3 Hour Indian Summer Race Report
Thread Starter
Rotary Freak
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 2,199
Likes: 9
From: Oakville, Ontario
3 Hour Indian Summer Race Report
I know you guys like my race reports, but this time its a bit different in that I wasn't racing my RX7, not even my Cougar, but an ex-Grand Am Subaru Legacy in the GT4 Class in the Indian Summer 3 Hour Trophy Race. I thought it would be interesting as this wasn't even with my team, but totally as an outsider dropping in to fill a seat for an hour or so.
I have been very fortunate in my racing career to drive everything from a 90 hp Honda Civic to a 700+ hp Ford Cobra R, but when I was offered a ride with the Kijiji Canada Subaru run by Evan Groenke and his team I jumped at the chance. The car is very heavily modified with a great Hot Bits struts, fully rod ended suspension, fantastic cage, full pro level build by Pheonix Motorsport in the U.S.. The drivetrain is basically a stock Legacy setup, with some tuning and no muffler. The car has around 250 hp and is AWD. It also is a pretty big porker running at 3100 lbs with that weight being pulled down by stock brakes. First I have never raced a turbo car and secondly an AWD car. I was going to have a very limited time to get acclimated to the car, so it was going to be a very steep learning curve before the race.
When you arrive at the track to meet a new team, there is always an uncomfortable feeling for a while as you are the outsider breaking in to their family. I must say that Evan and his guys made me feel very welcome and almost instantly we were joking around like old buddies. I sat in the car and I just fit into the car almost perfectly. I had tons of headroom (duh its a four door family sedan) and all the controls fell readily to hand. Evan quickly ran through all the 4 milliuon switches in the dash area and I looked at the dash and couldn't see how to start the car. Second duh, the car still used a key. I got dressed up and went out for practice.
The tires were cold and so was the track. All I wanted to do was figure out how the car wanted to go around the track and see if it had any sneaky vices that would strike like a snake. The car was benign and almost easy to get around the corners, but boy could you feel the weight. The car also had a ton of grunt in its 5,000 rpm to 6,000 rpm rev range. It almost felt like racing a diesel and you could just hammer around in 4th and 5th. The brakes were awesome, but I did get the car to ABS chatter a few times going into 5A. Kinda uncomfortable charging into 5 with the pedal hard and chattering underfoot and the car just not slowing down. I did manage to get a low 1:39 out of it and stay with a couple of class leading cars so pretty confident.
Came in and changed the rear pads to a less aggressive compound (we all have various pad compounds with us, don't you? LOL) and Evan went out to Qualify. He put in a lap just over 1:40 getting used to the changes to the car and qualified 14th out of 28 cars that started the race.
The paln was that Evan was going to start the race and run the first hour, I was going to take over for the second hour, then Evan was going to finish out the race. Seemed clean and easy. Evan started the race and got held up in some traffic and lost a few spots. He battled back and held in around 17th place until a full course yellow came out due to a big accident in Turn 2. After the green flew again he was passed by a couple of faster class cars and ended up in about 20th place. The crew Chief came on the radio and told him to stay focused and put in some good laps and Evan started picking off cars one by one. He did a yeomans job and managed to get us back to 16th. At about 1:05 of the race Evan came in to the pits, we refueled and I was bolted in and charged out.
Just as I was pulling out on to the track the window net fell down, grrrrrrrrr. I went around the track at a reduced rate and pulled back in had the net put back up and went back out to do battle. I tried to get things back up to pace and get a few cars that had passed me when I had to make an extra pitstop. The car was working great as the team had put new tires on for the race. I was running laps in the 1:40 - 1:41 range as the car was running a full fuel load. The car was running well and hooking up great. I started to figure out some different lines and braking points and started to pass a few cars. Then we had a full course yellow for a big crash coming on to the front straight.
The cars all started to cycle into the pits and after everything settled down, I was 4th in line behind a Viper Comp Coupe, an ex-Nascar Craftsman Truck, a Miata than me. I had 20 or 21 other cars all breathing down my neck including the sister car to the Kijiji car that was being driven by Bryan Rashleigh and ran in GT3. I knew that I needed a monster start just to keep pace and I tried to time the start flag as best as possible and got a monster pull out of 10 as the AWD and Turbo all timed right and we were almost able to run with the Viper down into Turn 1. The tires were hot, so I carried a ton of speed through 1, passed the Miata and stuck my nose onto the back of the Viper as I pulled 5th going into 2. I followed him hard into 3, went to 4th and full throttle really early and the AWD pulled hard and I kept up with the 2 lead cars all the way to 5. I braked super late and hard turned in, went down to 3rd and before even turning into 5b went back to full throttle and the car stuck and just blasted out of the corner. I was able to catch a draft off of the truck and by the time I got into 8 I was bouncing off the rev limiter in 5th and the GT3 Subaru was about 8 legths back. I'm all like whooo hooo then as I came out of 1 the car fell flat on its face and didn't want to rev over 4500.
A bunch of cars started passing me as I staggered around the track for a few laps as I cycled the different fuel systems and it would clear up for a bit then fall flat again. We did this for a few laps as the guys worked out what was going on with the car. I was called in again and we cycled the ecu and I went out again. It took about a lap then the car cleared up and I could concentrate on driving it again. I really started to understand what the car wanted and started turning low 1:38's, then dropped into the 1:37's adn finally started to pull some 1:36's as the fuel load started to lighten. I was passing cars all over the place and the car was working great. With the hot tires, great torque, huge grip from the AWD, I was doing things that I have never ever done before. I found that I was able to take 2 flat in 5th with a small lift at the top of the hill and use the awd to take a tighter line that touched the earth at the inside bottom of 2 then slide out to the outside and just fly into 3. I was also able to place the car anywhere I wanted to through 8, 9, 10 and at the end of my stint had managed to explore the safe limits of the car and pull out a 1:36.09. I came in and Evan took over after we refueled.
Evan was running well as the cars had all settled down in position and was just circulating at a very fast rate. Evan was just trying to keep, position, not use up the car and run this race out to the end. Its a very good strategy and would have worked well until he was punted off the track in 8 by one of the trucks and had the whole passenger side of the car caved in. He came in to the pits, I pulled the front fender off the wheel and he went back out. Nothing much else exciting happened until the end and we finished the race in 15th place.
If we hadn't had all the extra pit stops and the ghostly misfire, we could have finished a fair bit better. In looking at the final race results our fastest lap was 10th fastest in the race. I believe that we could have finished 10th overall at best with the car and 4th in class. As it was, we ended up in 15th and 7th in class. A very good result considering the issues that the team had to overcome.
A very good day with a very good Kijiji Canada Subaru Team. I felt very happy and oddly energised. I just want to say thanks to Evan Greonke, Leslie, Mark, Brad and the rest for a new experience and lots of motivation to get the RX7 pig out for the next race.
Till next time,
Eric
I have been very fortunate in my racing career to drive everything from a 90 hp Honda Civic to a 700+ hp Ford Cobra R, but when I was offered a ride with the Kijiji Canada Subaru run by Evan Groenke and his team I jumped at the chance. The car is very heavily modified with a great Hot Bits struts, fully rod ended suspension, fantastic cage, full pro level build by Pheonix Motorsport in the U.S.. The drivetrain is basically a stock Legacy setup, with some tuning and no muffler. The car has around 250 hp and is AWD. It also is a pretty big porker running at 3100 lbs with that weight being pulled down by stock brakes. First I have never raced a turbo car and secondly an AWD car. I was going to have a very limited time to get acclimated to the car, so it was going to be a very steep learning curve before the race.
When you arrive at the track to meet a new team, there is always an uncomfortable feeling for a while as you are the outsider breaking in to their family. I must say that Evan and his guys made me feel very welcome and almost instantly we were joking around like old buddies. I sat in the car and I just fit into the car almost perfectly. I had tons of headroom (duh its a four door family sedan) and all the controls fell readily to hand. Evan quickly ran through all the 4 milliuon switches in the dash area and I looked at the dash and couldn't see how to start the car. Second duh, the car still used a key. I got dressed up and went out for practice.
The tires were cold and so was the track. All I wanted to do was figure out how the car wanted to go around the track and see if it had any sneaky vices that would strike like a snake. The car was benign and almost easy to get around the corners, but boy could you feel the weight. The car also had a ton of grunt in its 5,000 rpm to 6,000 rpm rev range. It almost felt like racing a diesel and you could just hammer around in 4th and 5th. The brakes were awesome, but I did get the car to ABS chatter a few times going into 5A. Kinda uncomfortable charging into 5 with the pedal hard and chattering underfoot and the car just not slowing down. I did manage to get a low 1:39 out of it and stay with a couple of class leading cars so pretty confident.
Came in and changed the rear pads to a less aggressive compound (we all have various pad compounds with us, don't you? LOL) and Evan went out to Qualify. He put in a lap just over 1:40 getting used to the changes to the car and qualified 14th out of 28 cars that started the race.
The paln was that Evan was going to start the race and run the first hour, I was going to take over for the second hour, then Evan was going to finish out the race. Seemed clean and easy. Evan started the race and got held up in some traffic and lost a few spots. He battled back and held in around 17th place until a full course yellow came out due to a big accident in Turn 2. After the green flew again he was passed by a couple of faster class cars and ended up in about 20th place. The crew Chief came on the radio and told him to stay focused and put in some good laps and Evan started picking off cars one by one. He did a yeomans job and managed to get us back to 16th. At about 1:05 of the race Evan came in to the pits, we refueled and I was bolted in and charged out.
Just as I was pulling out on to the track the window net fell down, grrrrrrrrr. I went around the track at a reduced rate and pulled back in had the net put back up and went back out to do battle. I tried to get things back up to pace and get a few cars that had passed me when I had to make an extra pitstop. The car was working great as the team had put new tires on for the race. I was running laps in the 1:40 - 1:41 range as the car was running a full fuel load. The car was running well and hooking up great. I started to figure out some different lines and braking points and started to pass a few cars. Then we had a full course yellow for a big crash coming on to the front straight.
The cars all started to cycle into the pits and after everything settled down, I was 4th in line behind a Viper Comp Coupe, an ex-Nascar Craftsman Truck, a Miata than me. I had 20 or 21 other cars all breathing down my neck including the sister car to the Kijiji car that was being driven by Bryan Rashleigh and ran in GT3. I knew that I needed a monster start just to keep pace and I tried to time the start flag as best as possible and got a monster pull out of 10 as the AWD and Turbo all timed right and we were almost able to run with the Viper down into Turn 1. The tires were hot, so I carried a ton of speed through 1, passed the Miata and stuck my nose onto the back of the Viper as I pulled 5th going into 2. I followed him hard into 3, went to 4th and full throttle really early and the AWD pulled hard and I kept up with the 2 lead cars all the way to 5. I braked super late and hard turned in, went down to 3rd and before even turning into 5b went back to full throttle and the car stuck and just blasted out of the corner. I was able to catch a draft off of the truck and by the time I got into 8 I was bouncing off the rev limiter in 5th and the GT3 Subaru was about 8 legths back. I'm all like whooo hooo then as I came out of 1 the car fell flat on its face and didn't want to rev over 4500.
A bunch of cars started passing me as I staggered around the track for a few laps as I cycled the different fuel systems and it would clear up for a bit then fall flat again. We did this for a few laps as the guys worked out what was going on with the car. I was called in again and we cycled the ecu and I went out again. It took about a lap then the car cleared up and I could concentrate on driving it again. I really started to understand what the car wanted and started turning low 1:38's, then dropped into the 1:37's adn finally started to pull some 1:36's as the fuel load started to lighten. I was passing cars all over the place and the car was working great. With the hot tires, great torque, huge grip from the AWD, I was doing things that I have never ever done before. I found that I was able to take 2 flat in 5th with a small lift at the top of the hill and use the awd to take a tighter line that touched the earth at the inside bottom of 2 then slide out to the outside and just fly into 3. I was also able to place the car anywhere I wanted to through 8, 9, 10 and at the end of my stint had managed to explore the safe limits of the car and pull out a 1:36.09. I came in and Evan took over after we refueled.
Evan was running well as the cars had all settled down in position and was just circulating at a very fast rate. Evan was just trying to keep, position, not use up the car and run this race out to the end. Its a very good strategy and would have worked well until he was punted off the track in 8 by one of the trucks and had the whole passenger side of the car caved in. He came in to the pits, I pulled the front fender off the wheel and he went back out. Nothing much else exciting happened until the end and we finished the race in 15th place.
If we hadn't had all the extra pit stops and the ghostly misfire, we could have finished a fair bit better. In looking at the final race results our fastest lap was 10th fastest in the race. I believe that we could have finished 10th overall at best with the car and 4th in class. As it was, we ended up in 15th and 7th in class. A very good result considering the issues that the team had to overcome.
A very good day with a very good Kijiji Canada Subaru Team. I felt very happy and oddly energised. I just want to say thanks to Evan Greonke, Leslie, Mark, Brad and the rest for a new experience and lots of motivation to get the RX7 pig out for the next race.
Till next time,
Eric
Thread Starter
Rotary Freak
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 2,199
Likes: 9
From: Oakville, Ontario
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