Scenes from the track - 2005

13 March 2005

I recently instructed at an IRDC driver training/racing school day (IRDC is the Conference club that hosts races at Pacific Raceways) and brought the Integra down for the annual tech inspections that they were also offering. In the afternoon, after the school was over, the instructors had an opportunity to lap for about an hour. I figured I'd go out for a bit, knock the cobwebs off the car, and test out some of the settings on my new video camera.

The following clip is by no means "a perfect lap" (I miss the apex in Turn 2 by a fair bit, for example) and certainly isn't the fastest I've ever gone (the lap itself runs a hair under 1'50"), but it's a decent starting point if you've never seen (or driven) PR before. I've also added text noting where we're at on track as the clip progresses.

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About 3 laps or so earlier, while the tires (and my brain) were still a little cold, I went into Turn 2 a little too fast and without the best entry. Hilarity ensues.

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15 October 2005

The 30th Annual CSCC "8 Hours of the Cascades," which somehow ended up being my first and only race of the year. Although we didn't manage to get onto the podium, we were quite satisfied to come in 4th in the very tough P1 class and 5th overall.

Pictures as credited, mostly by Dave Taylor of Competition Motorsports (you can see many more enduro pictures here) and Skip Grehan of Paragon Products (additional pictures here).

S. Grehan	Sportin' the same number as last year, Eric's 968 sits on pit lane about an hour before the race. Notice the trick light setup Eric developed for the race, utilizing two 90mm Hella high beam fixtures recessed into the openings for the stock "pop-up" dual-beam units. The "apex lights" didn't turn out to do much, but at least they looked pretty cool. :)	Hal Hilton's classy 944 on Saturday morning, when everyone thought the worst was over and was looking forward to the race. Unfortunately, it would only complete 35 laps over the course of 8 hours.	S. Grehan
D. Taylor	Overall-winning Porsche 996 GT3 Cup car, driven by "The Dons," Don Pickering (owner) and Don Gagne.	The nicely turned-out and extremely fast Mustang Cobra R that broke last year, but had a series of back-and-forth battles with the GT3 Cup car for much of this year's race, eventually finishing 3rd in the P1 class (10 laps ahead of us).	D. Taylor
D. Taylor	Craig Hillis' disturbingly fast 944 Turbo (classed up in P1 because of the turbo) developed problems midway through the race or it probably would've finished in front of us.	The Pallis/Kitch Porsche 993 that broke last year, putting us on the podium. They had problems again this year, but managed to finish 34th overall.	D. Taylor
D. Taylor	A previous overall winner of this event, this ex-Grand Am series BMW M3 has a 370+HP European-spec motor.	The Sports Racer I was sure had done itself major damage during practice on Friday, yet apparently didn't even break the rear spoiler.	D. Taylor
D. Taylor	The big P2-based battle (it'd been brewing since last year's race) between the Adare Motorsports black BMW and the silver BMW of Strictly BMW only went 87 laps before the Strictly car's engine gave up.	Despite outlasting their direct competition by 90 laps, the matte black BMW would eventually develop problems of its own and finish well down in the order (33rd overall).	D. Taylor
D. Taylor	Late in my first stint, around 3:30 or so, I noticed that the top 4 or 5 cars were running with their lights on. With the theory that it was helping them to clear their way through traffic, I did the same.	Despite being 100 laps down from us (eventually 170+), this is the car that insisted on racing me every time I went to lap him. Grrr.	D. Taylor
D. Taylor	Passing the M3 near the end of my second stint. Although they'd been having problems, so we were already ahead of them in the classifications, it felt good to pass a car that has so much more horsepower. What felt even better, oddly, was when I was passed by this car earlier in the race: Despite having probably 120 more horsepower, it took him a long time to catch up to me and, once past, he was only just able to pull me on the straights and not stretch the gap at all in the corners.	Exiting Turn 12 (using the with-chicane numbers) in pursuit of a P2 BMW 325 (3rd in class at the finish), P3 Miata, and P3 VW Golf. You wouldn't know it from this picture, but it was raining pretty steadily on the other end of the track.	D. Taylor
S. Grehan	Bruce gets ready to exit the car after a long couple of runs through the darkness and occasional rain. The car's still quite clean, all things considered.	From left to right: Jim, Skip, Gary, Randy, James, Greg, me, Bruce, and Eric.	L. Krause
S. Grehan	Lauren gets a seat fitting for a future enduro.