IntheGrooveOctober

In the Groove-October 2005
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Oct 5th - Finishing Second - The Street Stock Final Race
Oct 12th - Staying Cool with 100 Cars on the track - Enduro
Oct 19th - If You Aren't on the Edge, You Aren't Going Fast Enough

This completed the 2005 season.
Coverage of the 2006 season is expected to begin in the spring.

Finishing Second - The Street Stock Final Race

Street Stock driver Dave Lawrence and several of his crew members were gathered around the front of their car; staring at the engine. It was a typical sight around the race track - the hood held aloft with a prop bar and the faces of the crew members serious as they gaze into the engine compartment. Dave had just won his heat race, but the engine seemed sluggish. “It felt like it was tightening up” he said “I thought maybe a plug wire had come off”. The crew had gathered to check out the possibilities, but they could not find anything wrong. They scattered around the car once again making final preparations for the feature race – tightening wheel nuts, checking the fuel levels, recharging the battery.

The race coming up was the final one of the season for the street stock division; and they had waited almost a month for it. Rather than run this final race along with the others on September 17th, the Street Stock division was scheduled for October 1st as part of the Enduro National weekend that also featured the final Endurance race, some demolition derby events and an appearance and autograph session by Canadian country singer Jamie Warren.

Going into this final event, only 14 points separated the top four cars, and now, with the heat races complete, Dave and his team found themselves only 2 markers behind points leader Dan Monaghan heading into the feature. There was no room for error.

Thirty seven year old Dan Monaghan, nephew of legendary racer Jack Monaghan, has raced in the street stock division since 1998 but this was only the second year that the Windsor, Ontario driver had run a full time schedule. Since the beginning of the season, Dan and Dave had topped the street stock points listing and when Dave bought Dan’s car several months back, part of the agreement was that Dan continue to race until the end of the season.

Dan looked calm as he waited for the call to line the cars up on pit road. He knew that in order to take home the championship, he had to finish either ahead of Dave or very close behind him. “The car’s good” he says.” I just have to stay with him today.”

With tension running high and the pressure on drivers to grab every position they can in this final race, it was no surprise when the caution flag flew on lap two, only a minute into the race. The incident involved both Ray Morneau and Jamie Ramsay who were third and forth in the points coming into the event.

Also from Windsor, Ray Morneau was last year’s street stock champion. His car was towed off the track and, as the race returned to green, his crew set to work to repair the damage to the front end. Ray would return to the track, many laps down, to finish the race eighteenth.

Jamie Ramsay didn’t realize he had a flat tire until he got on the gas for the restart. Then he got black flagged for excessive speed coming into the pit area to have the tire changed. “I came into the pits too hot” Jamie explains. “There was a car on the inside and I had to stay ahead of him to get to the pits”. Jamie returned to the track laps down as well and would eventually finish the race in fourteenth. It was enough, at the end of the day, to give Jamie the third points position - a single point ahead of Morneau.

In the first half dozen laps of the race, Dan Monaghan was having no problem staying close behind the #28 car of Dave Lawrence as he had planned; however, the #28 car was clearly faster. As the race progressed, Dave and race leader Jason Hathaway began to pull away, leaving Dan to contend with the #88 car of Brian Verberne who was looking to move up a position which Dan could not afford to give up.

But the deciding incident in this championship race came on lap 19 when Dave attempted a pass on Jason as they moved past lapped traffic just before the first turn. Contact between the two sent Jason’s car into the inside front wall and caused damage to the front end of Dave’s car. Jason’s car had to be towed from the track, and Dave pulled into the pits for repairs handing Dan Monaghan the race lead and his first championship.

Although Dave regrets that he was not able to race Dan right to the end, he was happy to see Dan do well. “Finishing second to Dan’s team is really a win” he says “’cause they are just a great bunch of guys”.

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Staying Cool with 100 Cars on the track - Enduro

It is a half hour before the start of the season’s final endurance race at Delaware and the grandstands are starting to fill up. On the front straightaway, cars are beginning to take their places, three wide, ready for the start of the race. The drivers and their crews are milling about on the track and sitting on the concrete wall that separates the track from pit road. A loud speaker in the pit area drones along, announcing the numbers of cars needed next in the line up process. As they are called the cars leave the pit area and pull around to take the place assigned to them through a numbers draw earlier in the day.

Over one hundred cars will start the race this afternoon. Despite the splashes of fresh paint, they are battered up collection. They are older vehicles, anything with a wheel base of 108 inches or more, stripped down inside and fitted with roll cages, door bars, a seat securely mounted to the frame. Many feature hand painted names on their quarter panels of the small companies they represent – Gene’s Carpentry, Jo Archer Maintenance, Barkman Forestry and Firewood.

At 2 o’clock the green flag drops and the field, which stretches around about half the track, slowly gears up. Their tires squeal as they begin to negotiate the corners at race speed. As the dust rises, it is propelled by the same warm wind that is picking up pieces of roll bar padding, hoses, belts and other fallen pieces and pushing them to the edges of the track.

On the track is chaos - cars running three and four wide, spinning, backing up, and drifting sideways, often in contact with each other. Flat tires and other mechanical failures are common. Cars that break down are left on the track unless their position or condition is causing a dangerous situation for their driver or others on the track.

There are no cautions in these races, only red flags when the entire field is halted to clear up wrecks and return the track to a safe condition. It is a different kind of racing and that is what the fans are here to see.

For the first time in the history of endurance racing at Delaware, this race will decide a champion for the division. A newly introduced points system was worked out over the winter and at the end of the day, the winner of the race and the championship is Jeff Coward.
Jeff has run endurance races for eighteen years but it is only in the last ten that he has “figured out” endurance racing - winning an average of one race each season. This year, he finished in the top three in every race and, with over 100 cars in the field at each event, that is an amazing result.

The secret, according to Jeff, is in being consistent and that means being meticulous about car preparation and record keeping. “You have to figure out what went wrong and make sure it doesn’t happen again” Jeff says. “I am always capable of making it to the end of these races, but in the past sometimes, the car wasn’t.” And, with all that craziness going on around you on the track, you have to stay focused. “It’s a long race” Jeff explains “so you have to keep your head, stay cool. And that is something I’ve always seemed to be good at.”

The season’s final race was 300 laps, the longest race ever run by these Delaware endurance cars. “It was a good race” Jeff says “I was a lap down early but the leader ran into problems, so that put me back into the lead about half way through and I lead from there to the end.” Jeff had to pit later in the race to replace a right front tire. “I was able to get into the pits and the guys changed it quick. I got back out and didn’t loose the lead.” Fuel was also a consideration in this longer race. “Some of the guys couldn’t make it on fuel” Jeff says. “But I had done the math over the year and it looked like we could make it. Apparently our math was right. I haven’t checked the gas tank, but there was enough to get to the finish line.”

For winning the race Jeff won prize money, a watch and a fire suit. Not bad. And for the first time, he will be accepting his championship prizes at the Awards Banquet in early November along with all the other Delaware Speedway division champions. Jeff, who is an enthusiastic ambassador for endurance racing, is looking forward to that.

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If You Aren't on the Edge, You Aren't Going Fast Enough

My winter coat was just barely warm enough to keep out the cold that arrived in this area so suddenly ten days ago. However, I was having trouble tucking it into the five point harness and the aluminium race seat that was mounted in the passenger side of Andrew Perkin’s street stock. The helmet I pulled on next created a sense of imbalance in me even though, secured in the car as I was, I was in no real danger of tipping over. If I twisted slightly, I could see Andrew beside me in the driver’s seat, his face serious and focused inside his helmet, as he manoeuvred the race car out onto the track.

There is no speedometer in a race car so I have no idea how fast we were going. It didn’t feel so different from a regular car on the straightaways except for the vibrations and the bumps, but as Andrew dived the car into the corners, tires squealing as it pitched through the center of the turns, there was a sense of being “on the ragged edge” that really gets the adrenalin going.

It was sponsor and friends day at the race track put on by several of the street stock teams. Over the afternoon several hundred people, both adults and children, milled around pit road waiting their turns to either drive or ride in the half dozen race cars provided by the teams.

Perched on the edge of the concrete wall, Darryl Lake cringed as he heard his #77 street stock lurch along pit road carrying another in a long procession of drivers unfamiliar with race car driving. “Ouch, my clutch” he muttered.

But it was all part of a day that provided the opportunity for regular folks to experience a race car first hand. Nobody went away from the experience without a new perspective. “Wow that was awesome” and “it’s a lot tougher than it looks” were common themes among those climbing out of the cars after a half dozen laps.

Construction Technology teacher, Randy Cousins is another person who was introduced to the experience of driving a race car this season. About midway through the summer, Randy stepped up to the challenge of piloting the Beal School race car in the late model division. “It is one thing to watch race cars and another thing to drive them” he says. “And then, out there with 20 other cars, well that is really a rush”.

Randy has always liked going fast. He owns a 1968 Roadrunner, a hotrod in its day, that can get up to speeds of 150 miles per hour. An avid race fan, Randy likes to watch dirt racing and World of Outlaws as well as the better known Nascar Nextel Cup Series.

The Beal School car was not one of the faster cars in the field. “We are doing the best we can with what we have” Randy tells me adding that he was always working to keep the car out of the way, on the bottom of the race track so as to not interfere with the divisions top runners. “But in racing” he says, “if you aren’t on the edge of spinning out all the time, you aren’t going fast enough”.

With six races under his belt in the 2005 season, Randy is up for the challenge of running the Beal car again next season if things work out. “We are waiting to see what the rule changes are this year before we decide whether the program will run again next year” says Doug Stewart.

Doug, a driver in the late model division, is also a teacher at Beal and has overseen the rebuilding of the race car as a second semester project for his Transportation Technology students in past years. Such additions to the rules as new full containment seats, radios and new fire extinguishing systems would put the cost of the program out of reach for the class if they are required in the 2006 season.

In September, St Thomas native and Cascar Super Series driver DJ Kennington put a tagline on his MSN messages that said “race season is almost over – get out the hockey equipment”. With race season now at its end, I will take his suggestion and switch my focus to hockey. Starting next week, I will begin a series of articles about the issues and people that make London Knights hockey such a source of pride and community spirit.

I want to thank all the people in racing who have shared their lives with me over the season and invited me into their race shops and onto their teams. It is your stories and your passion for racing that have made this column a success. So enjoy the winter, maybe get out to a few hockey games, and we will return to racing in the spring.

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