bad except that on the first lap of the race, I feel this clunk in the suspension on every right turn. Great. The right hand turns are some of the fastest! So, basically I limped through the race hoping that nothing gave way.

The car was turning in fine, but there was just this catch in the right handers. So... back to the old drawing board.

I now have seven weeks before the next race to find and fix it, so I'm not too worried. Just frustrated. One of these days, I will have a car that works well during a race.

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