The moment my brother and I packed up and left the hallowed grounds of Indy last year, I was immediately looking forward to returning this year. I’ve watched my videos hundreds of times and made mental notes of things I wanted to do different this year. Turns out I had changes planned for 10 of the 14 corners, some major (totally different lines), some minor (accelerating sooner). Registration opened in early April and I was able to get in. My brother was not going this year but an Omaha friend was going to join me in the fun. We were all set for the 3rd weekend in Aug.
Fast forward to the 2nd week of Aug. My friend had to reluctantly cancel. It’s Thu, Aug 10 at 4pm and I get a text from Indy that the food court is now open after tech inspection. WHAT?!? That’s supposed to be next week. I check Club Reg and sure enough the event is THIS week, not next week. This is only the 3rd Indy DE but the previous 2 had been the 3rd week of Aug, not the 2nd week. CRAP (or words to that effect). After the lightning bolt shock of realizing my mistake, I get into fast pack mode. Luckily, I have a list for things to take to a DE, so I was sure I wouldn’t forget anything and I quickly showered and packed a suitcase. I was on the road by 5pm, but Indy is a 9 hr drive plus an hr lost to Eastern time. I pulled into Speedway, IN at 3:30am local time. I checked into the hotel I had reserved for next week and asked for a 6am wakeup call.
I arrived at the track at 6:30. Registration opened at 7. In between I prepped my car by putting the numbers on and getting the GPS and GoPro ready. I figured I would miss the driver’s mtg and possibly the first session since I had to get registered and teched. However, they have an efficient registration process and ended up 4th in line for tech. I was able to make the 7:20 driver’s mtg and my first session was at 8:50, so no missed sessions. I was moved up a run group this year – group 3 from group 4 last year with a total of 6 run groups. Groups 1-3 are allowed to pass anywhere on the track with a point-by except turns 1 & 7. Last year we could only pass on the 2 straights and the gentle bend between T10 & T12. This sounds like a lot more passing opportunities, but in reality it only added 2 sections – between T13 & T14 and T3 area. I began to unload in my garage area (I was assigned a spot in the Gran Prix garages) and waited for my first session.
8:50 arrives and I’m gridded and ready to go. There must be 60 cars in my run group. While it isn’t an orgy of high horsepower machines like COTA, the majority of them are race cars. Included are a hoard of Spec Miatas that are using this DE to practice for the upcoming SCCA Runoffs that will be held at Indy. Since I run on street tires, I was no match for the race cars. But I began instituting my changes and felt substantially faster than last year. It’s impossible to cut a clean lap with all the traffic, but it was feasible to work on my new lines. The traffic was crazy and constant. During the 2nd session, I saw the Miatas do some dangerous things that actually made me scared. They would run right up behind you and get upset if you didn’t give them a point-by in some of the short chute sections. Or dive bomb you into the apex of a corner even though they couldn’t pass. I also saw a pair of Miatas drive thru the esses so close to each other you couldn’t put a credit card between them. I did get a clean lap opportunity during the 2nd session and cut 2.6 seconds off my fastest time from last year.
My biggest improvement was in T10 & T11. I discovered by braking earlier into T10, I could hit the apex better and take it faster. I decided to take T11 totally different this year. It’s a sweeping right corner and last year I would arc thru the turn and hang at the bottom for a lot of the corner. This year I decided to hang to the left until the curbing ended, then dive to the corner worker station and use that as my apex. This gave me a straight line towards T12. With the faster speeds thru T10 and T11, I picked up at least 10mph heading into T12 (I saw 100 once, was barely 90 last yr). That section became my favorite part of the track. My 2nd biggest area of improvement was in T13 to T14. I was hitting the apex better in T13 and accelerating sooner thru there. T14 is also a right hand sweeper and I hung more left, hit the apex, and went straighter out of the corner onto the main straight. Last year my shift point to 5th gear on the main straight was at the yard of bricks. This year I was 6-10 car lengths before the line, so I was getting more speed off T14.
After the track went cold, we were invited to attend a mixer at the Museum. This year the special display was honoring AJ Foyt who celebrated his 60th year at Indy as either a driver or owner. He was one of my heroes growing up and my brother and I were in attendance when he won his 4th 500 in 1977. One of my favorite cars on display was his Daytona 500 winning 71 Mercury Cyclone. Those were the days when you could actually recognize the car by its shape, not just decals.
After a great night of sleep, I arrived at the track on Sat morning at 7am. There was nothing going on and it was eerily quiet. A beautiful day was dawning. It was awesome to drink in the atmosphere, I thought this must be what a driver’s heaven is like. By 8am the G1 guys were assassinating the silence. My sessions continued to be congested but in 3 of the 4 sessions I set my 2nd, 4th, and 5th fastest laps. There was a bit of a grid snafu in the 3rd session. The grid master sent a few of the front cars out but held everyone else. By the time I was released and headed for the first turn track entrance, the first cars were flying by. Geez, not even on the track and I’m already a lap down. In our afternoon driver’s mtg, they said we were getting wild again and disaster was looming. Their msg was we had run our fastest times of the weekend as they would black flag anyone driving wild. If that didn’t get the msg across, they would send us home. I think they were speaking mostly to the G1 & G2 drivers as I didn’t see a lot of craziness in our group. One of my garage mates said my car was a Miata magnet as they seemed to swarm around me. Maybe they’re attracted to the green color?
Sun was another beautiful day and I enjoyed the early morning on Sat so much, I drank it in again at 7am. I was hoping the Miatas would want to save their tires and engines and pack up and leave, but NOOOOOO, they were all lined up on the grid for the 1st session. However, a bunch of other cars were gone, so the sessions were less hectic. I set my 3rd fastest time in the 2nd session and cooled my jets in the last 2 sessions. I still had a 9 hr drive ahead of me so no need to do something stupid. All 5 of my fastest laps were faster than my best lap last year. The new lines were working. I had accomplished what I had set out to do.
Our garage area consisted of 3 sections with each section holding 4 cars. There were several instructors in our group of 12 cars. I observed and talked to them, as I just passed my instructor exam in July. Depending on how things go next year, I might try instructing at Indy in 2018. A couple of my garage mates were having trouble in T11. I mentioned my new line there and how I give a 20% throttle shot entering the turn, then full throttle. T11 is off camber and the 20% throttle shot helps set the car square into the corner (I learned this at COTA). They reported back that they liked the line and the throttle blip.
We also had a novice in my garage group. He didn’t like what his instructor was teaching him on Fri, so he got one of the other instructors in our garage area to ride with him on Sat. He felt the instruction was better. However, the 2nd instructor left after Sat, so the novice had to go back to his original instructor on Sun. The instructor would not certify the driver to run solo after the 2nd Sun session, citing the driver did not take the instructor’s preferred line thru T2. That seemed harsh to the rest of us, but we only heard 1 side of the story. The driver got someone else to ride with him for the 3rd session and that instructor certified the driver. He got to drive the last session by himself. The driver invited me to join him, his wife, and son for dinner after we were done. We dined at a restaurant just southwest of the Speedway on Main St. He was a very happy camper. He’s attended many Indy 500s but never thought he’d get to drive on the Speedway. He’s been battling terminal cancer for several years and he’s now accomplished a life-long dream. They were really nice people and we had a great dinner. It was tremendous that he got to drive solo at Indy. As the PCA saying goes: it’s not just the cars, it’s the people.
Videos to follow.
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