It s all about the fast lap

Transcription

1 Volume 2009, Issue 6 Rev A August 2009 It s all about the fast lap Do you see the point-bye? Jake Parrot s and Pat McMahon s Merican Iron at August 1 NHMS event Club of Miatas (COM) into Turn 3 Next: New Hampshire August 23 and 24 Registration is open 1

2 Officers, Directors and Chiefs For contact information go to COM Sports Car Club - COMSCC Officers, Board of Directors, and Chiefs of Specialties Officers President: John Spain Vice President: Will Martins Secretary: Bill Hosselbarth Treasurer: Paul Shearer Board of Directors Bruce Allen Gordon Andrade Dan D'Arcy Mike Demopoulos Fred Ferguson Kurt Hissong Lester Seal Mark Swinehart Sam Webster Chiefs of Specialties Drift Editor: Bruce Allen bruce@brucesallen.com Chief of Equipment: Bill Hosselbarth Chief of Event Operations: Sam Webster Event and Trophy Chair: Toni Clark Chief of Instructors Will Martins Chief of Membership: Paul Shearer Pointskeeper: Mark Swinehart Chief of Publicity: Bill Hosselbarth Registrar: Mark Swinehart Chief of Rules: Chief Steward: Nate Hine Chief of Tech: Bill Fitzmaurice Chief of Timing and Scoring: Bill Hosselbarth Chief of Marketing and Webmaster: Mike Demopoulos Stewards Nate Hine (Chief Steward) Bill Fitzmaurice Bruce Allen Christopher Tier David Boutelle Keith Guigere Kevin Foote Lee Walsh Lester Seal Scott Rosnick Will Martins Copyright COM Sports Car Club Inc. All rights reserved Table of Contents Officers, Directors and Chiefs... 2 Boiler Plate... 2 Starting Line... 3 From the Editor... 3 From the President... 3 From the VP and Chief Instructor... 5 From the Chief of Operations... 6 From a member: Dianne Herrick... 7 Finish Line: Events NHMS 3 August But Wait, There s More Advertisements Boiler Plate is the official publication of the COM Sports Car Club, Inc. All information is for the use of club members only. The Drift is published several times a year, usually after each event. Advertising Rates: Text ads with small photo free for members. Full Page $150; Half Page - $100; Quarter page - $50. Color is free. Please files to editor bruce@brucesallen.com. About the Club: The COM Sports Car Club, Inc. is a not-for-profit corporation with membership open to any person interested in sports cars, High Performance Driving Events and Solo I time trial competition. For up-to-date information, answers to questions, etc. visit our Web site at Time trial results, championship points status and class records for each track are current on the Web site. Membership and Board meetings Board meetings of the club are held on the third Wednesday of each month at 7:30 at Yangtze River restaurant 584 King St Route 110 in Littleton (exit 31 off 495) - go 100 yards up Route 119, turn left on Route 110 at the lights, less than 1/4 mile up on your left. Click here for a Google Map of the location. Everyone is welcome to attend. General meetings are held at 7:00 before the Board meeting except in January when the awards banquet is the meeting. 2

3 From the Editor Bruce Allen Starting Line A perfect NHMS event on the weekend of August 1 has passed. Good registration numbers, good number of newbies, good track rides and good cookout. Aren t we lucky that we have two more NHMS events this year? September is open for registration. Filling the event may be more of a challenge because it is midweek but think of the positive side: fewer people on track. So plan on telling them at work that the Swine Flu came early. The doctor prescribed 100 mph Northern NH fresh air in the face. We had Mark Stahlhammer, a professional, taking photographs at the event. He has provided me with many high quality shots for this edition. Review the event photos on Flickr and order from Mark. See his ad at the end of this Drift. Also I received shots from Mark Stellato, Cindy Whitney and Dianne Herrick From the President John Spain Our efforts seem to be working For the past few months your Board of Directors and many other volunteers have been working hard to develop and implement programs that encourage new participants to join the club and attend events. We realize that what the club needs most to thrive in this economy is a continuing influx of new "track junkies" like us. Two new programs were introduced during registration for our most recent event at NHMS and by all accounts they were a great success. Here are their descriptions from our website: COM Hot Lap Ride-Along Program: Want to get a taste of COM by taking some hot laps around a race track? The COM Hot Lap Ride-Along Program is intended for new or prospective members to participate in a hot lapping session on the race track with a COM instructor. Participants must be registered members of COM (which the $35 fee covers). New members receive a $100 rebate: New members, receive a $100 rebate off your first COM event! Simply register and attend your first event and we ll give you $100 back, or you can use it as a credit toward your next event. Another successful tool has been our new Mentoring Program: COMSCC Mentoring Program: Got questions? We've got answers. Tell us a little bit about yourself by filling out a web form. We'll take a look at the type of car you own, your experience (if any), and where you are located and pair you up with an experienced COM member near you. This person will be available via , phone or in person to help you along. Your mentor can help you with registration, car preparation, and to show you around on your first track day. You don't need to be a COM member to sign up, and there is no charge or obligation.

4 We are starting to see results from these initiatives. At our August event we had 18 new members attend their first COM event and 15 others participate in the ride along program. Among them were a few folks from other clubs who used our rebate incentive to try COM for the first time. Reports are that they enjoy the experience and many plan to attend events in the future. Our mentoring program has also helped several people prepare themselves to attend their first event. These are good numbers and good results but we need to do more to make a success of the 2009 season. We will continue both programs at our next two events at NHMS and we need your help promoting them: please tell your friends, relatives, neighbors and co-workers that this is a great time to try COM and that our members and instructors are here to help. See you in September! John Spain 4

5 From the VP and Chief Instructor Will Martins A Bird s Eye View of NHMS s new South Chicane Configuration: 5

6 Our July event at New Hampshire Motor Speedway was our first event on the new south chicane configuration. I observed many different lines taken through there and tried a few myself. The picture below show 4 lines. These lines are taken from my data acquisition system and are drawn over a satellite image (thank you Google Maps!) of the previous track layout. The 4 lines are: "high line" in orange "mid line" in red "low line" in black "former configuration, low line" in blue You can see the old chicane configuration in light gray. Notice that the T1 apex of the new configuration has moved significantly. Also notice 2a now runs over what used to be grass. The distance between 1 and 2a is shorter but the radius is significantly greater. I posted the above info and picture on our forums last week and hoped members would chime in with their experiences there. Instructors Scott Rosnick and Bruce Allen did not disappoint. Check the post on our forums and join the discussion. A word about safety Bruce pointed out the decreasing radius in turn 1 calls for more trail braking than before and reminds drivers to get both-feet in when the car spins. How true! We have now hosted 2 events on the new configuration. Drivers are getting more and more comfortable there and are pushing their cars harder and harder. I have witnessed four spins there, one of them from the passenger seat. While we should be comfortable to try different lines there, let s remember to get our line nailed down and then add speed! If you have added too much speed and caused the car to rotate, BOTH FEET IN! The goal is to keep the car moving on a predictable (straight) path and get it stopped in the shortest distance possible. Once stopped, take a look around and do not move your car until you are directed to do so by a corner worker. If a corner worker is not in view, do your best to make yourself visible and do not re-enter the racing line until you feel it is safe to do so. Remember that if you have spun and stopped, other cars are not expecting you to move until after they have cleared the area. Congratulations to Mark Porter, Evan Wieder, David Yu, Ron Mann, Christopher Rashidiford, Thomas Johnson, and David Batal for earning their COM licenses at our July or August NHMS events. Well done! Will Martins From the Chief of Operations Sam Webster NHMS3 was a great event. Lot s of great new people and lots of innovative stuff going on! The weather, flaggers, competitors, instructors and COM organizers put on an excellent, professional show! There is not a lot more to say, except Thanks to All for their cooperation and assistance. Lest I forget, we had 3 Mazdaspeed 3s competing and a couple of other owners who came for the show and now want a piece of the action! Sam 6

7 Sam and MazdaSpeed 3 friends. Now we are Club of Mazdas (COM) by Sam From a member: Dianne Herrick (Ed: Dianne had the following article was written for Mainely Motorsports TV show. The article details the COM Booth at the January Portland Expo Sports Car Exhibition and the free track day in July we raffled there. Craig and Dianne spearheaded the January booth.) Hello, my name is Dianne Herrick; I m representing the COM Sports Car Club, which does road course racing. This past January the club had a booth at the Portland Expo., during the annual sports car exhibition. This exciting event, features local race car drivers, their cars, and tracks in Maine. At our booth many of you signed up for the free Driving Day Raffle, on a road course of your choice, that our club featured. The winner was Donna Coffin from Hollis Maine. That day finally arrived. On July 7 th, I met up with Donna and her husband Jim, at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway at Loudon NH. The car of choice for them was a very nice 2004 Nissan 350Z. How Donna got her brother to let them take his car on the track is another story. When Jim first went out after his first classroom instruction, he had about 22 minutes on the track. If the smile on his face is any indication of how he felt, I guess he liked it very much! Jim enjoyed going down into the bowl, improving each of the three hot lapping sessions, he was on track. His instructor, club member, Jeff Wasilko was very happy with Jim s efforts. Jim attended two more classes through out the day. Class time is mandatory for all students. The student learns proper braking, apex locations, timing, heel/toe, proper driving skills, understanding the flags and flag locations and of course BOTH FEET IN when in a spin. Passing is only allowed with point by s and at certain zones on the track. Weather could have been worse. It started out with rain but by end of the drivers meeting at 8:30 AM, the track was in much better shape. Temps were in the mid 60 s and dry but cloudy conditions lasted through out most of the day. It was nice to meet Lewis Anderson, from Maine-ly Motor Sports. I m glad he was able to join us to see all the action and meet several club members and officials. A little about the club: COM Sports Car Club is one of the oldest, (50+ yrs), active sports car clubs in the country. The club has a long-standing reputation for excellence in high speed driving instruction and competitive time trials on sports car tracks around the Northeast US and Canada Drive your car on a real road-racing course, under safe conditions, with an experienced instructor for less then $ per day. 7

8 COM Hot Lap ride-along NHMS gives you a chance to take some hot laps around the racetrack. The program is intended for new or prospective members to participate in a hot lapping session on the racetrack with a COM instructor. Participants must be registered members of COM (which the $35.00 fee covers). Please check out the COM Sports Car Club web site at: Or come see us at NHMS, Watkins Glen NY, and Mont Tremblant Canada. Our last 2 events for 2009 are at NHMS on: September 23 & 24 October 31 November 1 st There is no charge, just sign in at the gate. You can plan on staying the morning, afternoon or all day. Feel free to talk with any of the drivers and meet the club officers. You will notice the different classes and variety of cars, which makes the club a great fit for everyone. Hope to see you there! Dianne Herrick The above article was sent to Maine-ly Motor Sports last month to use on their PBS TV show. Pictures were taken by Donna Coffin and Lewis Anderson. Both Jim & Donna are racing veterans at local circle tracks. Donna heads up a new program at Beach Ridge Speedway, Scarborough Maine called Whiz Kidz. Drivers between the ages of 8 and 15 years old, drive side by side in 4-cylinder compact cars. Craig and I have watched this class of drivers and were very impressed, I believe they go up to 40 MPH. After the July event, Donna bought a day with COM for her brother, as a thank you for using his car. COM will get a copy of the TV show covering Jims day on and off track with COM. Dianne Herrick Instructor Jeff Wasilko and raffle winner Jim Coffin Buckled in leaving garage by Dianne 8

9 Jim blasts through Turn 6 Jim and other students enjoy Stephan s animated classroom with video 9

10 NHMS 3 August 1-2 Finish Line: Events The usual suspects-- with their glass trophies at NHMS by Cindy W. Mark Stellato (right) takes FTD trophy from Dan Darcy The investment in racing slicks, wheels, springs etc. paid off 10

11 Rarely seen view of turn 10, 11, 12 by Mark Stahlhammer (and most following) NEVER before seen, Gordon Andrade clipping Turn 10 apex Barry Gammon follows closely- look alike? 11

12 Turn 10: Troy Velazquez leading Evan Wieder, newly licensed, about to be caught by Mik Demopoulos Fred Ferguson, not newly licensed leaving 10 The Miata crowd from Pit out 12

13 More in the parade Mike Ostrander leads through 3 Lester Seal David Yu, Student in his Prepared B Subie attacks turn 3 I Love Tony Quindazzi s 240Z: older than most of you Robert Ready chases Mario Bonacorsi up turn 4 13

14 Student Sean Daniels pointing your chief, Will Martins by onto front straight Mark Epstein always there Brian Stokus Prepared-A Mustang past the apex in turn 3 14

15 But Wait, There s More COM events are family affairs Advertisements Pro Photographer at August 2-3 NHMS event Finis