IntheGrooveJuly

In the Groove-July 2005
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July 6th - When the wrecks happen, it takes teamwork
July 13th - Drive Hard or Play Safe; Midseason Strategy
July 20th -At Delaware, Good Ideas come from Everybody
July 27th - Watch Dad and learn - Joe Lawrence

July 6th - When the wrecks happen, it takes teamwork

July Racing is always about winning. And along the way, racing is often about finding out how hard teams are willing to work in order to win, and how they determined they are to do whatever it takes to turn around a difficult situation.

The Canada race for the Cintas Late Models at Delaware last Friday offered lots of opportunities for winning. The event featured 138 laps, one for each year Canada has been a country, divided into three segments – two 50 lap races and one 38 lap race. All three counted as points races towards winning the year end championship. As well, there were prizes for the winner of each segment as well as an overall prize for the car that finished with the most points at the end of the three.

With so much at stake, there was sure to be lots of competition and cars being pushed to the edges of their performance limits. In racing, that often results in the kind of fast paced action that can lead to spectacular finishes and devastating wrecks. And all that was true Friday.

Once again, Pete Vanderwyst made winning look easy as he crossed the finish line first in two of the three race segments, and finished third in the final segment to win the overall victory.

But for several other drivers, the race took an unexpected and unpleasant turn just 28 laps into the first 50 lap race. The incident brought out a red flag while the tow trucks hauled away the damaged vehicles and the safety crew cleaned up the mess. Then the green flag dropped again, bringing the remaining cars back to race speeds. From the stands, the race went on, but in the pit area, partially hidden by the trailers and the billboards, there was a different drama unfolding.

Ron Sheridan, started at the back of the field for the first race. He had qualified fourth, but his win on a previous Friday night gave him the opportunity to pick up extra money if he started from the back in this race and took the win. His car was working well and he was moving up through the field when, without warning, something broke. “I was on the gas coming out of turn two, when it let go” Ron explains “The car started to shake and there was a lot of noise from the driveshaft banging around underneath.” Ron knew that the car was probably leaking fluid so he made a right turn into the pit area. On the way, he radioed his crew to let them know. Before he reached his pit spot, the driveshaft had fallen out of the car, taking with it several other attached parts. Surveying the damage, Ron’s team decided that they could fix the car and get back in the race. With the crew working with hot metals and fluids under the car, and Ron scouring the pit area for the parts and pieces that they needed but did not have in their own trailer, the work was completed in time for the car to race in the third race. In all, the team replaced the drive shaft, the rear end gear, the transmission tail stock and a variety of seals and oil.

Before anyone besides Ron Sheridan knew that there was gear oil on the track, there were three cars crashed on the back straightaway. One of them was Cole Pearn. “Ron was two spots ahead of me” Cole says. “I saw the oil go down - the glare of it on the pavement, as I came off turn 2. If it had been motor oil, we might have made it through, but gear oil is twice as slippery. The most load is on the tires when the car comes off the turn, and I just held on for ride”.

Cole’s car hit the wall twice once with the back right, once with the front, then contact with Andrew Thompson’s car which was also out of control in the oil, crunched the left rear. “I knew from how hard we hit that there had to be a lot of damage” Cole says. “All I could do at that point was to get the tow truck on it and get back to the pits to see what could be fixed”. The damage to the back end of the car was such that the team knew the car would not be competitive again this evening and their focus now shifted from this race to the year end points race. The front suspension had taken a pretty hard hit, and the crew set to work on that so the car could run one lap in each of the final two races. If the car didn’t take the green flag it got no points for the race. If it was able to take the green flag and manage one lap, then it would be awarded last place points and at the end of the season, every point would count.

Ron Sheridan finished second in the third race, an amazing end to a tough evening. “We weren’t running our preferred gear ratio” he explains, “but the car was fast. The crew should get the credit for this. I just tried to match what they did here tonight. They are the real heroes.”

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July 13th - Drive Hard or Play Safe; Midseason Strategies

The goal of most top race teams coming into the season is to take home the championship and grab as many race wins as they can manage along the way. However, championships are won by accumulating points over the course of the season while races are often won by taking risks and pushing equipment to its limits. This can create conflicts. Drivers often have to make lightening quick decisions about whether to go for one more position and perhaps a race win or play it safe to maintain the track position and the finishing spot that they currently have.

This balance between the desire to win a race and the “big carrot” of winning a championship at season end becomes more and more focused as the season winds down. Team strategies for managing this dilemma vary and with half the season now behind us, I ventured into the pit area at Delaware Speedway last Friday night, to ask drivers and crew members to tell me about their team’s strategy for the season.

Scott Lindsay was very clear on his goals for the year coming into this race season. Last season’s late model champion, Scott was determined to do everything possible to win a second championship and in the off season, he and his team put in many hours updating his late model to take advantage of the rule changes which would improve the performance of his car. However, as the season got started it became clear that the new late models, built over the winter specifically to take advantage of all the rule changes had to offer, were going to be tough, almost impossible competition for Scott in his refurbished but still older style car. “We were running well, but we just couldn’t compete” says Scott. “It was discouraging”.

In June, the team made a decision to acquire a new late model midseason, rather than waiting until the end of the year, and July 1st for the Canada Day Races, Scott made his first appearance in the new late model. It was a strategy that has already paid off for the St Mary’s, Ontario driver. He did well in all three segments of the Canada Day race and then won the feature race July 8th. This moved the team from fourth to second in the points.

While Scott won’t shy away from winning a race, and is known to be a tough competitor to have on your back bumper if you are leading a race, he also has a larger view of what it takes to win championships. “It takes long term thinking right from the beginning “Scott explains “because if you don’t, you might get to the end of the season and realize that something you did or didn’t do way back would have made the difference”.

“We don’t worry about the points” Ken Kellistine, crew chief for Ron Sheridan and co-owner of the RKR team tells me. “We are focused on winning races right up until the end of the season.” But he admits that the team doesn’t run on the “win or wreck” philosophy either and adds that, near season end, Ron might “settle for second” in a race rather than risk loosing track position attempting a win if the points race is tight. In past weeks, the RKR team has been plagued with mechanical failures which have resulted in damage to the car and several DNF’s (did not finish). In these situations, they appear to wisely switch their focus to damage control and collecting as many points as are possible in these difficult situations.

For Jay Doerr, being fourth in points does change his racing strategy. “I need to drive more aggressively in order to have a shot at moving up and at winning a race” Jay explains. Jay’s goals for this year include both finishing in the top 3 in points and winning a race however, Bob Morris, who works with Jay on the #43 car, is cautious about focusing on goals like that. “What we need is to be consistent” Bob explains “When we start thinking about points and wins, stuff goes wrong.”

Street stock driver Dave Lawrence currently sits second in points behind Windsor driver Dan Monaghan. “We are starting to pay attention to the points” Dave admits. Dave and his team have been chasing an ignition problem in their car since the season began and they knew that they had to get that sorted out in order to stay on top. Last week they found the problem and were at the track Friday night, even though the street stocks were not running, to make sure the car was indeed fixed.

“It is tough this season; very close and very competitive” Dave says “It brings out a bit more aggressive driving… in me as well as everyone else.”

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July 20th - At Delaware, Good Ideas come from Everybody

“Street Stock heat two, give me a wave as you go down the back straight so I know you can hear me”.

The voice I hear in my headset is that of Jeff Wilcox, Race Director at Delaware Speedway. In response to his request I begin to see gloved hands appearing out of windows as the race cars, pacing the track in advance of the heat race, run along the back straightaway.

As the cars come around turn four, Jeff’s voice is heard again. “White flag this lap, green next time by”. The cars begin to pick up speed as they circle for the final pace lap, bunching up together two by two so that they come around turn 4 in one horsepower propelled lump. “Green, green, green, green.” I hear Jeff on the radio the same second that I see starter Rob Sharpe’s arm come around with the green flag and the street stock heat race is underway.

Jeff, perched on a stool high atop the building that houses the scorers, announcers and the VIP Lounge, relaxes just slightly as the race cars begin to string out single file around the race track below. In his headset Jeff is listening to and talking with the other members of the race track staff including scorers, starter and safety crew, while at the same time relaying information to the drivers via one way radio. It can get a little confusing at times, but Jeff feels that the system, implemented this season for the first time, is working well.

Each driver in the truck, street stock and modified divisions has an earpiece that allows them to hear Jeff throughout the race, but they cannot talk to him. In a way, he acts as a spotter to all the drivers; calling the flags for them and letting them know where there is trouble or slower cars on the track.

He is also able to relay information to them about where they line up again after cautions, a process that used to be accomplished by sending an assistant starter onto the track to physically direct them.

“Halfway, halfway” I hear Jeff telling the drivers as the lead car of Jamie Ramsay passes the flag stand to usher in lap 6. Minutes later Jamie crosses the finish line to win the race. “Good job heat race two, good job.” I hear Jeff telling them. “Car number 34 to pit road for pictures”.

Jeff will co-ordinate each heat and feature race through the evening and he will stay in radio contact with each group except the late models who have two way radios and their own spotters.

It is one part of a job that has become Jeff’s full time work and a position for which he is uniquely qualified. Not only has he been involved in many aspects of racing over the years but he has developed ideas about how racing and race tracks could improve what they do. “I have always had opinions on how things could be done better around a race track” Jeff says. “So when this opportunity to work with Delaware came along, I thought that now was the time to try to implement some of the ideas that I feel could make things better.”

And creating change is what Delaware Speedway has focused on this past year. Jeff and speedway General Manager Kevin Bulmer, have set out to create a new racing culture; one that bucks the traditional top down dictatorships so common in local race track promotion and encourages co-operation between racers and the track to solve some of the problems that currently plague racing. “We are asking the drivers to come up with ways to fix this or that - to come up with solutions” Jeff explains. “We have tons of people who know a lot about racing but we have never asked them”.

The new attitude is clearly having a positive effect on morale around the track and some of the best ideas for moving the program forward are coming from racers, suppliers and sponsors. It is creating an atmosphere of respect that should see positive results into the future.

In the modified feature race later in the evening, the one way radio communications is put to the test. An accident car has dumped fluid all over the track between turns one and two and as the safety crew cleans it up, the area becomes a mass of oil dry granules through which the modifieds will have to run on the restart of the race. It is a situation that, in the past, could be dangerous and now Jeff has a way to make sure that the corner is no longer a hazard.

He radios the pace car to pull into the pits and then sends the modifieds, still under caution, around the track for several laps at a faster pace to check out the conditions. “Car #3” he requests via radio. “Give me a thumbs up this time by if the track is OK”.

Jamie Cox, in the lead car, shoots his gloved hand, thumb up, out through the window net and Jeff radios to the pace car to pick up the field again to take the cars around to take the green. The restart goes without incident.

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Watch Dad and learn - Joe Lawrence

High above turn four at Delaware Speedway, there is a stretch of grass that extends from the edge of the hill back to a fence surrounding the speedway grandstand area.

In this space, on a Friday night with the race program well underway, a collection of kids in a variety of sizes and ages play tag, eat ice cream, and gather in groups on the grass as they chatter and play games. As it gets darker, some of the younger ones roam about in pyjamas before settling in on blankets with their parents while the older ones begin to collect in groups tossing glowing light sticks to each other. The roar of the race cars circling the track below and the blare of the announcers on the P.A. system provide only a background for their games and social activities.

When the race events are over, spectators make their way down through the grandstands and across the track into the pit area to check out the race cars they have been watching all evening. For some, this is a novelty, a once in a while opportunity to check out the cars, get an autograph from a favourite driver, or watch a crew patch up a broken race car so that it can be transported home safely.

However, for the kids who attend the races regularly on Friday nights, the trek to the pit area often reunites them with their fathers and other family members and friends who work on the race car crews. Being around the race cars is often no big deal for them as many have grown up with a race car in the garage behind the house.
In these families, racing is a way of life as well as a sport, so it is almost inevitable that the children will become involved in some aspect of racing at some point in their own lives.

Take Jordan Lawrence, for example. Joe, has he prefers to be called, is ten years old and going into grade 5 in the fall. “I’ve been watching racing since I was a baby” Joe tells me. “My dad raced before I was born and my mom went with him. So after I was born, she always took me along too”.

Joe’s father is Dave Lawrence, who has been a successful competitor in the Street Stock Division since 1988.

2005 is Joe’s rookie year in the Junior Late Model division and he is an enthusiastic competitor. Joe’s Junior car, which bears the same #28 as his father’s street stock, sports a paint scheme similar to the one his dad’s car had several years ago had been in the race shop for several years. Joe’s older brother Chris never raced it. “I wasn’t really that interested” Chris tells me. But now, with his brother Joe as the driver, Chris is finding that he is interested in working on the car, taking lap times and tire temperatures and keeping the team organized; another very necessary part of racing.

Joe is explaining to me, on this hot afternoon out front of the 1600 square foot shop that also houses his father’s street stock, about the stuff that is kept in his toolbox – and how it is all used to prepare and set up his junior car. “This bag is for the gear” he explains to me. “First we had an 82 gear, and then we put in a 78. This week we are going to try an 80.” He is also telling me about the how the tie rod end broke in an on track incident several weeks ago. There are spares in the toolbox which he is using to demonstrate for me how the rod end and the sleeve fit together and how they make the car turn. He is clearly a kid in the right place at the right time; ready to learn anything and everything that his father and the instructors in the junior late model program have to offer him.

When I ask Joe what he learns these days from watching his dad race, he is quick to tell me. “I see how my dad goes in the corners” Joe says. “That’s really important”. And sure enough the next evening; a Wednesday night race event with the junior division heat race winding down, I watch Joe dive his car below another competitor’s in the final corner and race him to the finish line. He doesn’t get the position, but he clearly has the idea.

Joe already has one trophy in his collection. He got it for a third place finish, his best to date, in the Mid Season Dash several weeks ago. He is starting a collection to keep it in his bedroom.

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