NIGHT RACING IS INSANE.
The POC race weekend at Willow Springs featured a 3 hour enduro from 6:30-9:30pm.
Originally, I had not planned to do this race but I got a call from Galen Bieker, an ex-pro 911 Cup car racer, who was going to be at the event as the crew chief for another Cup car and his customer wasn't planning to do the Enduro so Galen asked if he could rent a seat in my car and we would do the Enduro in the Open division where driver changes are allowed.
There is also a relay division where each driver stays in his own car and 2-3 cars make up a team. Think of it like relaying a baton, one car comes in and another goes out, relay style. I have done the relay team previously and its not nearly as much fun as the Open division where you have to swap drivers and fuel the car.
Since this all came together at the last minute, we had to recruit a team manager, a refueler, a fire marshall, and a scoring person on the day of the event (in between practice, qualifying, and the 30 min sprint race). It made for a super busy day but we got it all done.
A big shout out goes to my friend Carolyn Pappas (who races her own 914) for taking the lead as our team manager and pulling everything together including driving to the local Home Depot to buy buckets and fire extinguishers!
Galen took my car out for one of the DE sessions to become familiar with a Spec Boxster. I think that it was quite a change from his usual Cup car experience - low power, low grip, high momentum. It was a new beast to him.
The rules called for two mandatory pit stops of at least 5 min each. Thusly, we decided that I would start the race and drive 45 mins. Then come in, swap drivers, and refuel. Then Galen would drive until the low fuel light came on (about 100 mins). Then he'd come in, swap drivers, and refuel just enough for me to finish the race.
In order refuel, the driver had to be out of the car and there had to be one dedicated person as the fire marshal whose sole job was to man a fire extinguisher and watch for fire. Since my car still has the stock fuel filler, we need a funnel so another person had to hold the funnel while a third person poured in the fuel (there was no way that one person alone could hold the funnel and pour the fuel). Oh, and if you spilled fuel more than about a 50 cent piece, you received a substantial time penalty so we had to be very careful. Of course, everyone over the wall had to be in a fire suit.
So here's how we orchestrated the whole ordeal:
1. Driver 1 comes into the pit, stops, loosens all of the belts and gets out.
2. Driver 2 takes tire pressures and bleeds off air if needed.
3. Then Driver 1 pours fuel while Crew 1 holds funnel and Fire Marshall observes.
4. As fueling progresses, Driver 2 gets into the car, tightens belts, and waits for fueling to complete.
5. When fueling is complete, Driver 2 leaves pits.
Since we were using the stock fuel fill tube, pouring in the fuel was the slowest task (by far) which gave the driver getting into the car more than enough time to get the belts adjusted and everything settled before having to pull back onto the track.
Here are a couple of photos of me and the crew...
I am going to split this into two posts....